Epilogue

Gideon

“ Push, baby, push!”

I growled through the pain as Artemis shouted encouragement. Maybe it was because I was holding Fletcher’s hand, but the whole thing felt so much more intense than I had expected.

“You’re doing good,” the midwife said from where he was crouched at the bottom of the bed, keeping an eye on things. “I can see the baby, so it won’t be long now.”

“Good,” Fletcher hissed through gritted teeth, “because I don’t think I can take much more of this.”

I squeezed my husband’s hand in sympathy as another contraction hit him, causing us both to cry out.

“I don’t know which is worse,” Artemis said from where he stood on the other side of the bed, bouncing our six-month-old baby girl, Brenda, in his arms, “feeling you go through this the first time or feeling you both go through it this time.”

I laughed, even though it caused Fletcher to crush my hand in his desperate grip.

It had been a total accident when Fletcher had gotten pregnant during his heat six months after I had gotten pregnant. The three of us were so happy just the way we were. We’d made the decision to move back to the farm together but to keep both the cliffside house, despite its bad memories, and Artemis’s downtown apartment. The cliffside house was great when we wanted peace and quiet, and the downtown apartment was surprisingly fun when I wanted to be in the thick of things. Now that I didn’t have to worry about him , I was actually enjoying becoming part of the world again.

I had enjoyed my pregnancy, too, and both of my husbands had been giddy with excitement over the way I grew rounder by the day.

Maybe it was the pregnancy hormones in the air, but Fletcher went into heat right on schedule after six months instead of being irregular, like he always swore he was. It had been a particularly intense heat, at that. We’d all actually been on a book tour, my first ever. While I was downstairs in the hotel conference room, greeting hundreds of fans, talking about my unconventional life and how it had influenced my stories, and signing books until my hand ached, my husbands were upstairs in our suite, banging like bunnies.

I’d joined in as soon as my book obligations were done, even though I’d been as big as a whale. Fletcher swore it was my fault that he had the breeding orgasm that caused Artemis’s seed to catch one of his eggs because he’d been balls-deep in my soaking wet, pregnant ass when his womb had been breached.

Part of me, the part that had been raised in a religious community, still thought it was a little dirty when the three of us had sex at the same time. But most of me absolutely adored the wild levels of pleasure all three of us felt when our bodies were joined and the bond between us was wide open, cycling pleasure through all of us.

“A few more pushes will do it,” the midwife said, standing and gently nudging Fletcher’s legs open a bit more. “I’ve got you positioned perfectly, so don’t worry about the bed or the floor or anything but getting this baby into the world.”

The midwife had come highly recommended by someone Artemis knew through the Dark Fantasies Club. He was an omega who liked to play hard, although Artemis promised us he’d never played with him. So he and his beta assistant hadn’t batted an eyelash when Fletcher suggested he use the milking chair as a birthing bed. It actually did the job nicely.

“Come on, baby. You can do this,” Artemis said in his best soothing voice, rubbing Brenda’s back as she started to cry.

“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do!” Fletcher howled, trying to push and talk at the same time. “You did this to me!”

I laughed again, though I had to slap a hand over my mouth to stop the sound when I felt a burst of annoyance through the bond.

“I’m sorry,” I said, moving my hand aside. “It’s just that I’ve done this recently myself, and it wasn’t that bad.”

“Yes, it was,” Fletcher growled, panted, then groaned. “I felt it then, and I’m feeling it now.” He shouted and bore down hard.

I wasn’t going to press the issue, but I’d managed to stay a whole lot more composed when Brenda was born. That was because I had my alpha and my omega by my sides, we’d been at home and at peace, and the midwife had been one of the best money could buy.

“Here we go! The baby’s coming!”

The midwife shifted into position and Fletcher made a sound that reminded me of a kettle just starting to steam. His face went bright red, and I could feel not only his effort and emotion, but a sharp twinge of sympathy and remembered pain in my hole.

Then the moment passed, Fletcher gasped for breath, and a brand new set of lungs rent the air with a newborn cry…just as his sister started to wail as well.

“It’s a boy,” the midwife said, sliding the amazing, angry baby onto Fletcher’s belly.

The emotions that suddenly radiated from Fletcher were like nothing I’d ever felt from him before. He made a sound of joy and surprise as he cradled our son against his chest. As soon as the midwife cut the cord, he slid the baby boy up closer to his heart.

“Look at him,” Fletcher wept, his hands shaking as he sheltered the baby. “He’s the most perfect thing I’ve ever seen.”

“He’s wonderful,” I said, overcome with emotion myself. “You did such a good job.”

They were the same words Fletcher had said to me six months earlier.

I rested one hand on the baby’s back and brushed my fingers through my omega husband’s hair with the other, leaning down to kiss him.

“You’re both amazing,” Artemis said, coming over to join us and stroking our son’s back as well.

The three of our hands touched on the baby’s back, and we grinned at each other, letting the fullness of our emotions surge through the three-way bond.

A few hours later, after the baby and Fletcher had both been cleaned up and we had all moved to our large bed in the adjoining room, things were much more peaceful.

“I never thought I wanted babies of my own,” Fletcher said, staring down in awe at our nursing baby as Artemis and I sat on either side of them. Brenda had just finished feeding herself and was asleep against my shoulder. “But you know, I think I’ll keep this one.”

The three of us laughed. It was such a soft, special moment.

