CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Mir was damn brave and trusting, and yet Tavish would have to deliver the devastating news that their longed-for and suffered for babies weren’t normal. It sucked that he hadn’t had time to prepare any of them. Not that he felt prepared. He’d never delivered someone this close to him. Omegas came into the hospital, often in distress, and he dealt with the situation as a doctor, with no personal emotions involved.

This was completely different. Mir’s emotional distress, their very real fears because of what Zepish had let happen to them, ripped at his insides like it had when he first moved in across the road. How could he possibly tell Mir he’d had a cozy chat with the person who had been complicit in all this? Mir would have every right to never want to see him again, but right now, Tav had a job to do. Locking away his emotions, he armed himself with a mental white coat.

Be a doctor. That’s what Mir needs right now.

Toren seemed sensible, and he just had to hope that they wouldn’t overreact if they saw a malformation before Mir did.

He wished he knew the procedures of the birth attendant Toren had shadowed. Some cleaned and wrapped the baby before presenting it to the parents. Others simply passed the infant over, often with the cord still attached, encouraging a more natural experience. With the sun high in the sky and the room warm and humid, even the excuse of wrapping a baby to keep it warm would be difficult to believe.

Still visibly pale, Corish was doing his best, although clearly freaked out, and Mir had never seen one of their offspring before. He yearned for this to be as much of a positive experience as possible for Mir, and a panic attack was not on his agenda.

Mir tensed again. They had to be one of the quietest laboring people Tavish had ever encountered. No grunts, no moaning, and after their nerves had settled, just effort. Usually, at least once during a labor, Tavish always reminded the person giving birth that this was called ‘labor’ for a reason. Mir needed no such reminder as they bore down.

With a pop, the waters broke, and Tavish moped up the gush of thankfully clear fluid with a towel Toren handed over.

“I can see baby’s head,” he called out. “Steady pushing Mir, keep it coming.” Mir took a breath and bore down again. “That’s it, push, push, push.”

The perineum bulged, forcing Mir’s hard cock farther toward their belly. At this stage, the baby’s head was squeezing Mir’s prostate, causing an erection, and if he looked, there might even be some seminal fluid leaking from their cock. Many thought this meant a laboring omega was sexually aroused. It couldn’t be further from the truth.

The baby’s head wasn’t huge like some singletons, but Tavish still changed his instructions. “Now pant,” he demonstrated, and Corish joined in as if Tavish had been talking to him. “Let your body do the work. It knows what it needs to do.”

The thought of Mir doing this, and knowing their baby would be taken… It must have felt like their body had betrayed them yet again. Tavish clenched his jaw against the surge of emotion. How Mir is still fighting after all that had happened to them? Mir was the most amazing person he’d ever had the fortune to meet, and if they let Tavish remain in their life, he’d be the luckiest alpha, or beta—if he did what Sibiren suggested—in the world.

Faster than he would have liked, Mir’s body expelled the head, and Tavish cradled it, checking to feel if the cord was around the baby’s neck, then looked down into the baby’s pale, thankfully not blue, face. Dark eyes stared back at him, rather than the scrunched-up face he was usually presented with. It was a little unnerving, but it wasn’t the most unusual aspect of the infant.

“Well, they are definitely a Reeve, lots of freckles.” Despite his hopefully reassuring words, the marks down the infant’s temples and neck weren’t freckles, or at least he’d never seen freckles on a child younger than two.

Mir choked out a sob, and Corish attention returned to his sibling, although his shit-eating grin remained. Toren wore a similar expression.

“Towel and clamps,” Tavish ordered. “Mir, push with the next contraction, slow and steady, and you can hold your baby.”

Mir took a breath and bore down, while the supplies he requested appeared on the corner of the bed.

Toren’s hand lay on Mir’s lower back. “Come on, sibby, you’ve got this.” A glance showed Toren’s back was to him. The beta was either utterly focused on their sibling, or they didn’t want to see too much of Mir’s genitals. Whatever Toren’s motivation, it was good news for Tavish.

