The omega and her triplet mates (the kids!)

Chapter 1: College drama

Anita

I was trying to read in the playroom, curling myself into the corner of the room on the floor, but it was impossible to focus. The room felt too full and the children were too loud, their high-pitched shrieking and laughter bouncing off the walls, toys clattering across the floor in sharp, unpredictable bursts of sound.

Plastic blocks clicked together, something electronic beeped incessantly and the television droned in the background, its noise blending into everything else until I could feel a meltdown coming on.

Three years had passed by since Linda had joined our family and had twins, or more accurately, a heteropaternal superfecundation pregnancy resulting in my half brothers Joshua and Jasper.

I was nineteen now, and with Linda’s help I had learned to know when to remove myself from a situation that would bring on a meltdown, so I grabbed my book, clutching it to my chest like an anchor, got up, and left the room. The noise followed me into the hallway for a moment, muffled shouts, the thud of little feet, but with each step up the stairs the noise slowly faded.

I went up to my room, and the quiet helped, it felt good. The air felt still here, undisturbed. My curtains were half drawn, letting in soft, diffused light that didn’t hurt my eyes. Everything was where I had left it, orderly, predictable. Safe.

I was more severe with my autism than Linda was, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t live independently like she could. I was a woman now, and Linda had helped me so much with learning how to manage things.

My speech had improved too, although I did still struggle with speech and communication, words sometimes got stuck, tangled between my thoughts and my mouth, or disappeared altogether especially when I was overwhelmed. My Dada, Jax, thought that meant I would never be able to be independent or have relationships.

I don’t think any of my parents believed I could, but Linda did, and that meant so much to me. Just because I couldn’t communicate perfectly or talk at times didn’t mean I lacked understanding or the ability to think for myself or make my own decisions, just like everyone else.

I wasn’t stupid, I knew I was more vulnerable than others, but I could still consent to things and decide for myself, and I wanted a boyfriend, a mate just like my sister Elena. Even Lucas had a girlfriend, I wanted to be like them and live my life.

I knew Dada wasn’t going to let me live my life alone any time soon, especially when I still leaned on him and Mum for support for things like dressing myself or bath time.

I could dress myself, it was just that sometimes I would feel too overwhelmed to do it, clothes scratched or clung in the wrong places, seams felt like they were cutting into my skin. Sometimes I just didn’t feel like struggling for almost ten minutes just to put some clothes on because of the way they felt.

I inwardly sighed when my bedroom door burst open, Dada was the only one who ever did that.

“There you f*****g are come and have dinner,” he said.

I didn’t answer, hopefully he’d go away. He didn’t, he came and jumped on the bed, lying down beside me. “What you reading?”

“Go away.”

“f**k you too, Jesus.” He knocked the book from my hands, and whatever he saw on my face quickly had him picking it up and handing it back to me. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have done that, but you do need to come down and have dinner.”

“I want to read.”

“Bring it with you.”

Sighing, I got up off the bed, and grinning, he dropped his arm around my shoulders as soon as I stood, heavy and warm, pulling me into his side. “Good girl, I love you.” He kissed the top of my head, and then he got distracted by Linda. He ran down the stairs and grabbed her up into a hug.

“Jax!” She squealed, her laughter bright and surprised as he lifted her off her feet. He kissed her on the lips and put her back down. “Love you, beautiful,” he murmured. She blushed while I inwardly rolled my eyes and walked into the kitchen.

The kitchen smelt warm, rich and comforting. Something savoury and roasted filled the air. It wrapped around me as I stepped inside and my stomach rumbled.

I blushed when I saw Nick. I called him Daddy, but he wasn’t biologically related to me, and I’d developed a crush on him. I couldn’t help it, he was just so good-looking and big and strong. He had dark blonde hair which caught the lights so I could see the lighter tones running through, a chiseled jawline just like Henry cavill, and he had beautiful piercing green eyes with golden flecks running through them that seemed to catch every bit of light in the room and if that wasn’t pretty enough he had a golden rim that made everything stand out more strikingly.

I tried not to stare at his perfect muscular body under the white muscle-fit t-shirt he was wearing, but it was hard, especially when his muscles rippled and bunched whenever he moved his arms. I ran into his arms and hugged him. “Daddy Nick!”

“Hey baby, ready for dinner?” He asked.

I nodded, smiling up at him. He was always kind to me, but he was mean and scary to the adults. Mum was used to it by now, but sometimes he still made Linda cry, and they argued a lot. I don’t think they were getting on at the moment.

I sat next to Nick and put my hand on his thigh. He stilled. He took hold of my hand, and lifting it up, he kissed the back of it. “We’ve talked about this, Anita, it’s not appropriate for you to do that.”

“But I love you.”

“I love you too babe, you can hug me, sit on my lap, I don’t mind, but your hand on my thigh isn’t allowed.”

“Why not?”

I saw him struggling to think of how to explain, Linda had been helping me to read people’s facial expressions better after Mum had helped her.

“It’s something that adults usually do if they are romantically involved with one another.”

“It’s just a leg.”

He laughed and said, “I know, but it would be weird if people saw you doing it.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m your dad.”

“No, you’re not. Jax is my dada, you aren’t related to me.”

I felt bad when he looked down at the table and nodded. I’d hurt his feelings. Another problem I had was being too blunt and honest.

“Me sorry,” I whispered.

He smiled and held my hand. “Don’t be. You’re right, but I’ve helped bring you up since you were eight. You’re as much my little girl as Luna is. I love you like a daughter.”

That’s not what I wanted to hear at all, the words sat dull and heavy in my chest, but I knew he was right, plus I did see him as a father too, even if my feelings had gotten confused along the way. After that I stopped crushing on him, it wasn’t right. I needed to find someone who wasn’t taken and who wasn’t part of my family.

