Chapter Twenty Five

Desie

I am not ready to have sex with anyone. My body is nowhere close to being healed enough for sex after just three weeks. I understand that. But my libido is coming at me. Hard.

It"s watching my guys be daddies. It"s seeing Ben walking around shirtless with his hat turned backwards carrying Calian in one of the slings we have. It's Michael swinging with the baby on the porch, singing songs we grew up listening to. It's Seth wearing just a pair of basketball shorts while he gives Calian the most careful bath in the world at the kitchen sink. I can"t take it.

It isn"t fair. They get to walk around looking like sexy daddies and I can"t seem to do anything but wear pajamas and anything else that"s comfortable while I leak milk and everything else. It"s hard for me to not feel gross.

They don"t think I"m gross, though. It doesn"t matter what I wear, all three of them make it a point to show me that they think I"m still beautiful. Michael especially has been very vocal about how much he doesn"t mind the leaking milk. I just think I"d feel a little better about everything if at least one of them had the decency to look less than gorgeous every now and then.

Seth walks into the bedroom with Calian draped across his forearm asleep. That tiny boy can sleep in any position he lands in, it reminds me so much of Ben. Ben could get a good night"s sleep on a pile of jagged rocks. "Lopez texted me. He wants to send more diapers. I sent him a new picture."

I nod. I get a little sad every time I think about Lopez recently. He wanted a family so much. I hope it doesn"t hurt him too much to see mine. I know he wants me to be happy, the twins, too. He"s done terrible things, and there are consequences for those things, but I still think almost everyone deserves some happiness. Especially if they work as hard as he is to make up for the things they"ve done wrong.

"Minos texted, too. He got some intel and he wants you to look over it."

"Why?"

Seth shrugs. "I don"t know. But he asked that you look at it and give him a call. Mallory has also requested fresh baby pictures."

That"s unexpected and maybe even strange. Why in the world would I need to look at it? The only people I know who are, or were, involved in the rogue organization is the Flores pack. They"re the Lopez pack now, I suppose, but they"re still the only ones I"d recognize and they"re nowhere near the Northern territory. "Why do I need to look at it? I mean, I will since he"s asking me to, but I"m not going to know what I"m looking at."

"I"m not sure. I thought it was strange that he"d ask you to look over it, too. He sent it to me. I"ve got it whenever you"re ready to check it out."

"Let"s go ahead and look at it. Can you pull it up on your phone, or do we need a computer?"

He takes out his phone and brings up his email. "The phone works, but the screen is small. If you need to see it bigger we can get a laptop or go to the security room."

He hands me the phone and I push play on the video. It"s a little grainy, but I can still make out what things look like with a fair amount of detail. It opens to an overhead view of the compound. It"s the same one that was in the footage that Nathan had. It switches to a view of the back corner and the building that everyone decided was some kind of test site.

"You don"t have to watch it with me, Seth. I"m okay."

He tucks my hair behind my ear and tugs on the end. "I"m alright, darlin."

We watch as a line of omegas are marched around the perimeter. There are several very clear shots of some of their faces. That"s good. Nathan can use that to find out who they are. Then the door opens on the side of the building and two big alphas step out glaring into the trees surrounding that area. One of them turns back to the doorway and says something then steps out of the way for someone else to come out.

My heart freezes in my chest and I claw at it, tearing at the fabric of my shirt.

"What?" Seth asks, gripping my arm. "What is it?"

I have to swallow twice before I can answer. "Get Nathan. Now."

After Seth called, Nathan asked us to come down to the manor to put the footage Minos sent through his system. It"s the first time I"ve been farther than the porch since Calian was born. I wish I could take the time to enjoy it but my heart is beating too fast.

"Are you absolutely sure, Desir"ee? Look again." Nathan enlarges the paused frame so that it takes up all the space on the biggest monitor in his office.

I don"t need to, but I look again. I look at every inch of the person on the screen. I take in the shoulder-length graying hair, the strong, squared shoulders, the familiar skin tone. I look at it all again. "It"s her. I"m calling Mateo. He needs to see this."

I have a few memories left of my mother. I have looked at the picture I have of her and my dads every single day. The woman on the screen is older than the woman in my picture, but it"s her.

I thought she was dead. Everyone thinks she"s dead. My dads were taken and then she was gone. I was so young when we lost her. Mateo stepped into the place where my parents were and made sure that my brothers and I were okay, especially me and Gabriel. This is surreal. We thought she was gone, and the rogues had her this whole time. For years. She"s okay. She"s right there on the screen and okay.

Mateo is smiling when he answers my video call. It dies as soon as he sees my face. "What"s happened? Are you alright? The baby?"

"Look at this, Mateo. Tell me what you see." I switch the camera to show the picture on the screen. "Tell me I"m not crazy, Mateo. Tell me."

He doesn"t say anything for a few seconds then he"s screaming for our brother and running down the hallway in his house. "Lucas! Lucas! Come quickly! Oh my god. Lucas!"

He finds him in the kitchen washing dishes. "Look at this." He shoves the phone in Lucas"s face. "Look."

I watch slow recognition and even slower realization climb across Lucas"s face. "Oh my god," he whispers. "Oh my god. We need to tell Sebastian and Gabe. Where is she, Mateo? Where has she been? Is that a recent picture? Oh my god."

