Another shock of pain tore through his stomach and he groaned out loud now.
Behind him, he felt a sudden cold as Tristan leaped up and out of bed, his blue eyes wide and blazing. Still mostly asleep, the alpha swung his head around as if searching for something to attack. Then, after a moment or two, he noticed Jack twisted up in agony on his bed.
“Jack!” he gasped, tenderness and fear in his voice. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Jack opened his mouth to tell him, and then he shut it again immediately. He still hadn’t told Tristan anything about the pregnancy at all and doing it now would only make this whole entire situation so much worse.
Instead, he just groaned again. “My stomach...”
“Should I get Agatha?”
Jack felt movement inside of him and groaned a third time. The cub was restless in his body, and the addition of Tristan’s panic wasn’t doing him any good. He was about to snap something out when an even bigger jolt of pain tore through his body like ripping claws. Darkness rolled in over him, and all he could do was squeeze his eyes tightly shut and beg for oblivion.
Very dimly, he was aware of Tristan picking him up and hurrying through the cabin, out into camp and in the direction of Agatha’s clinic. The sky was dark, but Jack couldn’t focus enough to figure out what time it was. The darkness behind his eyelids was a much more comforting source to focus on, and he held to it as tightly as he could. Nausea tore through him and he switched his focus to holding down his dinner, his mouth filling with sour liquid.
Don’t throw up. Don’t.
Quickly, they arrived at the clinic, and Tristan thrust his shoulder into the door to force it open. A short snarl greeted their arrival as Agatha noticed them from where she was curled up in her own bed, separated from the short row of others by a privacy curtain.
Jack managed to swallow back the urge to vomit and he lifted his head up slightly. Agatha was staring at him with fear stark in her eyes. She wore a fluffy nightgown and her hair was done up in pink curlers.
“Tristan! Jack! What are you doing here? What’s wrong?”
The older woman shoved herself up from her low bed. Her joints creaked and popped furiously as she moved, heading over to the wall to flip on the lights. Her clinic was as clean and white as ever, although she had added a few vases of flowers here and there since Jack had last been inside. He told her that it might help to alleviate her patients’ fears if the room was a little more personable, and apparently she’d taken him up on it.
Flowers were a start, but he would have to tell her what would really work later on because just then another tremor shook through his painful stomach.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” Tristan growled with fear in his voice, clutching at Jack. “I woke up and he was in pain. Tell me what’s wrong with him!”
Jack was dimly aware of being poked at by Agatha, and then the older woman directed Tristan to set him down on one of the beds. He did so and then backed away, running one hand worriedly through his hair.
“Well?” Tristan demanded.
Agatha ignored him. “Jack, look at me,” she implored. Her steely eyes were very intense, and Jack found it easy to focus on them when they were already hooking him in. She narrowed her eyes slightly and nodded towards Tristan, quite obviously asking whether or not he’d told the alpha.
As subtly as he could, Jack shook his head.
Agatha looked up. “Get out.” Her voice was curt.
Tristan bristled and snarled, shoving his way in closer to his mate and crowding him. Jack held out one hand to stop him. “Do what she says,” he said angrily. “I’m okay, I just need you to leave.”
“Jack...”
He really does care about me. He’s a good mate.
Jack gave a wobbly smile. “You’re a gross pervert, trying to see me without my clothes on again.”
For a moment, Tristan just stared at him. Then, his shoulders slumped and all the fight went out of him. “Fine. I’ll be right outside. Agatha, you had better not let anything happen to him or I swear you will regret it.”
The doctor paid him no attention at all, and he left after a moment.
Alone now, Jack stared up at Agatha. He was terrified, and he could smell the sour fear scent pouring from his body. “How bad is it?”
“Jack...”
“Am I losing the baby?”
“Jack, calm down!” Now, Agatha just looked annoyed. “I don’t think anything is wrong with you, but you have to be quiet and let me examine you, anyway.”