I just didn’t know how though. I wanted to ask Elena, but she barely gave me the time of day. She was always staring at her phone and typing, her fingers moving quickly across the screen, her attention elsewhere entirely. If I tried to talk to her, she would sigh, shush me and walk into another room.

Elena was super girly, she was my triplet, so like me, she was nineteen, now almost twenty. She was always wearing lovely outfits— dresses, skirts, and crop tops. She liked wearing high heels too, but not always, sometimes she would wear a dress with some shoe trainers. It felt like we existed in completely different worlds.

Romulus was her biological father, and she was like the female version of him, always dressing their best. Elena had straight dark brown hair that ran down to her waist and dark blue eyes like her dad, she had hints of golden flecks running through them.

Her skin was a very light milky cocoa colour. Lucas, our other triplet, had a skin tone that was similar but lighter, like he had a good tan. I guess he took more after Fenris there, but he had brown eyes like Mum with Fenris’ golden flecks running through.

He had dark brown hair that could be mistaken for black, and it was wavy. He usually styled it into a tousled mess. At nineteen, he was almost 6’2” in height and muscular.

He had almost as much muscle as our dads, and he never struggled getting girlfriends or friends. Both Lucas and Elena were popular, even at the college we all went to now.

I didn’t have any friends. The college campus always felt too big when I walked through it alone, there were too many people, too many voices overlapping, laughter and conversations, footsteps echoing across concrete. The smell of coffee from the cafe mixed with cigarette smoke from the students gathered outside was sharp and unpleasant.

There was a section of the college that was for people with disabilities, that’s where I went for my English and maths. I didn’t do so well in school, so I was redoing them here.

There were others who had autism, but none of them struggled as much as me. A lot of the time you would never know they had it, kind of like Linda.

There were students who had physical disabilities too, but they already had their own group of friends, and because of my struggle with speech I think like most people they just assumed things about me, like I was childlike, that my mind hadn’t caught up and therefore couldn’t join in with their conversations.

It wasn’t true though, slowly I had caught up to my mental age, I wasn’t sure if it was natural or due to the help of my werewolf genes, either way I was able to do the same things as every other nineteen year old, perhaps I was a little behind, maybe the mental age of an eighteen year old, but that was still an adult so my parents couldn’t stop me having a boyfriend if I wanted one, I didn’t like any of the boys at college though, so I wasn’t sure how I would find one.

I was at college now, and when we had break time, I went out to find Elena, I didn’t like being on my own. The air outside was cooler, a light breeze brushed against my skin as I stepped out. Groups of students were scattered everywhere, laughing, talking, sitting on benches or leaning against walls.

I found her with her group of friends and her new boyfriend. She had broken up with Charlie when they left school, now she was dating someone called Tom.

He always wore a leather jacket, slightly worn, he had messy brown hair that was shaved round the sides and longer on top, he smoked too and it clung to his jacket stale even from a distance. Elena seemed to like his bad boy persona.

“Elena!” I called out. Her shoulders tensed and I heard her groan before she turned to look at me. Her friends giggled when I came over, and one cooed, “aww your sister’s cute.”

They all thought I had the mental age of a child, and I knew that was why I embarrassed Elena. When I went to flap my hands, she quickly grabbed them and pulled me aside. “Anita, go somewhere else.”

“But I want to be with you,” I said, my chest tightening. “I don’t want to stand by myself.”

“I’ll hang with you later at home.”

“I don’t want to be on my own.”

“Find some friends then, I’m busy with mine. Go away,” she hissed.

I pulled my hands from hers and flapped them. I was upset, it hurt my feelings that she didn’t want to spend time with me, and I knew she wouldn’t at home either. I tried to follow her back to her group of friends, but she yelled, “leave me alone!”

Heat rushed to my face.

Tom came over and said, “go on, Elena doesn’t want you around right now.”

“I want Elena.” I went to tug her arm, but Tom pushed me. It wasn’t very hard, but I lost my footing and fell on my butt. The impact jarred through me, sharp and embarrassing.

Embarrassed and feeling hurt, I cried. One thing I was still learning was how to manage my meltdowns and regulate myself. People stared, whispered and some laughed.

Lucas must have been nearby because he came running over and punched Tom in the face. “Don’t you ever f.ucking touch my sister!” He snarled. He turned to glare at Elena. “You’re sick. She’s our sister, and you shouldn’t treat her like that.”

“I just didn’t want her hanging out with me and my friends,” she argued.

“You should look after her, not embarrass her, you’ve become such a spoilt little b.itch,” Lucas snarled. He turned his back on her and bent down and helped me to my feet. “Come on, sis, you can chill with me.”

“Won’t embarrass you?” I cried.

“Course not, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about, don’t cry.” He wiped my tears with his sleeve, then slung his arm around my shoulders, leading me to his own group of friends. “My sister’s gonna join us, guys. Elena’s being a b.itch to her again.”

“Aw, yeah, alright, come sit with us, Anita,” Charlie said, one of Lucas’ male friends. He had bright ginger hair and freckles.

There were some girls in the group, and I noticed two of them batting their eyes at Lucas. Maybe his girlfriend noticed too because she linked her arm through his and cuddled in against him.

“You made Tom bleed,” someone said, and the group laughed as they watched Tom holding his nose while Elena mothered him.

“Yeah, not so f.ucking tough,” Lucas mumbled.

I folded my arms to try to stop myself from flapping my hands, Lucas noticed, and while the group were busy talking, he ruffled my hair and murmured, “you alright?”

I nodded, managing a small smile and he gave me one of his rare smiles back. Lucas was a good brother to me, I was lucky to have him.