Mir pushed again, and the baby slithered free and into his hands. The infant gurgled, and Tavish swiftly cleared their mouth with the suction tube. The pup face screwed up in indignation at the cold world, then let out a hearty cry of protest.

Mir and their siblings all let out an amazed laugh, and the twins heartily congratulated Mir.

Tavish could only look at the wailing, and now red-faced infant. Freckle-like birthmarks lined the lateral parts of the pup’s body, arms, legs, torso, and head. He’d never seen such a beautiful pattern of birthmarks before. Stunning, just like Mir. He knew in that moment that he’d protect this child to the end of his days.

His beta self slapped him upside the head. Do thenewborn check, asshole.

The genitals of the infant stole his focus. A normal sized penis lay on testicles, big ones. A born alpha? No, a male. As in a sapien. This wasn’t a pup; it was a boy.

Silence, apart from the baby’s cries, pressed in around him. Shit, he hadn’t even noticed the other people in the room going quiet.

“Tavish, what’s wrong?” Mir’s voice was steady, although a note of impending panic in their scent and voice flooded the room.

Tavish grabbed a towel and started cleaning off the small amount of blood and creamy white vernix. “Everything’s fine. Can’t you hear that noise? I’ll just clean them up while I wait for the cord to stop pulsating.” He hoped he sounded hearty and matter-of-fact. “Might as well get all the blood they’ve got coming to them, but I’m afraid the cord is too short to hand them up to you.”

When he separated the baby’s legs to clean the vernix out of the creases, he paused, then raised the baby’s legs. Almost hidden behind the scrotum, was a definite channel, identical to that of any other malthusian infant or beta, not the closed, almost invisible structure alphas possessed. Not a sapien male. A born alpha, although if that was all it was, why would the Mother Superior want her offspring to undergo surgery?

Mir groaned. “I want to push again. I don’t remember it being this quick last time.”

“Go with it. It’s just faster this time because your head and body aren’t fighting each other.” He quickly clamped the cord, cut it, and wrapped up the infant.

He looked up to see the head of the second infant crowning. “Toren?” When the beta looked back, he proffered the baby. “Mir can have them now.”

Toren carefully took the now quiet baby and stared down at the infant in their arms. “They’re so beautiful. Those eyes…” They didn’t seem the least bit inclined to pass the baby to their sibling.

Tavish hadn’t noticed anything about the infant’s eyes, and he tried to look over to see what he’d missed. It had to be dramatic, considering the Toren hadn’t mentioned the birthmarks at all.

“Toren, if you don’t give my baby, when I’m done, I’m going to—” Mir broke off as their body heaved with another powerful contraction. Toren slipped the infant to Corish, who angled the infant so Mir could see it without moving from their supported by pillows all fours position.

“Oh Lord, they said they were different, but… I never ever expected…” Mir’s croaky voice radiated awe.

Tav wanted to bask in the expressions of the three siblings, almost as much as he wanted to see what fascinated Toren about the newborn’s eyes, but he had a responsibility to the remaining two triplets coming into the world too.

He swiftly checked the heartbeats of the remaining babies with his stethoscope as the contraction faded. There was only a momentary lull before Mir pushed again.

The second baby arrived even faster than the first, with no pause between the head being born and the shoulders and body. Tavish hardly had time to register that this baby had the same genitals as the first, and its own distinctive freckle pattern, with more splotches than dots, before Mir heaved again.

He could only lay a towel over the infant waving its tiny fists at the world, to prevent chilling as Mir heaved again. Multiple births could be faster than singletons because the babies were smaller and the birth canal was stretched from the first delivery, but this was unprecedented. It can’t have been more than two minutes after triplet two came into the world that triplet three lay beside their sibling.

One last push, and Mir delivered the fused afterbirth into the dish Tavish hastily grabbed.

