by J. L. Wilder
“Of course.” He stripped off his shirt, tossed it to the floor, and lay down beside her. Izzy rolled onto her side and curled up, closing her eyes and smiling as his arm wrapped around her.
They made love like that, moving slowly and carelessly as they so often did now that their passion didn’t have to be kept hidden from the rest of the pack. It had been five months, but it still felt amazingly luxurious to Izzy to know that she could stay like this as long as she wanted, that she could relax and enjoy the fullness of Wyatt inside her, that when they were finished they could stay in each other’s arms and fall asleep together. Surely, no one had ever been so happy.
She drifted lazily in Wyatt’s arms when they were finished, halfway between wakefulness and sleep, vaguely aware of the warm press of his body and the strength of his arms around her, the comforting feeling that she was safe and home and loved. Inside her, she her babies shift and move. Her hand went to Wyatt’s and drew it around, placing it carefully so he could feel for himself.
“Hmm,” he said, his voice tired and happy. “They’re lively today.”
“They’re lively every day. I have a feeling they’re going to be a handful in a few years.”
“Good. Can’t wait.”
TO HER OWN SURPRISE more than anyone else’s, Izzy successfully carried her babies to term.
She felt as big as a house by then and had to admit that she was glad to be confined to bed. The idea of getting up and walking around seemed crazy toward the end, and she knew that the right call had been made. But it was summer now, and the heat was getting to her, and she was ready to be done with this pregnancy. Labor, when it finally came upon her, was welcome.
It was painful, but not as painful as she had expected based on everything, she’d heard from women who had given birth. “It’s different for omegas,” Lena said as she lay panting through a contraction. “Your bodies are better able to take the strain. And a good thing, too, because I don’t think too many women could handle this pregnancy. You’re huge.”
Wyatt was pacing a stretch of floor beside her bed. “But she’ll be okay, though, right?” he asked anxiously.
“She’ll be fine. She’s doing great.” Lena gave him a reassuring smile, then patted Izzy’s knee. “It’s time to start pushing.”
Izzy lost track of both time and her surroundings as she delivered her babies, giving herself over fully to the instincts of her body. It seemed she knew what to do without being told, and though she could hear Lena’s voice—as if coming from another room—praising her and talking her through it, she knew at her core that she was doing it right.
A few precious sounds penetrated the haze that seemed to have settled around her. Wyatt shone through like a star, kneeling beside her, speaking in a calm and reassuring tone that didn’t match the anxiety she could read on his face. She heard the first baby’s first cry as it came into the world, and occasionally she could pick out the sound of an additional cry joining the song.
Childbirth seemed to take an eternity, and Izzy lost herself in the rhythm of it, but suddenly, abruptly, it was over. She knew instantly. Her children had left her, and the connection they’d shared had been severed.
“Wyatt?” she said anxiously. “The babies. Are they all right?”
There was wonder and reverence in his tone when he answered. “They’re fine. They’re beautiful.”
“I want to see them.”
He stepped to her side, a newborn baby cradled in each arm, and gingerly passed one of them to her. “A boy,” he said. “He was the first. The oldest.”
She looked down at her firstborn, squalling in her arms. “It’s all right,” she told him quietly. “I’m here. Mama’s here. You’re okay.” She kissed him gently on the forehead. “He’s perfect.”
“They all are.” Lena took a seat beside the bed. She was holding two more babies, one of whom was crying fit to burst, the other of whom was sleeping as peacefully as if nothing of any interest was happening.
“How many?” Izzy asked.
“Seven,” Lena said. “A nice big litter.” She handed Izzy a bottle of water. “Drink now. You need to hydrate. You did an amazing job.”
“I can’t believe they’re really here,” Izzy whispered wonderingly. “Where are the other three?”
“In the bassinets.” Lena pointed. “They’re all right. We’ll rotate soon, so everyone has a chance to be held.”
