by Leta Blake
“You’re going to lock me in!” Caleb shouted again, struggling against Urho’s grip when he reached down to try to haul him up. “Help me. Please help me. I don’t want this at all—I don’t want it. I don’t want it with a stranger.”
“Shh. I hear you, I understand. I promise, I won’t get a stranger.”
Caleb drooped against him. “Thank you, Urho. Thank you.”
Urho rocked him, surprised at how thin Caleb felt, how fragile in comparison to Xan, who was more solid than he looked. He smoothed his hand through Caleb’s hair and groaned when more slick released, perfuming the air around them and making his mouth water.
At that moment, Ren walked past Caleb’s open door holding a wastebasket and wearing a grimace.
“Ren,” Urho called out. Ren halted at the door and stared in, wide-eyed. Urho held his gaze firmly. “Call the city until you reach Xan. His home there, his office, his family’s house. The residences of friends or family. His brother’s place.” Urho swallowed hard, but made himself add, “Call the house of Wilbet Monhundy, too, if you don’t reach him anywhere else.”
“Yes, of course, Dr. Chase. I’ll do it at once.” Ren’s eyes went wide at the sight of Caleb’s flushed skin and dilated eyes. “Flu?” he asked worriedly.
“Heat,” Urho said, his cock twitching as even more slick slipped from Caleb’s asshole. Caleb twitched restlessly in his arms, his cheeks flushed and his eyes glassy.
“Oh, wolf-god,” Ren replied, panic registering on his face. “I’ll call right away. At once.” He rushed off, muttering, “Oh fucking wolf-hell below.” The string of curses didn’t stop, echoing as he raced down the hallway.
“Caleb? I need you to let go of me. I’m going to get the alpha dildo Xan keeps in his closet.”
Caleb shuddered against him. “Knot me. I need it.”
“Not yet, sweetheart. Let’s give Xan a chance to get here.” He squeezed his eyes shut, his throat dry. There was no way. Xan was a three-hour train ride away and no one knew where he was in the city. The first big wave was going to hit Caleb soon. Very soon. Any second, really. And then…
He wondered where all the beta servants were now when he needed them. They’d been practically swarming the halls since Janus had been sick and the detached wing evacuated. But now, there was no one. He had more assignments to hand out, more messages to pass on, and he was trapped on Caleb’s floor cradling his hot body, praying for a miracle.
Carefully, Urho unwound Caleb’s arms and stood. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
Caleb moaned and commenced rubbing against the carpet again. Urho tried to smile reassuringly, but his gut ached as he headed down the connecting passage, past the bathrooms and closets, into Xan’s room.
“I’m too old for all of this,” he muttered to himself. “Riki, you and I should have been retired to the beach by now. Just look at me.” He almost laughed then, but sobered when he realized it was the first time he’d spoken to Riki since he’d come to Virona.
He shoved those thoughts aside and ransacked Xan’s closet, finally locating the alpha dildo. He’d seen it the first time one night after making love. Xan had the bright idea of having Urho restrain him with one of his ties for the next go-round, and the dildo had fallen out of the closet when he’d gone in search of a sartorial choice Xan approved of. Apparently he couldn’t be tied down by just any tie. He’d asked Xan about the dildo after the next set of orgasms, and he’d been told that, while it was a tempting toy, it was reserved for use during Caleb’s heat.
Urho was relieved to have it now. Maybe he could stall for three or four hours until Xan had a chance to arrive. Hopefully Ren was having better luck finding him than Urho had had the night before.
“Sir! He’s running, sir!” A beta servant Urho recognized as being one of the housekeepers burst into the room. “Ren told us to keep an eye on Mr. Riggs, and, sir, he’s running.”
“Fuck me sideways,” Urho grunted, tossing the dildo to the servant. “Put that in his room.” Then he took off down the corridor at top speed.
He caught up to Caleb in the great hall. He’d almost reached the front door.
“No, no, no,” Caleb yelled as Urho wrapped his arms around his waist and hauled him up in the air. “I don’t want this. I don’t want it.” He shivered and shook, his heart pounding fast as a rabbit’s beneath Urho’s hands.