He removed the towel from infant two, and looked down at the two content alert babies. They seemed to be examining the world around them with great interest. Baby two had vibrant green eyes, and baby three’s were amber. Presumably, the first-born triplet also had unusually colored eyes, which was what has stolen Toren’s attention. Yes, he’d seen plenty of green and hazel-eyed people, but these were far more vibrant versions of their untie and uncle’s green and Mir’s hazel.

Now they were safely born, Mir needed to know how their babies were different, other than their appearance. It wasn’t as if Tav could hide it for long. Besides, Mir’s limbs were starting to tremble, a very common, if distressing, consequence of the deep shock their body had just undergone.

“Let’s get you turned over, tidied, and warmed up.” This was the part when Tavish usually gave the new family a smile and left a beta nurse to perform these far less glamorous tasks while Dr. Taven Grabar moved on to a case that required his higher expertise. There was no beta nurse here and no beta doctor either.

“Do they have spots and purple eyes too?” Corish asked.

Tavish hesitated. Purple. He’d never seen anyone with purple eyes. If the Mother Superior’s offspring had the same anomalies, how would surgery fix anything except by removing their testicles?

“Tavish? What’s wrong?” Fear radiated in Mir’s voice.

He couldn’t resist reaching out and establishing physical contact by holding Mir’s hip and squeezing. “They are all perfectly healthy, but they are a little unusual.”

“I’ll say,” Corish piped up. “I’ve never seen markings or eye color like this. Did their father have it?”

Mir stiffened, and the need to protect his mate from distress kicked in. “And we don’t want to talk about that right now. Toren, can you hold these two while we clean up the bed?”

Toren eagerly stepped forward, although Tavish didn’t notice he had two cloth diapers in his hand until he folded up the towel covering the lower half of baby two. His hands froze, and his gaze shot to Tavish.

“Don’t dress them yet,” he said with what sounded like over-enthusiasm to his own ears. “I want to weigh them and start a chart.”

Mir snorted. “Tavish does like his charts.” They sounded tired and so damn happy. Tavish hoped with everything he had that Mir would still be happy in a few minutes.

With surprising dexterity, Toren picked up baby two and then baby three, balancing both against their bare chest and steadying their heads with the opposite hand. Tavish pulled away the soiled birthing sheet and quickly replaced the bedding while grabbing the set of clean padded underwear for Mir.

“Right then, Freckles, let’s get you settled.” With laborious movements, Mir slowly turned over, and Tavish helped them on with the underwear that’d stop the post-partum bleeding from soiling the bed.

Even before Tavish pulled the blanket up over Mir’s trembling legs, they’d reclaimed baby one from Corish and was greedily beckoning to Toren. “Come on, let me see them.”

It looked like weighing and more thorough checks would have to wait. “You only have two arms,” he said. “Let us help.” They held out their hands, and Toren let him take the baby with the largest marks, baby two.

Mir scowled, and Tavish smiled. His alpha-omega could do ‘pissed off’ better than anyone he knew.

“Well, come on, sit your ass down. You too, sibs. We’re all part of this.”

Tavish sat on one side of Mir, Toren on the other, and Corish found himself a space near Mir’s shins.

With a shaking finger, Mir reached out and gently touched the cheek of each baby in turn. “They’re beautiful.”

Tavish could feel Toren’s gaze boring into the side of his head. It was clear if he didn’t step up and tell Mir, they would. This was a mate’s responsibility, not a sibling’s.

“I can truly say that these are the most beautiful babies I’ve ever seen.”

Mir’s soft smile was blissful as they leaned their head on Tavish’s shoulder. “We did it.”

Without thought, Tavish pressed a kiss on Mir’s cinnamon-scented hair. The babies each smelled like Mir, with a subtle variation that was individual to each.

He took a breath. Why is this so damn difficult? He’d given plenty of people the news that a loved one had passed away. He’d even delivered babies he knew had died in the womb. But these babies were alive and exuded health and vitality.

