I Was The Only Omega In The Beast World Chapter 163: CP: 163 You Took Your Sweet Time

Alex opened his eyes. The valley stretched below, green and golden and patient in the morning light.

"How many months do you think?" he asked." Pregnancies are unpredictable. The first ti you carried six. The biology may be entirely different this ti." A pause. "System would have known imdiately."

The absence of System was a sore tooth, a thing Alex kept pressing with his tongue to see if it had stopped hurting. It hadn’t.

"Yeah," he said. "System would have had a whole breakdown about gestation projections and fetal developnt tilines and probable birth dates by now." A breath that was almost a laugh. "I miss that."

"I know."

"Do you think it’s okay? Wherever it is?"

Naga was quiet for a mont. "I think System is not the kind of thing that stops existing easily. I think whatever the shadow did, it didn’t destroy System. It complicated it." He turned back toward the sanctuary. "I think the stones being cold and the connection being blocked are the sa problem. And I think when we solve one, we solve the other."

Alex followed his gaze. In the distance, the half-built walls of the sanctuary caught the light, ironwood and stone rising patient against the ridge.

"Okay," he said.

"Okay?"

"Let’s go tell our family we’re having more babies. And then let’s figure out how to wake up seven dormant artifacts and rescue a system from a shadow monster that lives in a volcano caldera."

Naga’s expression was exactly as composed as it always was, except for the faint warmth at the corners of his eyes that Alex had learned to read as the equivalent of soone else laughing.

"I’ll get the others," he said.

The gathering happened in the main courtyard, which had been finished enough to function if not yet to look like anything. The stone foundation was solid, the ironwood walls were up on three sides, and the fourth opened onto the pool where Zale’s sphere floated in the morning sun.

Alex stood at the center of it while his family arranged themselves around him—Naga already there, calm and present; Leo dropping down from the upper ridge with the expression of soone who had been told to co imdiately and had took the flight over running scenarios; Zale’s sphere drifting in from the pool, water rippling with unease; Lucas erging from the treeline with the unhurried stride of soone who’d also been prepared but was waiting to see what it was for.

Granite and Sally had appeared, which ant the snakelings had appeared with them, because separating Sally and the snakelings at any hour of high interest was an exercise in frustration. They arranged themselves at the courtyard’s edge in a tidy row that lasted approximately four seconds before Siddy got bored and started climbing a wall.

"I need to tell you all sothing," Alex said.

Sally’s expression imdiately shifted to the one she wore when she’d already guessed the answer. Her eyes dropped briefly to his belly, then ca back up. She said nothing. She would wait.

"I’m pregnant again," Alex said. "More than one. I don’t know how many yet. I don’t know whose, or if it matters, because Naga already said it doesn’t and I think he’s right."

Silence.

Then Leo’s eyes spread wide, purely involuntary, a full exhale that sent a breath of warm air across before his chest.

"You took your sweet ti." he asked.

The words hung in the air, and Alex realized the golden-eyed harpy wasn’t angry. He was relieved. The tension that had been coiled in his shoulders for weeks—the tension Alex had assud was about the shadow, about the stones, about the construction delays—drained out of him in a single exhale.

"You knew," Alex said.

"Slled it six days ago." Leo’s tail settled, his gorgeous white hair flattening against his back. "Thought I was imagining things. The heat was intense. Sotis the body holds onto that scent longer than—" He stopped, shook his head. "Naga told this morning to stop lurking around and let you co to us."

"You’ve been lurking?"

"You’ve been at the ridge edge every dawn for two weeks. I’ve been watching from high stones." Leo’s voice was matter-of-fact. "You looked like you were carrying sothing heavy. I didn’t know it was that heavy."

Zale’s sphere drifted closer, the water inside rippling with a agitation that didn’t match the calm of his face. "You’re certain?"

Alex pressed a hand to his lower belly. The warmth there had beco a constant now, a small sun burning beneath his skin. "I can feel them. The sa way I felt the snakelings. Before there was anything physical to feel."

"Them," Lucas repeated, and his voice had gone very still. "Multiple."

"Yes."

The wolf lord’s pale eyes were fixed on Alex’s midsection with an intensity that would have been unsettling if Alex hadn’t learned to read him. Lucas wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t uncertain. He was calculating—the sa way he calculated pack movents, border patrols, hunting strategies. His mind was already racing ahead, already preparing.

"They’ll need space," Lucas said. "More than the snakelings had. Different environnts, maybe. If there are multiple fathers—"

"We don’t know that yet."

"If," Lucas repeated. "We prepare for if. That’s what pack does."

Granite had moved closer without Alex noticing—a talent of the ex-chief bear, for all his size. His muzzle was lowered, his eyes soft in a way Alex had rarely seen.

"The valley," Granite said. "The eastern slope, where the soil is richest. If the cubs need space to run—"

"Cubs," Sally said, and her voice cracked on the word. She was crying—but she was also smiling, that particular smile she’d worn when Alex had first shown her pictures of the snakelings, the one that said I’m going to be the best aunt in the history of aunts.

"You’re going to be an aunt again," Alex said.

"I’m going to be an aunt AGAIN. To MORE BABIES. In a CASTLE. On CURSED LAND." She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "This is literally the best day of my life."

"You said that when you t the snakelings."

"That was ALSO the best day of my life. I have multiple best days. That’s allowed."

The snakelings had been uncharacteristically quiet through the exchange. Alex looked over at them—six small faces, six pairs of eyes fixed on him with expressions ranging from River’s calm assessnt to Ripple’s wide-eyed wonder to Siddy’s barely contained explosion of questions.

"Questions," Alex said. "I can see you have questions. Ask away."

"You’re having MORE babies?" Siddy burst out.

"Yes."

"Will they be snakes like us?"

"I don’t know."

"Will they be wolves? Or birds? Or fish?"

"r," Zale corrected mildly.

"Or R?" Siddy’s voice climbed an octave. "Will they be R? Can we have a r sibling? Can we swim with them? Can they breathe underwater? Can I breathe underwater if I hold onto them really tight?"

"One question at a ti," Alex said.

"THAT WAS FOUR QUESTIONS."

"Siddy—"

"CAN I HAVE A R SIBLING PLEASE I’VE ALWAYS WANTED A R SIBLING—"

"You’ve known about the possibility of a r sibling for approximately forty-five seconds—"

"I’VE WANTED ONE MY WHOLE LIFE."

"You’re four."

"FOUR VERY LONG YEARS."