Lying down flat felt like the hardest thing Jack had ever done. He desperately wanted to stay curled up in a ball, but then Agatha threatened to tie his limbs to the bedposts until he gave in.
“Just breathe,” the doctor said, getting out a stethoscope. The freezing metal pressing on his skin felt somehow comforting instead of shocking, but it didn’t really do much to combat the pain inside him. “You ate dinner?”
“If I was fucking hungry, I wouldn’t be hurting,” Jack snarled irritably. Pain was getting the best of him and he knew it. “Yes, I ate my damn dinner!”
“You took your pills?”
“Yes! Ow!”
Agatha pressed down lightly against his stomach, feeling the ridges of his barely-present abs. They used to be more pronounced than that!
“Is it swollen up?” Jack asked fearfully.
“One more question, Jack. That’s all, and then I’ll have an answer for you. Have you fallen or anything recently?”
“No!” he barked.
An expression of relief crossed the doctor’s face. She removed her stethoscope and let it dangle about her neck like an unflattering necklace. Jack wished bitterly that he could look as calm and relaxed as her. “Your stomach isn’t swollen at all.”
“But...”
The doctor’s voice was light and almost teasing. “You’re putting on baby weight, sweetie. It’s a combination of fat and not being able to move around very well when you were injured.”
Suddenly, he blushed. The pain fell away for a moment as his embarrassment took over. “Oh.”
“You’ll see your abs again after you give birth,” Agatha promised, laughter sparkling in her eyes.
Jack reached out and lightly punched her shoulder. “Then, what’s wrong with me?”
Agatha rubbed her shoulder, and then reached down and softly patted his stomach. “Nothing is wrong with you. You’re having contractions. That’s all.”
“What?” he exclaimed. “Is...is the baby coming now? I haven’t even told Tristan yet!”
“No! Let me finish! When you’re pregnant, your body has to do a lot of things in order to accommodate and prepare for a baby. Your little one is safe and sound, growing in a womb made just for her. The contractions are like...body practice. Your body is practicing having a baby. These are the first ones you’ve had?”
Jack nodded and groaned as the motion made the room spin.
“These are only going to be painful for a little while longer. I promise. It’s the first time and your body isn’t prepared yet. They’ll go away shortly, and the next time you have them, they won’t hurt. It’ll just be unpleasant.”
“Great,” he moaned. “But how do I make it stop and feel better now? Aspirin?”
“No!” Agatha said firmly. “Anything you have will also be given to the baby and that’s not good! No, exercise will help.”
“But...Aggy...”
“I know,” the doctor said impatiently. “It hurts and you don’t want to. Well, I’m telling you that I don’t care what you want to do. Getting your body exercised and relaxed will help with the pain. Or do you want to sit around in my clinic for the rest of the night and whine?”
“But...Tristan...”
Her sharp eyes softened slightly. “Don’t worry about him. I won’t tell him anything as long as you promise to listen to me from now on, okay? Go. Exercise. Take a walk through the forest and tell me how it feels when you come back. But don’t go
far.”
“Okay...”
Grumbling and weary, Jack pushed himself to his feet. The heavy weight in his stomach nearly knocked him over, but his awareness of it caused him to suddenly feel almost overwhelmed with protectiveness.
I’m glad it’s okay. I wonder if it’s going to be a boy or a girl?
That brought along the next thought, that he should really pick a time to tell Tristan about what was going on.
Stumbling off into the darkness of the forest, Jack placed his hands below his stomach to help with some of the awkwardness of walking. His balance was thrown off by the baby, and he felt like he was going to fall at any moment. Plus, the pain was still going strong, nearly making him fall over anyway every single time a contraction shook through him.
It was difficult, almost impossible, to keep putting one foot in front of the other. He barely even knew what was going on in the forest around him, only dimly aware of where he was. Every tree looked the same, and the darkness pressed in around him. Crickets whirred through the night, and he heard the distinct hiss of a snake somewhere nearby.