“We did,” he agreed. “And they have the most wonderful ma in the—”

“I’m not going to be their ma.” Tav knew that tone. Mir had made up their mind.

“Of course, you are,” Corish’s voice held a tinge of alpha dominance.

“Mir may be your sibling, but they are my mate, my newly delivered—”

“Oh, leave off with the alpha bullshit you two,” Mir grumbled. “I meant the name, not anything else. I’ve been trying to think of another title. How does Pere, for parent, strike you?”

The twins looked at each other and shrugged. “Fine with us,” Toren said.

Tavish couldn’t let it go. “Why not Pa? You’ve got an alpha spirit, right?”

“Yeah, but I’m not their Pa. They have one of those, you.”

The simple, lightly said words halted Tavish’s world. “You… you still want that?”

Mir leaned to the side, rested their forehead against Tavish’s cheek. “Of course I do, dumb ass.”

Tavish knew he had a stupid grin on his face and didn’t care.

“Careful there, brother. You’re going to destroy the alpha mean and moody reputation if you carry on grinning like that.”

Mir gave Corish the finger. Tavish’s heart warmed at the acceptance the Reeve twins had shown him. And to think he’d been worried about these two finding Mir.

“Have you got a better idea, Mr. Bookworm?” Mir asked with fondness, rather than the derision he’d gotten as a pup.

“My Ma used to read a lot of sapien books, probably one of the reasons I’m a bookworm as well as being nosey. Although some of those books used Pa, most used Dad.”

Tavish held his breath as Mir’s lips pursed. “I like it. And I’m sure Mor, Kev, and Tac will like it too.”

The twins were both a little glassy-eyed as they all looked down at the peacefully sleeping babies.

“I get Mor, she’d love that, but why the other two?” Corish asked.

“Kevelle helped me escape, and Tac, because it’s a mix of all your names.”

“And we will do everything we can to find and rescue your friend,” Toren promised.

“That goes without saying.” Corish wrinkled his nose. “But I’m not sure Tac will work. The others will call the poor pup Tacky. It was bad enough with Cor.” His lips pressed together. “All the other pups used to make crow jokes, flapping their arms and cawing at me.”

“Not when I was around, they didn’t,” Mir ground out, furious on behalf of their little sibling.

Corish put his hand on Mir’s leg. “The past is the past, sibby. And we have a whole new future to look forward to, thanks to you. Now, what other combinations are there…” Corish tapped his finger against his lips. “Cot? Nah. If they stay a beta, they’ll be Cotten; sounds like a bedsheet. Cav? Hmm, that leaves out the T. Cov? Eh, no. A coven is a witch social group.” He paused, a line between his brows. “This is harder than I thought.”

Tavish had let this go on too long, and one look at Toren’s raised eyebrows and quirked head told him he’d better get on with it.

“Mir.” Those hazel eyes with flecks of gold turned to him with no hint of the bombshell that was about to hit them. “Hold off on the names for now. There’s —”

Those stunning eyes narrowed. “If you think for one damn second that I’m going to wait for their sire or sires to be identified so—”

“There’s more than—” Mir’s glare shut Corish up faster than a slap.

“No, no, nothing like that,” Tavish blurted. “It’s just that—” he trailed off, unsure of how to put it.

“Oh, for fucks sake,” Toren ground out and pulled the blanket away from the lower half of the baby lying in his twin’s arms. “This one has balls. All of them do, right?” His green eyes pierced Tavish.

“Yes, yes, they do. And channels too, working ones by the look of it, or at least they’re more developed than on an average newborn, but I’d—”

“What?” Toren blurted.

“As I was about to say,” Tavish put a bit of alpha dominance in his tone as he glared at Toren before turning back to Mir. “I’ll need to do an ultrasound to check their internal organs. They may or may not have working ovaries as well as testes. But that isn’t important right now. What is important is that they are here and perfectly healthy as far as I can tell without lots of tests.” He took a breath. “And as for names, we can think about that over the next few days. Births don’t have to be registered for six weeks. They can be baby one, two, and three for now.”

