I Was The Only Omega In The Beast World-Chapter 162: CP: I Need To Tell Them

THREE WEEKS.

Three weeks of dawn patrols to the valley’s edge. Three weeks of mapping dead grass and testing soil samples and watching the shadows lengthen across the meadow. Three weeks of sleeping with seven cold stones under his pillow, willing them to warm, to hum, to do anything.

Three weeks of silence where System should have been.

Alex stood at the ridge’s edge, watching the morning light spill across the caldera valley. The grass was greener now—spring rains had come twice in the past week, turning the meadow into something that looked almost like the paradise Granite had promised. The dead circle where the stones had fallen had shrunk, new growth pushing up through the blackened earth like hope refusing to die.

But the stones in his pouch were still cold.

And something else had changed.

Alex pressed a hand to his lower belly, feeling the familiar swell that had grown more pronounced over the past several days. At first, he’d thought it was just the aftermath of that first desperate heat—his body still full, still recovering from being bred so thoroughly by four mates who hadn’t held back.

But the fullness hadn’t faded. It had deepened. Settled into something that felt less like aftermath and more like beginning.

He’d known, somehow, before any physical signs appeared. The same way he’d known when the snakelings were coming, all those months ago in the serpent territory. A certainty that lived in his bones, in the way his body was changing, in the particular warmth that now radiated from his belly even when the rest of him was cold.

He was pregnant.

The thought should have terrified him. Six snakelings had nearly killed him—not the birth itself, but the months of carrying them, the strain on a body that had never been designed for such things. He’d survived, but barely. And now—

Now there was more than one.

He could feel them. Small, yes—too early for movement, too early for anything but the faintest impression of life. But there was more than one presence in the warmth of his womb. Multiple heartbeats, fluttering against his own like the wings of moths.

He hadn’t told anyone yet.

Not Naga, who would coil around him and refuse to let him leave the sanctuary. Not Leo, who would hover with that particular intensity he couldn’t quite hide. Not Zale, who would look at him with those ancient eyes and see everything Alex wasn’t saying. Not Lucas, who would probably try to carry him everywhere.

And not the snakelings, who would be thrilled and terrified in equal measure and would never leave him alone again.

Alex took a breath, let it out slowly. The morning air was cool and clean, carrying the scent of wet earth and new grass. Somewhere behind him, the sanctuary was waking—the sounds of construction, of voices, of his family beginning their day.

He had to tell them. He knew he had to tell them. But every time he opened his mouth, the words stuck in his throat, tangled with the fear of what came next.

What if something goes wrong? What if the shadow comes before they’re born? What if I can’t protect them the way I protected the others?

The questions had no answers. Only the waiting.

Naga found him an hour later, still standing at the ridge’s edge.

The serpent lord moved without sound, his coils sliding through the grass like water over stone. But Alex felt him coming—the shift in the air, the warmth of his presence, the bond that hummed between them even when System was silent.

Naga settled beside him without speaking first. That was one of the things Alex had learned to love about him—the understanding that some silences needed to be inhabited before they could be broken.

They stood together for a long moment, watching the valley.

Then Naga said, quietly: "How long have you known?"

Alex’s breath caught.

"That obvious?"

"To me." Naga’s tongue flickered out, tasting the air with the casual intimacy of something he’d done a thousand times. "You smell different. You’ve smelled different for almost a week. Everyone knows. I was waiting for you to tell me."

"You’ve been waiting."

"I wanted you to be ready." Naga’s coils shifted, one loop settling around Alex’s waist with the gentle weight of something that wasn’t restraint. "I also may have told Leo to stop asking why you’ve been spending so much time at the ridge edge, because he was about two days from asking directly and I thought you needed more time."

Alex laughed, short and surprised. "You were running interference."

"I was giving you space." A pause.

Alex leaned back into the contact, let the weight of Naga’s coils settle around him. The cold stones in his pouch pressed against his hip. The warmth in his belly pressed back.

"More than one," he said.

Naga was still.

"I can feel them. I don’t know how many yet. More than one." Alex’s voice was steady, which surprised him. "I don’t know whose. The heat—it was all four of them. Any of them could—it might be multiple fathers. I don’t know. If system were here, it would’ve already— "

"It doesn’t matter," Naga said, and the words were immediate, without hesitation. "They’re ours."

"You don’t even know—"

"Ours," Naga repeated. "The same way the six already are. The same way everything that comes from you is ours. That’s what we are."

The simplicity of it hit Alex somewhere behind the sternum.

"I’m scared," he said.

"I know."

"The shadow is still out there. The stones are dormant. System is gone. I’m carrying children in the middle of something that hasn’t finished, and I don’t—I don’t know how to protect them. I couldn’t protect the last ones well enough. Granite had to raise them for four years. What if this time—"

"Alex." Naga turned, and Alex turned with him, because the coil didn’t let him do otherwise, and they were face to face in the morning light. Naga’s eyes were the deep, still green of water beneath the surface, steady and absolute. "Look at our children."

"They’re back at the sanctuary—"

"They’re fine. They’re loud and they climb things and Siddy is probably already trying to dismantle something." A pause. "That’s not what I meant. Look at what they are. Look at what they became, with Granite and Zale and me and the wolves who kept watch and each other. They grew up without us for four years, and they are—"

He stopped. "They are extraordinary. Not despite the circumstances. Because of them. Because they learned early that family is something you build out of what you have, with whoever stays."

Alex’s throat tightened.

"These children," Naga continued, "will never know a world without a sanctuary. They will never grow up in a cave waiting for a parent who might not return. They will be born into something you built. Something we built." His coil tightened, just slightly. "That’s different."

"You don’t know that something won’t go wrong."

"No. I know it might. I also know we’re going to fight very hard to make sure it doesn’t." He pressed his forehead to Alex’s, the gentle touch that was as close as a serpent could come to the gesture. "Tell me what you need."

Alex closed his eyes. Felt the morning air. Felt the warmth in his belly, the small fluttering certainties of lives beginning.

"I need to tell the others," he said. "Today. Before I lose my nerve again."

"Yes."

"And then we need to figure out the shadow. The stones. System. We need to figure all of it out before they—before it’s—"

"Before they arrive," Naga said simply. "Yes. That’s the plan."