The rider yanked his helmet off and confirmed Sorell's suspicions. Isaac stood feet away from him, a wild look in his eyes. His face was thin and covered with scabs. His eyes were sunken and flat. He took one look at Sorell's stomach and snarled.
"You bastard," he spat, advancing on him. "You fucking slut." His hand rose, clutching something dark, cold, and lethal. He leveled the handgun at Sorell's chest and before Sorell could shut his eyes and think of Felix, Isaac fired.
There was no pain, no indication that he'd been shot. Sorell opened his eyes and realized three things very quickly. Derrick, Felix, and the rest of the pack were running toward them, Isaac was running away and Pippen was on the ground in front of him, blood pouring out of his body at a sickening rate.
Sorell thought he might have gasped and he fell to his knees. He rolled Pippen over but he didn't make a sound. His already pale face was paler. "Oh, no," Sorell wailed, the words catching in his throat. "Pippen, no." He brought his face down towards his best friend's. He was breathing, but it was shallow and ragged.
Sorell remembered Isaac's promise. He'd made true on it after all.
He stood, unable to remain there and watch his friend die. Pippen, who had followed him on Sorell's promise that it would be better. Pippen, who had taken care of him until he could take care of himself. Pippen hadn't had such a bad time in their old pack, he'd learned to play that game a long time ago, but Sorell had begged, and like a best friend, he'd followed. And now he would die. Because of him.
Sorell looked back at the pack almost upon them. He saw Christian on the phone again. Finally, he caught Felix's face and saw fear in his eyes. Not fear for Pippen. He was afraid of what Sorell was about to do.
He apologized to his mate even as Felix narrowed his eyes, demanding he stay. Sorell turned from him and located Isaac on the horizon. In one fluid motion he lunged forward, shifting into wolf form and sprinted after him. His vision was tinted, like the rage he felt was affecting how he saw the world. Things were clearer, more precise.
Isaac ran tilted, his right leg seemed to have been injured during the crash. Sorell burst forward with a speed that reminded him of how he could run before he was pregnant and leapt into the air, landing on Isaac's back before he thought to shift. Sorell clamped his claws down, tearing holes in Isaac's leather jacket.
Isaac screamed and Sorell smelled his blood. Good. He reached back, trying to grab Sorell to throw him off. He yanked on his fur but didn't have the strength yet to remove him. Smelling Isaac's blood pushed him, urged him to spill more, to avenge his best friend. He dug his claws in again and again, tearing at more than leather, but at skin. He thought of the pain Isaac had put him through, the sleepless nights and all those fucking bruises. He was so full of hate that he hardly heard Felix until he was on them.
He spared him a quick glance, meant to only acknowledge his presence but to continue his attack, but one glance at his mate forced his body to pause. He had transformed, neither shifter nor human, but something in between, harder, thicker, and angry. Sorell half expected to see fangs and claws. Felix had been changing the entire time they had been together and this was the conclusion of that change, something still human, but not to be defied.
"Get over here," he demanded, his voice octaves lower than normal.
Sorell could have tried to disobey. He could have attempted to ignore him and kept trying to kill Isaac. But, in that moment, Sorell's wolf recognized Felix as something that wasn't just to be obeyed but as something that was, for the first time, definitely stronger, more powerful than him. He consented to his mate, not just as his lover, but as an animal.
Felix tucked Sorell behind him and turned on Isaac, on the ground whimpering. "You broke the peace treaty. Your pack will deal with you now," Felix said, anger brimming barely beneath his surface.
Oscar, Stella, and a handful of other pack members stepped forward then, lifting Isaac from the ground and carrying him to a van parked on the street. Felix took a deep breath as if coming to terms with this last transformation. He'd always been strong, but now Sorell doubted that there would be many who could surpass him physically.
Moments later, it was just Felix and Sorell in the middle of the street. The snow fell heavily now, landing against Felix's skin before quickly melting away. "I wanted to kill him," Sorell confessed.
"I know. I wanted to as well. But I couldn't let you for the same reason why I couldn't allow myself. We aren't monsters, Sorell and we aren't broken, not as long as we have each other to be there and save us when we need the help."
Sorell collapsed against him, exhausted.
"We need to go, Sorell, Pippen is en route."
"He's alive?" Sorell's voice caught, he almost didn't dare to believe it.
"Right now, yes. The ambulance agreed to take him to Southeast Providencial, I instructed Luke to contact Dr. Burrows. He should be there waiting with Seth. We should hurry though, I wasn't able to assess him."
Felix didn't finish the thought but Sorell did. He wasn't able to assess him because he had been too busy chasing after his hot-headed mate. Sorell's face fell. He'd put not only Pippen in danger, but his own children. Sorell looked up at Felix and didn't find judgment there. Only understanding. Felix knew what it was like to be ruled by hate, he understood Sorell and accepted him.
"Let's go, the rest of the pack is already on its way."