Above him, an owl hooted. The sound was long and low, almost as though the bird felt sympathy for his plight.
“This sucks,” he muttered out loud, but kept trudging along. The ground started to rise in front of him, and he turned abruptly to avoid having to deal with that. He could barely walk. Walking uphill was definitely out of the question.
The owl hooted again, and it was like that was some sort of cue for nature to align itself perfectly. The pain fell away slightly, cut by what felt like half.
Jack sucked in a great breath of air, relieved and sagging. “You’re going to cause me a lot more trouble before this is over with, aren’t you?” he murmured, patting his stomach. Another contraction rolled through him in answer, but the pain was manageable. The blue light inside his soul, the light of his child, seemed to bubble in response to his voice.
Almost purring with satisfaction, relieved now that the pain was over, Jack straightened up and looked around himself. That was when he noticed just how far he had gone from the camp. He was very nearly at the meadow where he had sex with Tristan for the first time.
“I guess maybe I should start heading back,” he said. The blue in his soul gave another bubbly little wobble; it had been doing that quite a lot lately, which was the reason he started talking out loud in the first place.
From nowhere, a very deep voice rumbled, “I don’t think you’ll be going anywhere, omega.”
Jack stopped in his track, fear freezing him to the spot. That voice...
Before his eyes, a lumbering shadow pulled away from the side of a tree trunk and stepped forward to reveal itself. It was George, the massive grizzly shifter.
Jack dropped his shoulders and let out a warning snarl. “These are my woods. My mountains! I’ll go anywhere I want.”
“Oh, really?” the grizzly said. He kept moving forward. Splashes of silver moonlight illuminated his face, catching in the curls of his plentiful hair. “I don’t think you’ll be able to get very far with a stomach like that, omega. Don’t they teach you wolves about protection?”
Fear coiled throughout his whole entire body, and he swallowed hard while placing both hands on his stomach. He can tell? Is it becoming obvious?
“Look at him! Hardly more than a pup, going to have a pup of his own!”
Jack spun to the right as a new voice spoke. A gigantic woman, her body composed of grotesque amounts of muscle, stepped out of the darkness.
“I bet he lets all the alphas think it’s theirs,” yet another voice rumbled. It was to the left that time, and another bear stepped forward. Jack tried to back away, but his body was frozen still. He couldn’t move. “I bet he slept with all of them. Horny little twink.”
From the shadows, more and more bears came. They were in front of and behind him, pressing in on him. Their reek filled his nostrils and choked him as they came closer and closer until he could have reached out in any direction and touched an enemy shifter.
They’re all alphas. Every single one of them.
George hadn’t moved an inch since the others began appearing, but he did now. He stepped forward and grabbed Jack’s wrists in his massive hands, moving with surprising speed.
“You’re coming with us,” he growled. “We won’t harm your child if you come willingly.”
Jack threw back his head, a howl in his throat.
A hard hand squeezed his wrist roughly, sending pain shooting up his arm. “No howling. No fighting. Come willingly.”
I don’t have any choice. I can’t let them hurt the baby!
Just as his mothering instincts had given him the strength to beat down an alpha male wolf, now they gave Jack the knowledge that it was in his best interest to be quiet and do what the bears said.
Chapter 16
Jack did not come home.
Tristan gave it exactly an hour before he started to panic. A short walk in the woods meant a short walk in the woods, not a foray up the mountainside!
Agatha had told him that Jack was having powerful stomach cramps, and that it was in his best interest to walk it off without medication that would interfere with his system. She had refused to explain why, and Tristan knew it was because of that damn secret that was being kept from him. Why no one was telling him anything was really starting to piss him off, to the point where he almost threatened Agatha with banishment unless she told him.
He didn’t do that. She was a strong member of his council, and he knew that she would rather be banished than to betray anyone’s trust. He had no choice but to deal with the situation as it was, which meant heading out on his own to search for his mate.
