Page 154 of The Other Omega

I looked down, which didn’t help much, since my stomach blocked most of the view.

“Here.” Ada stepped forward, lifted the blanket’s trailing edge, and gathered it into my hands.

“Thanks. I can't see past the belly any more,” I whispered with a chuckle.

Lucien was in the middle of a holographic meeting at one end of the enormous stone table, speaking in the High Mountain language to several people projected above its surface. Leon and Darius worked on the opposite side, surrounded by documents and their own holograms. None of them paused when we entered, and neither did the almost twenty people working with them.

The girls and I made our way across the room until I reached Lucien. He glanced at me, then kept talking without missing a word as I walked between him and the table and reached the empty space beside him on the wide stone bench. That was where I wanted my nest, so I started arranging cushions while Eira and Ada handed me the blankets.

Leon was watching from across the table. The corner of his mouth lifted before he looked back down at his work, and Darius was even worse at pretending he hadn’t noticed. His mouth moved just slightly before he went back to whatever he was reading. I ignored both of them because I had important things to do, like making my nest perfect.

I put one cushion behind my back and another where I wanted my head, then spread the softest blanket underneath them. The cushions already on the bench were fine if you only wanted to sit there, but they clearly hadn’t been chosen for a pregnant woman planning to lie down for the afternoon. I moved one cushion twice before deciding I liked it, then carefully lowered myself onto the bench.

“Perfect,” I whispered.

Eira and Ada smiled, nodded, and left. I shuffled around until I was stretched out along the bench, with my head close to Lucien’s left leg. He kept talking through it all, completely unbothered by his very pregnant Omega building a nest beside him in the middle of his workday. He was used to me doing this now, and it had become our little routine whenever he worked from home.

I put my hand on his thigh, and his hand came straight down to my head. His fingers moved slowly through my hair as that lovely, deep voice kept speaking in a language I couldn’t understand, and I smiled as I closed my eyes.

Leon and Darius were different because they were almost always here. They worked stupidly long hours, disappeared into the office for meetings and sometimes came out looking as if the entire government had personally annoyed them, but they were here, and so were their staff.

Usually, there were enough people around that enormous table to run a small country, but somehow I barely noticed them anymore. They stayed near the office and didn’t wander into my side of the residence, and even when I wandered into theirs, everyone was very good at pretending I wasn’t there. That suited me perfectly. They could carry on with their meetings and reports, and I could pretend that needing to sleep near one of my mates every afternoon was completely normal.

My mates always made sure someone was with me for breakfast and dinner, and somebody slept in my nest every night. They even left clothes with Livia so I could keep their scents around me, which helped more than I liked admitting. When Caius, Alaric or Lucien had to be away, having something that smelled like them made the need to have them near a little easier to manage, so mornings like this one, when all five of them were home, felt extra special.

One of the babies moved as I took a sip of tea, and I froze as five heads turned toward me at once. I put my cup back on the saucer and smiled.

“She's moving.”

Caius immediately put down his cup. “Which one?”

“I don't know.”

“Left or right?”

I waited until another little push came beneath my hand. “Left.”

Caius was already getting up. I shifted to make room, and he sat beside me, then put his hand on my stomach. I covered it with mine and moved it towards my side.

“Here.”

Nothing happened, of course. Caius stayed exactly where he was, waiting, while I went back to my strawberry.

“They know when you're waiting.”

“They are already learning to measure their movements,” Caius said, with unmistakable approval. “Good little warriors.”

I bit back a smile. “They are babies, not warriors, my love.”

“They shall be.” His hand remained protectively over my stomach. “They'll learn to protect themselves, though I intend for them never to need those skills.” His expression was completely serious. “Our daughters will learn every skill we would teach our sons.”

I stared at him until I couldn’t hold the smile back anymore, then one of the girls moved against his palm. His face changed slightly, but I saw it because I knew him well enough now.

“There,” I whispered.

Another stronger kick pressed into his hand, and this time he actually smiled. I loved those smiles, probably because almost nobody else got to see them.

“Good morning, little one.”