“I know, darling, but there’s no way to stop it now, and you won’t be safe out there. Please, trust me. I want to take care of you.”
Caleb started to sob, but he collapsed against Urho’s chest. “You won’t lock me in with a stranger?”
“No, I promise. I promise, sweetheart.”
“I want Xan.” Caleb whimpered, his tears dampening Urho’s shirt.
“We’re looking for him.”
“I want him here with me.”
“I know.”
“He’s my alpha.”
“He’d want to be here, Caleb. He didn’t know.” More like he’d forgotten between Janus and his pater’s illness.
Caleb nodded and snuffled. “I didn’t remind him. I wanted to think it wouldn’t come.”
Urho sighed, carrying his lover’s omega upstairs carefully, a terrible weight settling on his chest. This man was his responsibility now. He’d promised, and he had to carry it out.
Caleb relaxed in his arms. “I trust you,” he whispered.
“Thank you,” Urho said, and kissed the side of Caleb’s head. “I’ll try to make it enjoyable for you.”
“I just want knots to make this agony stop. I don’t care about the rest.”
Urho squeezed him tighter.
As he took a right instead of a left at the top of the stairs, he thought he heard odd sounds coming from the guest room wing. Jason’s voice raised in concern, and then a sharp cry from Vale. Caleb moaned against him. Sweat erupted on Urho’s forehead and in the small of his back.
Another pained cry, different from the noises Vale had been making earlier, more urgent and scared, came as Urho fumbled getting Caleb’s room open. He helped him toward the bathroom, his heart pumping hard.
“Listen to me,” he said, as calmly as possible. “I want you to take a bath with the water as cold as you can stand to help keep the heat at bay.” Another scream from the opposite side of the house. And a shout of worry from Jason. “There’s something going on with Vale and the baby. But I’ll be right back.”
Caleb nodded, letting Urho put him on his feet on the tiled bathroom floor. He turned on the cold water, sweat running down the side of his face and giving off pheromones that Urho could barely stand to ignore, even with the alpha quell.
He turned to go, but Caleb grabbed his arm.
“The alpha dildo,” Caleb grunted as he tore his clothes off like they were on fire. His pale skin gleamed in the sun rushing in at the bathroom windows. It shone like some kind of cheerful devil in the face of the calamity Urho sensed coming.
“Of course.” He raced back into Caleb’s room to find the thick, wide dildo with a massive knot at the base placed in the middle of the bed, where the beta servant had left it. It was larger than Urho’s own cock and knot, but it wouldn’t be enough long term. Caleb would need to be knotted by an actual alpha.
The muffled urgency and cries of pain from Vale’s room grew louder. Urho’s heart pounded and his mouth went dry as his mind raced urgently for a solution to the obvious crisis coming at him full-speed and straight ahead.
He returned to the bathroom. Caleb had slipped into the bath while waiting, and his pale skin was almost blue as his teeth chattered. Urho handed him the dildo.
“Use it if it will help,” he said. “I have to check on Vale.”
“I know. I hear him.” Caleb shuddered in the cold water. His eyes were calmer and less glassy than before, and Urho breathed a sigh of relief that the cold water was helping.
Jason burst into the bathroom, a towel over his mouth and nose to protect him from Caleb’s pheromones. Even so his pan
ts were stiff with his erection. “Urho! There’s something wrong. Vale’s really hurting. I think the baby’s coming!”
“I know,” Urho barked. He held up the dildo. “Let me get Caleb situated and I’ll come check on Vale right away. Get out.”
Jason’s eyes were wide as he hustled from the bathroom and back into the passage. He called over his shoulder, “Urho! Hurry! It’s bad.”
“I’m coming!” Urho shouted. He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself, to be the suitable, soothing alpha an omega needed during the start of their heat. “Use the dildo if you need it,” he said as calmly as possible, but his voice trembled. “Hopefully, I won’t be long.”
At the word hopefully, all of Caleb’s hard-won calm evaporated in a clear rush of panic. “Don’t let me suffer,” he begged suddenly, his eyes glassy and his voice shot through with anxiety. His teeth chattered from the cool water he’d poured into the tub. “Please. Don’t leave me alone to hurt.”