Izzy’s heart ached. It was painful to be far away—even across the room—from the babies she’d held so close for so long. A part of her wanted to get up and go to them, but she knew she couldn’t. “Can we move them closer? I want to see them.”
Wyatt got up and shifted the bassinets to the side of the bed so that Izzy could peer over and look at the babies inside.
“These two are boys,” he said, pointing them out to her. “They were the last to be born. All the middle ones are girls.”
“Four girls and three boys?”
“That’s right.” He looked down at the baby in his arms. “This one looks just like you. We should name her Isabel Junior.”
“Give me a break,” Izzy laughed. “We’re not calling her that.”
“Why not? We could call that one Wyatt Junior.”
“No. They’ll have enough trouble finding their own identities, born in a group of seven like this. They should have individual names. Unique names. Names that are just theirs.”
He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. “You’re pretty smart, you know that?”
“I do my best.”
Lena settled the babies she was holding into bassinets of their own and withdrew quietly, leaving Wyatt and Izzy alone with their new family. Izzy let out a sigh of relief. She loved Lena and had been grateful for the older woman’s help as she gave birth, but it felt good to be with the man she loved, to share this moment privately.
It felt as if they were in their own little apartment, one the rest of the pack didn’t share with them. Even though the new wing was attached to the rest of the house, no one ever came in here without explicit permission from Izzy or Wyatt. It was treated like their private space. Everyone had pitched in to help build it—everyone apart from Izzy, who had been forced to watch the progress from the bedroom on the third floor—but she and Wyatt had done the decorating together, choosing paint colors and putting up decals on the wall over the children’s cribs in the nursery.
“It’s going to be pretty intense,” Izzy said. “Taking care of seven babies, I mean.”
Wyatt nodded. “Right now, I feel like I never want to put them down.”
“I know what you mean.” She looked at her son. He was peaceful now. Something about being in her arms had calmed him. “Can I hold another one?”
“You want me to take him?”
“No.”
He laughed. “You’re going to have to put him down eventually.”
“Hush.” She shifted him to one arm and held out the other to accept the baby girl Wyatt had been holding. He went to the bassinets and picked up another baby to replace her.
Watching the man she loved look down in awe and wonder at the child they’d created together, Izzy thought that no one in the world had ever been as happy as she was in that moment.
EXTINCTION WAS NO LONGER a worry for the Hell’s Wolves.
Heather and Van welcomed their first baby the following year, and James and Val the year after that. A year later, Izzy was pregnant again, consigned to bed once more as Wyatt wrangled their three-year-old children.
At least, he didn’t have to do it alone. The pack operated like a family, with everyone helping to raise and teach the children collectively and communally. The atmosphere of the house couldn’t have been more different than it had been when Izzy and Wyatt had arrived. It was full of a childish energy now, and everyone in the pack had become the beloved uncles and aunts of the new generation.
Izzy had named her oldest son Nicholas, and he grew at a rate that surpassed all the others. Soon he tow
ered over his brothers and sisters. It was clear to her, also, that he was the leader of the group, directing them in their play. She pointed this out to Wyatt one day as the two of them sat watching all the children in a game of hide and seek.
“I think he’s the alpha,” Wyatt said thoughtfully.
“The alpha? Of the children?” She didn’t understand.
“Of their generation,” he explained. “Someone will have to grow up to be the new alpha.”
“Yes, but...how could that have happened? It’s genetic.”
He nodded. “Robert doesn’t have children. We had a theory about it, a theory that the pack beta would ascend to alpha status if he died without heirs.”
“So, you’re, what, the vice-alpha?”
He laughed. “Something like that. It means my son has the best claim to the rank, and I guess it showed up in his genes.”
“That’s a tough life,” Izzy said, feeling a stab of worry for her son. “Leading the pack, I mean. Robert had to make a lot of choices he wasn’t too crazy about.”
“He did all right in the end, though,” Wyatt said.
