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There was relief when she didn’t scent anyone within, nothing but earthy darkness and her own sweetness greeting her. Some part of her worried the guards had invaded that space after all.
Groaning, she fell into the mattress. Ignored the way her nest came undone as she flopped her way towards the pillow. She wanted to sleep for a thousand years.
Rey’s careful fingers divested her of the more uncomfortable trappings of her clothes, her shoes cast to the dark recesses of the closet. To her utter shock, cinnamon and spicy things slipped down her throat as Beau gave her a quiet kiss before wandering off into some other part of the house. Rey settled beside her with a quiet groan, his many hurts making themselves known.
She should get up. See to those same wounds, make sure the doctor had patched him up as well as he had all the other times. Perhaps even demand answers from Rey. But she was so very tired. Devin’s lashes didn’t even flutter before an uneasy, dreamless sleep overtook her.
* * *
Devin grumbled as she dragged herself out of bed to the sound of an infant’s mournful wails. A glance at the clock proved it’d been a mere two hours since she collapsed beside Rey.
She snarled at his sleepy caress, slapping his hands away to stumble through the dark room towards the little girl’s cries that grew louder by the second. If she didn’t get the baby to quiet soon, the boy would wake. Then all hell would break loose.
Again.
Kahler had told them in no uncertain terms he expected Devin to care for the children. Rey and Beau were there as security, and they were not allowed to lay a finger on a single strand of their downy hair. It left Devin to wake at all hours, never rested and growing more agitated by the day.
After a week of it, she was done. She couldn’t remember when she’d last eaten more than a few bites of anything at one time or even when she’d last showered. Devin had already threatened to cut Rey’s balls off if he ever tried to get her pregnant. Twice.
“What is it now,” Devin asked in a rasping whisper as she picked up the angry girl and settled into the rocker that had appeared at the front door that first night. Kahler had outfitted an entire nursery in Rey’s home, as if he’d planned for just such an occasion and held a spare set in storage.
“Miss your mama?” Devin stroked the fluffy white-blonde strands of Elise’s hair, trying to dredge up a comforting purr and failing. “Hungry? Diaper? Hell bent on driving me insane?”
Rustling fabric brought her attention to the second crib. With a grumbling sigh, Devin rose and carried the still crying baby to the sitting room. Curling up in her favorite spot on the couch, Devin braced Elise against her knees and leaned close enough their foreheads touched.
“I get it. I really do. You’re scared and don’t know what’s going on,” Devin whispered, catching flailing fists and curling Elise’s strong fingers around her thumbs. “Makes two of us, kiddo. All this isn’t going to get you anywhere though.”
Elise began to quiet, her loud cries fading to burbling whimpers as fat tears continued to trickle down pudgy cheeks. Devin sighed, sitting back enough to see the deep green eyes that were exact copies of Kahler’s yet completely different.
“Life is full of shitty moments, baby girl,” Devin murmured as she stroked the silky fluff of Elise’s hair. “You’ll want to cry about how unfair it all is, but you can’t give up, okay? Don’t give them that satisfaction. You fight back.”
As Elise continued to calm, Devin grew more heated with her life lessons. Deep green gaze hiding behind fluttering lashes as Elise began to drift off, Devin cradled her soft body and gently rocked her.
“And if you wind up being an Omega, you makethemyour bitch, you hear me? Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re not strong enough. You’re as strong as you want to be, and nobody can take that away from you, no matter what they do.”
“Pretty sure she doesn’t understand you,” Rey whispered from where he stood at the door.
“Kids are smarter than people give them credit for.” Devin sniffed hard, wiping away the tears tracking her cheeks on either shoulder.
“She doesn’t even know how to talk yet.”
“Doesn’t mean she’s not listening.”
“Why not the boy then?” Rey took another step inside the room, though he was careful to keep his distance.
“He’s got all the hallmarks of an Alpha, for one. Did you hear him rambling on last night in the bath? Secondly, he’s a boy. Males are treated differently.” Rearranging Elise’s weight in her arms, Devin rose to begin pacing. “Even Omega males are different. They’re not subjected to the same kind of hell we are.”
“Excuse me?”
“Knock it off,” Devin hissed, giving Elise a light bounce as she gurgled in her sleep. “Males don’t have to deal with the consequences.”
“Consequences,” Rey drawled as he came forward another step only to take it back. “As in children.”
“Does any of this seem natural to me, Daniel,” she demanded, spinning on her heel to face him, ignoring the bitter taste of his anger clogging the back of her throat.
“They’re not ours.”
“Tell that to the idiots back home. Hell, here! They all fawned over them, gushing about how adorable everyone’s babies were. They were happy as their bellies got big, smiling while they went on about how much their backs hurt, how small their bladders got. That all the pain of labor was worth their little bundles of joy.”