“Peter,” he said, eying the intelligent shapeshifter. “I need you to form a search party. Jack must be found. I refuse to let anything happen to him.”
Peter nodded. From the glazed look in his eyes it was apparent that he had already started thinking deeply on the subject. “I’ll send out two. They will be a mix of alphas and omegas each, for extra protection.”
Tristan nodded in return and growled. “Do it.”
He shifted into his white wolf form and took off down the mountain, throwing back his head and howling the call that would summon his mate. All wolves had a song for their mates, a special note that triggered something within the other; until now, Tristan had never given voice to his. For the past week or so, he had begun to feel as if Jack was actually his true mate instead of just a random omega that he picked up and claimed one fateful night. Perhaps he was Tristan’s true mate. Maybe that was how fate had played itself, bringing his mate here so that he could be found. He didn’t know. All he knew was that he was extremely terrified, and he was going to do everything he could to bring the omega home.
Dropping his nose to the ground, he raced back and forth to try and pick up some sign of a scent trail. He quickly found one, fresh but nearly lost beneath the green scents of the forest. Clouds were beginning to gather overhead, signaling rain; everything smelled damp and more luscious than usual, which made focusing that much more difficult.
If I don’t find him soon, all the scents will be washed away!
Barking and howling again, Tristan dropped his nose back to the ground and began to follow the scent of his mate as fast as he could. Inside his chest, in his soul, he also called out, but there was no answer.
The scent meandered here and there, pooling in places where the omega paused. Here, he had touched the side of a tree. And there, he had swerved around a rise in the ground.
Thunder rumbled overhead, and a drop of rain splashed cold on his snout.
He was nearly to the meadow when the sky cracked in half and rain fell in powerful torrents, beating through the canopy of branches overhead and soaking the ground.
No!
Tristan threw himself into the meadow, staring around at the stains of moonlight on the grass and the great swathes of shadow thrown from the trees. He flattened his ears and s
narled, but another burst of thunder ripped through the sky, followed by a tremulous arch of lightning.
Tristan flinched as the flash of light filled his vision. He was about to drop down and resume the search again, weather be damned, when a slick grey pelt dashed in front of him. His ears pricked up, but it was only Agatha.
The doctor was sodden straight through to her skin, pretty silver fur gone dull and limp in the wetness. She was shaking her head.
Tristan didn’t know what that meant. He growled uncertainly.
Agatha started to advance on him, and she pushed her chest against his shoulder. Understanding crackled to life in his mind like a jagged shaft of lightning.
She was telling him to give up.
He bared his fangs at her. She snarled back, but apparently the last of spoken words frustrated her because she quickly turned back into a human again.
“Tristan,” she shouted over the pouring rain. “It’s no use. It’s dangerous.”
He snarled into her face, rearing up onto his hind legs and gnashing his fangs an inch away from her nose. His tail rose up high over his back in a display of dominance.
Back down, Agatha, he spat, willing her to understand that he couldn’t simple give up.
“Tristan, Peter already called off the other searchers. This storm could be deadly! Trees are not a good place to be when there’s lightning. All the scent is going to be washed away, too! You have to understand and do what’s best for yourself.”
Tristan shifted back into a human just so that he had fingers. He jabbed one in her face, not caring that water stung his eyes and blurred his vision. “I don’t care what’s best for me! I care about my mate! He’s out here in the storm, too! I won’t stop until I find him!”
Agatha shook her head, flinging water droplets everywhere. She spread her hands, and Tristan noticed with fascination how the water streaming down from the sky ran over her skin. It occurred to him that he might be having a panic attack.
“How are you going to find him, Tristan? You can’t hear anything through this. You can’t see anything. You can’t scent anything. It’s impossible.”
Wild Ride: An M/M Shifter Mpreg Romance Bundle Page 44