“He did.”
“Nicholas will do well too. And he’ll have us to help him.”
She leaned into him and felt his arms wrap around her. His hands came to rest on her belly, where their next litter of children grew. “Do you think we have an omega?” she asked.
Wyatt hesitated for a moment. “I think that if we don’t have one now, we probably will soon,” he said finally. “That tends to go in families too. Does that worry you?”
“I think it would have once,” she said. “There was a time when I would have thought the life of an omega was the worst thing that could happen to my daughter.”
“And now?”
She snuggled into his warmth. “Now I think it might be the best.”
“Really?”
“This life,” she said, “this family, these children...you...I can’t imagine anything better. If I could have asked for anything in the world, I wouldn’t have even thought to ask for this. I couldn’t have dreamed it. I hope one of them is an omega, Wyatt, because then she’ll be lucky enough to have the beautiful life I have.”
He kissed her temple, and she rested against him to watch her children play.
Omega Purebred
Chapter One
HAZEL
Hazel laid back in the warm bath water and closed her eyes, soaking away the day. It had been a particularly enjoyable one, but she always came to her sleeping quarters tired after days like this. She was glad she had the time to relax and luxuriate in the tub.
She had been awakened, as always, promptly at seven a.m. Her alpha, Matthew, was strict about sleeping in, and while Hazel was often able to get away with things other members of her pack couldn’t have, he made no exceptions for her here. Anyone who wasn’t out of bed and ready to go by seven thirty would miss breakfast.
After breakfast, she had gone outside. It was a beautiful coastal day, perfect for spending an hour in the yard doing yoga. The high privacy fence hid her from prying eyes as she went through two hours of sun salutations, her well-toned body reveling in the exercise.
She had spent the afternoon reading in the library. It wasn’t really necessary for an omega to be educated, but Hazel enjoyed reading and had asked her packmates to give her a book list.
“You’re crazy,” Paulie had said. “Why would you want to spend time reading when you don’t have to?” As a beta, Paulie was required to spend eight hours a day in lessons. He would be released from that requirement if he ever got a job, but so far, Paulie had been unemployable. He came home from interview after interview scowling and complaining about how the world wasn’t treating him fairly.
Hazel did feel bad for him. She had no idea how she would fare in job interviews, and she had to admit that she was grateful for the fact that she’d never have to find out. Omegas didn’t work outside the home.
Especially, omegas like her.
She climbed out of the bath, grabbed her towel, and wrapped herself up in it. The towel had been a gift from Matthew after she’d complained that the rest of the towels in the house were too small. She’d felt guilty for accepting it, as she always did when Matthew showered her with gifts or special treatment, but she’d reasoned that there was nothing to be gained by not taking it. Besides, it wasn’t as if the rest of the pack was suffering.
“You’re allowed to let him pamper you,” Hazel’s best friend, Paisley, often said. “You’re going to be carrying a litter for the whole pack in just a few years. It’s only fair that you should get a few perks out of it.”
But Hazel didn’t really need perks, she thought, as she toweled herself off. She was happy to be the pack’s omega. She loved the idea of being pregnant someday, of carrying a huge litter of pups. She rested her hand on her flat stomach and regarded her reflection for a moment, then arched her back and tried to push out her stomach. What would she look like when her body began to swell with pregnancy? How big would she get before her litter was born?
Hazel also looked forward to the idea of being a mother. Her own parents had died when Hazel and her littermates were just toddlers, and their family had quickly been divided up. To this day, she wasn’t sure where all her brothers and sisters had landed. None of them were here in this pack with her; that was all she could say with confidence.
Of course, as the omega, it had been easy for Hazel to find a new living situation. And the fact that she was a purebred had made it even easier. “We smelled you a mile away,” Matthew told her, when she asked at the age of eleven how she’d come to join his pack. “You were hanging out behind a family-owned restaurant. I think you were hoping someone would come out and give you food. Well, we couldn’t just leave a little omega out in the cold, could we?”