An hour later the entire pack, including Christian, Derrick, and all of the babies were in the emergency waiting room. Last they had heard, Pippen was in the middle of surgery. They wouldn't know anything until the doctor was able to remove the bullet. Though he had said that Pippen had been lucky to be shot where he was. Any lower and the bullet would have immediately collapsed a lung or pierced his heart. None of them had looked to find much comfort in that fact.
There was nothing to do but wait. Some of them sat, some stood. Conner paced. Sorell watched the hospital staff go about their business, rushing into rooms, out of them. A few of them stopped to talk to Felix. He was like a rock star in this place. Each time someone came to fawn over him, Felix's ears would turn pink, the only indication that maybe he wasn't so delighted by all of the extra attention.
Sorell had been sitting, nursing a hot chocolate, when a particularly attractive man sidled up to Felix. He put his hand on Felix's arm and squeezed. Sorell growled. Frannie looked up and followed his gaze and giggled. "Go get him. Pee on what's yours," she said, smiling, despite the red circles around her eyes.
Sorell stood and walked quietly to where Felix was still being touched by whoever the stranger was. He noticed Sorell coming and reached for him immediately, forcing the other guy to drop his hand. Sorell watched the other guy's face for his reaction but saw nothing but concern.
"Sorell, Seth was just telling me Pippen is almost done. His vitals are stable and they think he should come through all right. But the doctor hasn't stitched him up yet so they aren't sure."
It was such a relief that Sorell forgot about the jealousy that had driven him over. He looped his arm through Felix's—maybe he hadn't forgotten all of his jealousy—and was immediately happy he had because a sharp pain sliced through his stomach. He gripped Felix as his knees buckled beneath him.
He felt nauseous and immediately sweaty. His throat constricted and then he bent over, throwing up from the intense pain.
There was no fear or panic in Felix's face and that calmed Sorell. He laid him down gently on a coffee table that had been covered with magazines. His fingers moved quickly and surely over him. When he pressed down at Sorell's abdomen he cried out.
"What is it?" Finn asked.
"Sorell?" Christian said his name, fear in his voice.
"I need space," Felix ordered, still sounding calm, cool. "I need an operating room, Seth, these babies need to come out now."
Chapter Sixteen
Felix wanted to scream. Inside, he was. Adrenaline was like a white-hot needle, surging through his limbs, tearing apart his ability to think c
learly. He had to stay calm, for Sorell, for his children.
The moment Sorell had buckled over he suspected a complete placental abruption. That would explain the intense pain that his mate had felt. It had been so strong, Felix felt like he could feel it as well. He'd been worried about something like this but had just put it on the endless list of other things he worried about.
The moment Sorell had shifted earlier, his heart had felt like it was going to stop. He wasn't sure at that moment if he was going to get his mate back. Not physically, but mentally. Killing Isaac would have changed Sorell.
But you did get him back.
He'd returned to him without harming himself or the babies.
Panic threatened to wind around his heart and tighten until it stopped beating. Luckily, they were already in a hospital with some shifter-friendly staff. Unluckily, all of Felix's preparation had been under the assumption that he'd be doing the surgery at the free clinic.
Seth returned to him with a stretcher. "There's an operating room open. In a wing we haven't started using. Down that hallway. I've already started the preparation. I assume you'll be doing the procedure?" he asked. It was likely that Seth and anyone else involved in the procedure could get into a lot of trouble if the hospital's directors got wind of this. But there was no way in hell anyone else was going to deliver his babies, especially because the only other qualified doctor was currently saving Pippen's life.
"Yes, I'll need one other person to assist as well." They lifted Sorell onto the stretcher. "Don't worry baby," he said down to his clearly frightened mate. "Everything is going to be fine. We're going to meet our children today." He smiled and hoped it looked genuine.
The rest of the pack had gathered around them in a loose circle. "Don't let anyone else down this hallway," he instructed the pack. They nodded as one and wordlessly rearranged themselves so that they stood as a barrier. The back of their heads was the last thing Felix saw after the double doors shut and he pushed his mate toward the operating room.
***
Sorell wished he could wave or something else to make everyone look less worried. Felix would fix him, Felix would save him. He laid back and watched the lights pass overhead. There weren't many sounds around them. It was eerie. Felix wheeled him in and kissed him passionately but quickly on the lips before leaving to scrub up.
The nurse from before appeared then and put in an IV. He wheeled a screen over that was meant to block Sorell from seeing the surgery. His heart rate soared. He couldn't do this alone. "Please don't," he croaked. "I need to be able to see him."
"That's..."
"Do it," Felix ordered. He was covered from his head to as far as Sorell could see, but his kind eyes still shone out at him. It made him feel better immediately.
"I'll behave," Sorell said, wincing. The pain was less after Seth had administered the anesthesia.
"You better," Felix replied as if everything was normal. As if he wasn't holding a scalpel that glinted under the bright surgery lights. "Are you ready?"
Sorell wasn't sure if he was talking to him or to Seth and the other assistant, who was also covered, preventing Sorell from knowing anything about him. He nodded anyway. He couldn't feel anything from the chest down, and while it was a pleasant reprieve from the pain, it made him nervous.