Urho groaned. The scent of Caleb’s oncoming heat was maddening, and his cock strained against his pants. He took a slow, deep breath, determined to keep his wits about him. “I’ll help you, Caleb. I promise. But I need to handle this crisis with Vale first. Use the dildo.”
Caleb stared at the fat dildo still in his hand and shuddered violently. “I’m cold. But I’m too hot. I want out. I need to be in bed. I want to be in bed.” He splashed the water around agitatedly, wetting the floor and Urho’s pants.
Urho brushed a soothing hand into Caleb’s soft hair. “Calm down,” he said firmly, infusing his voice with dominance and all the certainty he didn’t feel. “Do as you’re commanded. Use the dildo.”
A cry from Vale’s room echoed down the corridors separating them, and Urho’s heart thumped hard. He needed to go. He didn’t want to leave Caleb to suffer, but what choice did he have? They needed another doctor as soon as possible. And there was Janus to consider too.
“I’ll be back.” He dropped a reassuring kiss on Caleb’s hair and rushed from the bathroom before he changed his mind.
Vale leaned his weight on the footboard of his bed and breathed shallowly. His eyes closed and his expression intense, everything about him was turned inward. He even ignored Urho and Jason’s questions as he shifted from foot to foot, moaning and groaning.
It didn’t take a full physical evaluation for Urho to become certain that inducing labor wasn’t going to be necessary now—Vale was already in it, and perhaps had been for several hours. The start to labor could be very sudden in omegas, and the pains he’d been experiencing might have been hidden contractions.
Urho berated himself silently for missing the signs. He’d been so intent on keeping the baby in that he hadn’t given any thought to the baby’s opinion on coming out.
“It’s time, isn’t it?” Jason said, his face pale and his eyes shocked. He stood beside Vale, one hand on his back, and his entire body shaking in fear.
“Yes. The babe’s on his way.”
“What do we do now?” Jason asked.
Urho rubbed a hand over his face and left the room. In the hallway again, he tore to the head of the stairs and yelled for help until two beta servants ran into the great hall, expressions of terror on their face.
“Call a doctor from the town,” Urho said. “Tell him that he’s needed here at once. We’ve got a very sick man succumbing to the flu, an omega in labor, and another omega going into heat.”
The betas gasped. One broke free and ran off to follow his instructions.
“Has anyone heard from Mr. Heelies? Is he on his way?”
The servants shook their heads.
“I’m going to need hot water, towels, and alpha condoms. Does anyone know if there are alpha condoms on the premises?” He had three in his doctor’s bag, but in the throes of heat, they wouldn’t last very long.
The servants conferred between them. “We don’t know, sir. We’ll run to the village for some.”
He nodded, trying to think of what else he needed. It felt unbearably wrong to take care of Caleb without Xan being here, and yet he couldn’t leave him in agony. Neither Caleb nor Xan would forgive him for that. He tried to imagine knotting Caleb and then racing down the halls to deliver Vale’s baby, but the absurdity was too much. Yes, calling the doctor was the right thing to do.
“Well, go!” he shouted at the remaining betas below. “Call the doctor! Boil the water! Buy condoms! We’re going to need all of it immediately!”
The betas scampered, calling between themselves orders as to who was to fetch what. At that moment, Ren appeared in the great hall below, a worried expression on his face.
“You can’t locate Xan,” Urho guessed.
Ren shook his head. “He left his father’s home yesterday late at night and no one has seen or heard from him since.”
“Did you try Wilbet Monhundy’s house?” he barked, gripping the bannister to hold his gorge down. The thought of Xan going to that man, of asking to be hurt again… He shook the thought free. He couldn’t cope with that right now. Not with everything else going on.
“Yes, but there was no answer.”
“Try again.”
“Dr. Chase, it’s worse. The epidemic in the city has progressed to the point that they’ve closed down train services in an attempt to contain the infection. Even if I reached Mr. Heelies, he’d have to drive here and that would take nearly six hours.”