“And you didn’t see any others?” Hazel had asked. “You never saw my brothers or sisters?”
“No,” Matthew said. “It was just you. You know, omega children are usually the smallest and the weakest. They probably abandoned you for their own survival.” He’d hugged her. “They were only babies themselves, though, Hazel.”
“I know,” she’d said. But she hadn’t been able to help feeling betrayed. Shouldn’t her siblings have helped to take care of her? Shouldn’t they have stuck together?
It was a thought that had troubled her throughout her childhood. But she was over it now. She was lucky to have a new family, a family that loved and valued her. The past didn’t matter.
Today marked Hazel’s twenty-third birthday. She had officially reached what Matthew considered to be prime breeding age, and she knew that it was probably a matter of weeks before she was paired up with a member of the pack. She had spent a lot of time wondering who her new mate would be. There were plenty of likely enough beta males of the right age, but ultimately, Matthew would be the one who made the decision. He would choose with the best interest of the pack in mind.
Her brooding was interrupted by a knock at the bathroom door. “Hazel? Are you almost finished in there?”
Paisley. “Just about.” She wrapped the towel around herself again in case any of the girls outside got any ideas about opening the bathroom door.
“Everyone’s waiting,” Paisley sang out.
Hazel closed her eyes. She had mixed feelings about her birthday celebration tonight. The party would be fun, she was sure, but Paisley was almost definitely going to want to beautify her to within an inch of her life for the occasion. Hazel would have preferred to keep things simple and natural.
She sighed. There was no use putting off the inevitable. Mustering her strength, she stepped out of the bathroom and into her bedroom.
Immediately, she was greeted by squeals. All the young women in the pack had gathered for the occasion. Hands found her and steered her into a chair, where someone set about attacking her long, white-blonde hair with a brush and a bottle of spray. Paisley knelt in front of her with about seven different trays of cosmetics. “C
lose your eyes,” she instructed.
“Aw, Paisley, do we really have to do all the makeup?”
“Yes. Close your eyes.” Hazel did so, and immediately felt the tickle of a brush on her eyelids. “You know it’s not every day an omega comes of age,” Paisley said. “Especially, not a purebred omega.”
“It’s not that big a deal,” Hazel said, although she knew it was.
“Of course, it is,” Paisley said. “You’re the last omega in the Cavallon line. That line goes all the way back to the 1700s.”
“How do we even know she’s a Cavallon?” Gianna asked. Hazel had always had the distinct feeling that Gianna didn’t like her much. “We found her on the street, right? She could be anybody.”
“Matthew had her DNA tested,” said Rita, coming into the room in time to hear the question. The rest of the women parted before her, allowing her through. Rita was married to Matthew, and as the wife of the alpha, she had automatic dominance in any group of women in the pack. “You know that, Gianna. Cavallon DNA is a matter of public record, since their line has been producing omegas consistently for centuries.” She sat down behind Hazel, and Hazel felt her hair passed into the older woman’s gentle hands. “The Cavallon line is older than our country,” Rita said. “The original Cavallons were some of the earliest European settlers on the continent.”
“We know all this,” Gianna said, sounding irritated.
One of the younger girls hushed her. Hazel was glad. She knew the story too, but she always liked hearing it. It made her feel closer to the family she’d never known. Besides, she thought, Gianna was the one to bring it up in the first place. She shouldn’t have asked the question if she didn’t want to hear the answer.
Rita’s hands worked expertly through Hazel’s hair. “The original matriarch of the Cavallons was an omega,” she said. “She gave birth to a litter that included another omega, and some years later, that girl gave birth to another omega. With every generation, the strength of the omega gene grew. The sizes of the litters born to these women didn’t always increase by generation, but over time, the trend has been one of consistent growth. And Hazel is the direct descendent of that line. Hand me a bobby pin.”