The people in this room might accept these babies, but Tavish couldn’t imagine wider society being as forgiving. They might be able to convince people that they were average, non-gendered pups before they reached adolescence, as long as their eyes, birthmarks, and genitals were kept hidden. After that, things would get exponentially more difficult. And that was if their scents aligned with average pups. Right now, with all the heavy scents of birth and the four adults in the room, he couldn’t tell if the babies smelled different. If they did, even with disguises, they couldn’t stay in the city.

Toren snorted. “They’ll end up being Dot, Spot, and Splotch soon enough.” They looked like a deer caught in the headlights as they met Tavish’s glare. “What? It’s true. Aaand I can’t unthink that. Sorry.”

To his surprise, Mir gave a tired huff of amusement. “Come on then, let’s have your name suggestions. Anything that doesn’t involve birthmark jokes. They’re going to get enough of that anyway.”

Tavish looked down at the baby in his arms, ‘Splotch’ by Toren’s nickname. “I think that we should embrace their differences, just like we embrace their Dad’s. They aren’t ungendered, so typical malthusian pup names don’t fit, but saddling them with an ‘ish’ suffix when they are still babies doesn’t seem right either.” He paused, and with reluctance, pulled his gaze away from the perfect innocent in the crook of his arm.

Mir had a slight smile on their face, and both the twins gave slow nods.

“I like that idea, Pa,” Mir said.

Overcome, Tavish couldn’t stop himself from leaning over and placing a soft kiss on Mir’s lips. A corner of his mouth tipped up. “Ok, Dad.”

“Uncle for me,” Corish announced.

“If anyone cares, I’m still fine with Untie.” Toren reached to pick up the infant on Mir’s lap.

They held the baby securely in the crook of their arm as if they’d been a nursemaid for years. Tavish shared a loving glance with Mir. Toren only had eyes for the baby they held. “That’s right. I’m your untie. Say, ‘Hi, Untie Toren.” They picked up the infant’s arm and waved it while adding in a squeaky voice, “Hi, untie Toren. You’re the best, much better than Uncle Cor.”

Tavish pulled away as Mir rolled his eyes.

“Good for you,” Mir said. “And they will be your niblings. Now. Names. You each get to make a suggestion for the baby you’re holding, but I reserve the right to veto anything ridiculous. Starting with their Pa.”

All eyes turned to Tavish, and he looked down at the sleeping infant again. For a moment, his mind was blank, then the most perfect name pushed into his mind as if from outside.

“All the names Mir chose were in memory of someone important in their life, people who helped bring them to this wonderful place. I think their name should be Echo.”

Mir’s hand landed on his thigh as he continued to stare at the baby. He’d seen hundreds of newborn babies, and none of them had ever captured him like these three.

“Cor?” Mir prompted.

Corish seemed equally engrossed in the infant he held, the one with well-defined spots, the firstborn. “Justice. Because that’s what we’ll all be seeking on his behalf.”

The name slid into Tavish’s head and settled, just as the name Echo had.

“And you, Tor?” Mir prompted.

Toren looked down on the last-born baby, a little smaller than the others although still a healthy size for a newborn triplet. This baby would have been dubbed ‘Dot’ as their birthmarks were the smallest and most numerous, like a haze on the periphery of the body until you looked closely or had alpha vision.

“Your sibs have such serious, noble names, little one. Lots to live up to, and they’ll do it because their Dad is Mir. As for you… Life isn’t all about the big things. You have to enjoy it along the way, too. Say hi to the world, Merriment.” Toren leaned in close and stage whispered, “Just let them try to add a suffix to that, buddy.”