“I’ll admit it,” Artemis said, pausing to kiss the side of Fletcher’s head. “I never would have imagined you being a papa either. But now that I’m seeing it with my own eyes, I love it.”

“Me, too,” I added, smiling at Fletcher, then at Artemis with all the love in my heart.

“I am not doing it again, though,” Fletcher said in no uncertain terms. “Once is just fine with me. I want my tubes tied as soon as possible.”

“Okay,” Artemis said.

It was nice of him to be so quick to let Fletcher determine his own fate. I was tempted to tell him he might change his mind and want another baby later, but that was more about what I wanted than what Fletcher might want. I couldn’t wait to get knocked up again. I was particularly looking forward to the heat and the breeding orgasms that would get the job done.

“Knock, knock,” someone said from the bedroom door as our little family snuggled together. “Is it okay to come in?”

I smiled up at my new friend Simon as he poked his head around the corner of our doorway. I felt a burst of annoyance from Fletcher, but I was so happy that I wanted everyone I cared about to share it.

“We can leave if you all want to be alone,” Victor said, entering the room right behind Simon, a bouquet of pink and blue flowers in hand.

“No, it’s fine,” Artemis said, getting up to greet our friends. “Come and meet Nathan.”

Simon cooed and came around to my side of the bed so he could get a look at both babies. “He’s so sweet,” he said, tears coming to his eyes.

“Have you decided it’s time yet?” I whispered.

As we’d become friends, Simon had shared with me that he’d chosen to delay pregnancy so that he and Victor could develop their unique relationship.

“Almost,” Simon whispered in return. “I’m definitely feeling the pull.”

“I recommend it,” I said with a wink.

“We come bearing gifts,” Victor said, handing the flowers over to Artemis.

“Thanks so much,” Artemis said, smelling the flowers like a dozy cow. He still liked to “play cow” at other times too, especially since I’d bought him a Mamulator 6000 for Christmas.

“I have a gift for you, too,” I told Simon.

“Really?” Simon asked.

I nodded, then pointed to the book on the bureau .

Simon got up to fetch it, then let out an excited, “Wow! Is this an advance copy?”

“Hot off the presses,” I said, beaming.

Simon flipped through the thick, hardback book with a dragon on the cover. It was the advance copy of the first book in the new series I’d just written. The new, super steamy retelling of The Captive Omega Princes and Their Secret Dragon Princes , or as I’d rebranded it, Omega Fairy Tales . I’d published it under my own name, Gideon Battersea-Montgomery, too.

“I can’t wait to read this!” Simon said, flipping quickly through the pages. He stopped and scanned one page in particular, and his eyes went wide. “Maybe we should read this together, Sir,” he told Victor with a naughty wink.

“I can already envision a few scenarios where that might work perfectly,” Victor said in return.

“Guys, guys. Not around the babies,” Fletcher teased them.

I laughed, leaning into him and kissing his cheek. “That’s how we ended up with babies in the first place,” I whispered.

Fletcher and I shared a dirty giggle. In fact, he and Artemis had helped me write the hot scenes, since I’d only ever written for young adults before. We’d come up with a few ingenious ways to act out the scenes so I knew what I should write. It had been fabulous.

“I come with other gifts, too,” Victor said, looking excited. When we all looked at him, he said, “Forbearance and Nicodemus Goode were apprehended yesterday.”

I gasped in surprise. Then I nearly burst into tears of joy. “They caught them? Did they stop the trafficking ring?”

“Looks like it,” Victor said. “Better still, they found a dozen omegas who have been missing for some time. They’d been forced into, well, I hate to say it, but a brothel. They’ve all been taken to safety now, and they will be reunited with their families when and if they want to or helped into a better life, if that’s what they choose.”

“We’ll do everything we can for them,” Artemis said, thumping his friend on the back.

In the last year, while I was shifting my career and being celebrated by the book world, Fletcher and Artemis had been working to establish a foundation to help young people from The People of God on Earth and other cults and communities who wanted to get out find their footing in a new world. The Freehold Foundation also helped victims of trafficking to get the material and psychological help they needed to build new lives. A lot of that meant getting them new identities and surrounding them with people who would keep them safe in case their former abusers tried to find them again, but so far, we had a one hundred percent success rate.

Some of the people we’d already helped to find new lives were my brother Malachi and my sisters, Mary and Ruth. The three of them were living together in a house not that far away from our cliffside vacation home.

“I know they’ll be in good hands with your people,” Victor said, thumping Artemis’s back in return. “And now, Simon and I should get going and leave you guys to rest.”

“We’ll come back soon for a longer visit,” Simon said, squeezing my shoulder as he stood. “Bye, babies,” he cooed over our little ones.

I was so glad they’d visited, even if we were too exhausted for company.

“We’ve made so many good things,” I said, settling Brenda in her bassinet on one side of our bed as Artemis took Nathan and put him down in the other one. “Even if we had to work hard and overcome a lot do to it.”

“It was worth it,” Fletcher said, snuggling down into the pillows and closing his eyes.

“Definitely worth it,” Artemis echoed him as the two of us climbed into bed with him.

I snuggled against my omega and reached a hand toward my alpha. We would only be able to nap for a few minutes, but as long as we were together, I didn’t mind the sleep deprivation and struggles of having two new babies around. I was happier than I’d ever been, and I knew things would just keep getting better.

I hope you’ve enjoyed Artemis, Fletcher, and Gideon’s story! It really was incredibly fun to write. The three of them just naturally work well together.