"So it is definitely, without doubt, her?" Nathan asks again.

"Yes," Mateo says. "Yes. It"s our mother. Where is she?"

"The big rogue compound in the Northern territory," Nathan answers. "The one we"ve been watching."

Mateo"s jaw clenches and he looks off camera at Lucas. "Who sent this to you?"

"Minos."

"Why wouldn"t he send it to me instead? What"s the point of being involved with the WCC if I"m to be excluded in things that involve my family?"

Seth draws a breath and leans close to me so that Mateo can see him. "He only got it a little while ago and he sent it straight to me to show Desir"ee. We called you as soon as she saw that it was your mother."

"Am I to be included in the plan to get her out?" Mateo growls. "Or am I to sit here and wait patiently for other people to go on a rescue mission to save my mother? My mother who, for years, I thought was dead?"

Nathan sits back in his chair, his lips pressed into a flat line as he looks at Seth. Seth sighs. "You can"t go, Mateo."

"HIjo de la chinga tu made, pinche carbon! Why not?"

"Because," Devon cuts in, taking over the conversation, "we have been watching this compound for months. We know how it runs. We know when people leave and how often they arrive. We have been working out a plan to get those omegas out and we are not going to waste the opportunity to do it by going in there with a feral son, no matter how rightly placed that rage is. You are a councilman now. You have people under your care. We will do everything we possibly can to get your mother and the rest of those omegas out. I swear to you, Mateo, we will get her."

I look from my brother"s fiery anger to Seth"s somber determination and back to my mother"s face on the screen. I know what the people in the COT program are capable of. I saw some of the aftermath of what they did to get me away from Flores. Mateo is going to take this poorly no matter what, though.

"Mateo." I wait until he"s focused on me to continue. "You have to let them do this. You have to trust them."

He holds my gaze for a long moment and then shakes his head. "If anything goes wrong..."

"We won"t let anything go wrong," Nathan tells him. "We"ll get her out. We"ll get all of them out."

I can"t help plan an attack, or a retrieval as they"re calling it. All I want to do is leave this minute for that compound and kill every jerk standing between me and my mother. I know that"s not the best plan, I"m not stupid. But I am very angry that I"ve missed all this time with my mother. She"s alive and I need to concentrate on being grateful for that, but it"s so unfair. She"s missed so much that we can never get back.

"Regretfully, this young man has had enough of me." Corso comes into the security room with Calian cuddled against his shoulder. "I believe he may be hungry and ready for a rest."

I still can"t believe my life is entwined with Corso Zaphir"s. It"s absolutely wild. My children are going to grow up alongside his. My pack and his pack are going to have family outings and dinners. If anyone had told me this would be my life I would have laughed at them.

Ben takes Calian from Corso and hands him over to me. "Do we need to go home?"

I shake my head. I can"t leave without knowing there is a definite plan to get my mother home. "I can feed him here and he"ll sleep through anything. I need to stay until they"re finished planning."

"Alright, but if you need to go rest we"ll take you home." He starts helping me to get settled into one of the extra chairs.

"Hang on," Trent says as he leaves the room. He comes back with a C-shaped nursing pillow and hands it to Seth. "Do you have one of these? If you don"t, get one. Get two. These things are great, and you"ll use them a lot."

"We have one," I tell him, positioning the pillow under the baby, "but I didn"t think to grab it. Thank you, Trent."

Talia comes in with two cups of tea and hands one of them to Ben. "That"s for her. If you want anything you know where the kitchen is. What"s the plan?"

Nathan spins toward her, rubbing his palms together. "Thaddeus already has another surveillance team in the air. As soon as they confirm what we"re seeing here, we"re going to send in nine COTs and three specialist units for the omega. Jamison has already vetoed Obi going, so Obi"s putting together some packets and supply lists so the omegas will be alright until we get them back here."

"What if they don"t want to come here?" Talia asks.

Nathan looks back at the screen, then at Trent. "If they want to go back to their homes, we"ll make sure they get there. But most of them are likely going to need some intense medical attention. Ideally, the surveillance team will get us a better idea of what shape they"re in and what we need to have in place for them." Then he looks at Ben and Michael. "Do you think The Omega House will be ready in the next week?"

"Yes," they answer together.

Michael looks from Nathan to me. "It will be ready for them. And your mom will come to us."

I give him the smile and nod he needs to see from me, but I'm still worried. I can't imagine my mother wanting to go to The Omega House when she could be at home with me.

I think I might be in shock about my mother. Maybe not shock exactly, but something similar. I"ve lived the majority of my life thinking she was gone. What if she"s not the same person I remember? Obviously there will be differences. She"s been through so much, she couldn"t possibly be the same. What if she doesn"t want to stay with me once the COTs get her here? What if she doesn"t want anything to do with me? I"ve read about people in similar situations who can"t bear to be near the people they once called family. What if being taken has broken her mind and she can"t remember any of us?

"Desir"ee." Seth"s smooth, calm voice cuts through my racing thoughts. "It will be alright."

I close my eyes and draw in his scent as he reaches over to run his fingers through my hair. "I"m afraid that she won"t be the same. Or that she won"t want me."

He gently tugs on the ends of my hair. "I know." He doesn"t tell me that it will be okay again, he just stays with me in my worry. Sharing it.