Tavish did just that, mentally. Merrimentish, Merrimenten, Merrimentelle. All three sounded like tongue twisters. Justice was nearly as bad, although Echo was short enough to—

“Don’t start that, Grabar. His name is Echo,” Mir stated. They hadn’t bonded, but it seemed like Mir could already tell what he was thinking.

“His?” Toren asked.

“Yes, his. They are visible alphas, so unless they tell us they want to use a different pronoun, we’ll use that.” Mir looked between them. “I’ll not hide them. We have nothing to be ashamed of, and neither do they.” If the genital malformation was the reason the Mother Superior wanted her offspring operated on, Tavish would refuse. What if there is something I didn’t notice in their few minutes of life?

“Now, before one of you gets pooped on,” Mir instructed, “shall we get the weighing and dressing done?” Mir held out their hands for Echo. “Go on, I know you’re itching to fill in your chart.”

Tavish was. Having things down on paper somehow made them more real. And… his mind stalled.

“Damn. Did anyone note the times?” Mir looked at him as if he was mad. “Time of birth is critical with multiples.”

“In this case, no, it isn’t,” Corish stated. “There is no way we’re going to favor one of them over the others just because one got out first. Toren is older than me by a few minutes, but neither of us gives a shit, and thirdly,” he nodded at his beta sibling, “Tor checked their watch. He’s crazy about details like that.”

“10.32, 10.42, 10.49,” Toren announced.

Mir gave a tired snort as Tavish almost thrust Echo at them and shot off the bed to fill in the standard birth form from the pack Sibiren had provided.

Once he started the familiar task of filling in the paperwork, his mind almost shut down as he weighed and then checked the heart and bowel sounds of each infant, as well as testing their reflexes. None of them enjoyed being unwrapped and having a metal disc pressed on their chests and bellies, and the test for the startle reflex produced the appropriate panicked, thrown wide arms and yell.

They got a little production line going, with Tavish doing the checks, handing the now squalling infant to Toren to dress, then to Mir to calm them with a first feed of colostrum, and then to Corish to hold when the next one arrived.

The last baby to go through the line was Justice, the firstborn. A little heavier than the others, as was often the way with multiples, he was also the quietest, seeming to be engrossed in the world around him. Toren held out their hands for him, but Tavish wanted to hold him for a little longer.

“Mind if I do it?”

“Not at all,” the beta replied with a smile. “We’re all going to need to muck in, literally, and that goes for you too, Cor.”

The youngest Reeve sibling glanced to the door as if making a run for it would get him out of baby duties. “Well, I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to help. I’ve got a lot of office hours to do and—”

“There are plenty of hours that do not coincide with the office being open.” Mir gave him an evil smile. “Thank you so much for offering to help with the night feeds.”

Corish’s eyes widened. “But I can’t. I haven’t got—” he waved vaguely at his chest.

Thoroughly enjoying himself, Tavish piped up as he deftly wrapped a cloth diaper around Justice and popped a baby dress onto him. “Actually, if you let the baby suck, in a few days, you will. It’s how we were designed to cope if there wasn’t another milk source around.”

Mir grinned. “Welcome to my world, sibs. Another fun medical fact from Dr. Grabar. As you are both bare-chested?” Mir shifted Echo to one arm and gathered up Merriment, who was beginning to fuss again. Poor Corish looked like a deer facing a pack of wolves.

Mir’s brother indicated the door with his thumb. “I’ll, erm, go buy some milk then. Because that,” he waved at where Mir cradled Merriment against their chest, “is not for me.”

“Didn’t think it was for me either, growing up.” Mir scowled at the admission, and Tavish couldn’t stop himself from climbing on the bed and snuggling up next to his mate.

“And yet, you’ve done something this wonderful,” Tavish murmured. This hadn’t been the place he’d imagined this happening, but it had been perfect. Having Corish and Toren around gave an extra sense of security, of home and rightness. A problematic future loomed, but right now, snuggled up with his mate, with their babies happy and healthy, Tavish couldn’t wish for anything more.