Urho cursed softly. “Keep calling anyway. After you organize those betas. I need hot water, condoms, and at least one doctor. Maybe two if you can get the village to spare a second.”
“Two?”
“One for Janus and one for Vale. I’m going to have to deal with Caleb, so…”
“Mr. Aman is in labor?”
“Yes.” Urho shook his head hard. He pressed his fingers to his eyes and tried to think of how to solve all the new crises, and how he could possibly be everywhere at once.
“Wolf-god,” Ren said sharply. “What a mess.”
That seemed an understatement of vast proportions.
“Speaking of Vale, I need to get back to him now.” Cries of pain from both wings echoed through the house. Urho swiped a hand over his sweaty forehead. “Then I need to get back to Caleb.” He pinned Ren with his gaze. “I’m trusting you to do your level best to get at least one doctor up here immediately, and please keep looking for Xan. Set one of the other servants to it, if necessary. Call any place in the city you can think of—bars he might go to, friends’ houses. Try Yosef and Rosen. Try the Monhundys again.”
“Yes, Dr. Chase,” Ren said, though he looked a bit green around the gills with terror. “I’ll do whatever I can. But what about Mr. Riggs, sir? If we can’t get a doctor up here in time, should I ask in town for an alpha surrogate?”
Urho gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. He’d promised Caleb not to lock him up with a stranger. And he wasn’t going to break that promise. But, wolf-god help him if that meant Caleb ended up suffering.
“No. Mr. Riggs specifically asked that we not do that.”
Ren paled but nodded. “I’ll see to the rest.”
Grateful for Ren’s dependability, Urho fled back down the hall to his own room, where he grabbed his medical bag and sent up frantic prayers to wolf-god. He took deep breaths to banish any memories of Riki’s birth. There would be no repeat of that trauma, not for Vale and Jason. Not for him. The babe would come healthy and strong, and Vale would come through it beautifully.
Calmer after his quick prayers, he walked back to Vale’s room. He was glad to see that Vale was wearing nothing but a robe. That would make it easier to examine him. He was still standing, this time by the window, eyes closed and breathing hard through a contraction. Jason stood next to him, blue eyes wide with worry, but he kept a steady, firm hand on Vale’s arm, making sure he didn’t collapse.
“This is going faster than I expected,” Jason said as Urho entered. “He’s really hurting.”
Urho nodded, opening his bag and pul
ling out a syringe. He filled it with a relaxant related to alpha quell and set it aside. It was for Jason, should anything go wrong. “The scar tissue isn’t as flexible,” Urho muttered. “The birth will likely be more painful than usual.” And births were always plenty painful enough.
Jason paled, and Vale simply cursed before he gripped the windowsill even harder and whimpered. The contractions were coming in fast waves, apparently. Urho blinked in surprise. It was usually slower for a first birth.
“Are you going to be all right?” Urho whispered to Jason. “You need to stay steady for him.”
“I’m fine,” Jason lied. He was pale and obviously terrified, but he rubbed Vale’s back. “I’m great. Besides, you’ll be here with us. You’ll help him.”
Urho motioned toward the bed, ignoring the statement. “See if you can get him to lie down on his left side. I need to have a look at his passage to see how quickly his womb is opening.” If it wasn’t opening to match the speed of contractions, it could be a problem. The baby’s head would be bashed against the mouth of the womb by the force of the contractions, and that could cause trauma, facial bruising, or worse.
Urho turned to the bathroom attached to the room and washed his hands in hot water as Jason tried to get Vale onto the bed.
“I don’t want to,” Vale said stubbornly. “I feel better standing up.”
“But Urho needs to examine you, baby. Please. Just for a few minutes. I’ll be right here with you the whole time.”
Vale shot him a glare that brooked no argument. “I will not. I want to stand. I will stand.”
Urho interrupted. “It’s all right. There’s a flashlight in my medical bag. I can check him while he’s upright if you help him to lift his leg up onto this chair.” It would be harder, but nothing about the day looked like it was going to be easy.
A pained scream came from across the house. Then a massive crash, something large enough to rattle the entire upper floor. Vale hissed and then cried out, another contraction wracking him.