Pain meant he was alive. Maybe that's why he'd always liked it. Not feeling anything messed with his head.
He could see flashes of what was happening in the reflection off of Felix's surgery visor. Red tinged the reflective plastic of the visor and Sorell knew all that red was him.
Felix continued working, murmuring instructions to Seth and the other nurse. It felt like a second later when Felix announced he had their first baby.
"A boy," Felix said calmly. Sorell understood. He still had work to do. He handed their son off to the nurse and then turned back to Sorell. "Another boy," he said and that was when Sorell heard the first baby's cry. It was quickly followed by another. Their cries joined together into a harmonious song.
Sorell thought there would come a day when their cries weren't so pleasant, but right now, they were the most beautiful thing he had ever heard. "Felix," he gasped.
But Felix didn't look at him. Sorell watched his mate work and knew something was wrong. The red tinge from before had expanded and seemed to cover everything. Felix kept working, silently, but Sorell could feel it, like a sixth sense.
His mate was terrified.
The heart rate monitor that had been beeping at a steady rate increased dramatically. Abstractly, Sorell knew that was an indication of what his actual heart was doing. There wasn't anything Sorell could do at that point to help his mate, but to make sure he knew that everything would be all right.
"Felix, it's fine. It's okay." It was difficult for him to talk, but he had things he needed to say, Felix had to know. "You did your best and I will always love you. You will make a great father," Sorell's voice caught and he stopped speaking.
Felix acted as if he hadn't heard him. He continued moving, reaching for tools from the tray beside him until he finally exhaled and the heart monitor beside Sorell slowed down to normal.
Felix let out a shaky breath that sounded almost like a sob. "You ever say goodbye to me again and I will paddle your ass so hard you won't sit for a year," he said beneath his surgical mask. The threat was real and so had been the fear. Sorell didn't feel it radiating from his mate any longer. "I need to close you up now so stop bothering me."
Sorell could tell he was smiling beneath the mask. He looked over to his children. Seth and the other nurse were tending to them, getting their vitals and cleaning them up. He longed to hold them but knew he'd have to wait. Felix had already talked to him about this. "How are we going to sneak them out?" Sorell asked. He doubted they could just tuck their newborn children under their jackets like he would a box of candy into a movie theater.
There was a knock at the door and Sorell looked over, happy to see Frannie. She was crying, but smiling.
"Pippen came through," she said through the door. "He's going to be fine! Thought you should know. Also, some guy tried to come down here a little bit ago, so you should probably hurry."
Sorell released the last breath he'd been holding. His eyelids felt very heavy. It had been an extremely stressful day. Pippen was going to be safe, his children were safe, and for the moment, it looked like he wasn't going to die.
Felix seemed unconcerned by the news that someone was going to find them. "Seth, I need a wheelchair, also will you instruct Frannie to wash up. She's going to carry one of my sons. Sorrel, you'll take the second one. Pam, can I ask you to clean up here?"
Pam must have been the other nurse. She nodded, seeming a little dazed. Sorell wondered if she knew much about shifters.
Seth came back with a wheelchair and with his bottom half still numb, Sorell was able to sit in it comfortably while Felix made sure he didn't land at an angle that would hurt anything further. His mate, his protector.
"I love you, Felix," he whispered, suddenly overcome with everything they had gone through, not just that day, but from the beginning.
"I love you too."
Epilogue
Sorell pulled the blanket up over his lap. He held his son, Franklin, and Felix, beside him on the couch, held their other son, Kofi. So far, they looked identical to each other, though Sorell couldn't wait to discover how they were different.
He still felt like he was in a daze, like none of this was real and that he would wake up and be transported back to his old pack. That nightmare sometimes woke him up, but Felix was always there to soothe him. Felix's nightmares seemed to have stopped, though.
Sorell sometimes wondered if he'd known that moment at the old pack house when he'd spotted Felix in the hallway if there was any way of telling the future, to save them both the heartache that had followed. His wolf had always known, but Sorell felt like he'd achieved the impossible. A family, a mate, and a pack. They hadn't completely smoothed out the
logistics when it came to being a part of Luke's pack, but Sorell was confident that Felix would come up with something.
He was about to press play on the movie Felix had rented when someone knocked. Felix grabbed his phone and used the app for the security cameras he'd had installed the moment they returned home a few days ago.
"It's Stella," he said, sounding unconcerned.
Sorell's heart still raced. He hadn't heard anything about what had happened to Isaac. He was glad now that he hadn't killed him just as he was glad that his mate hadn't either. Being a doctor, that would've have been worse for him than anyone.
Felix got up and returned with Stella behind him. She looked better than she had. More confident. It had only been a few days, but Sorell hoped there had been some good changes.
"Your children are beautiful," Stella said, smiling.
"Thank you."
"So, you probably have guessed that I am not here just to see your beautiful babies."
"Is it something having to do with Isaac?" Sorell asked, not wanting to.
"Nope, we dealt with that immediately. Delivered him to the Jackals. He'd started stealing parts of their shipments to support his ever-increasing drug habit. They weren't very happy with him and agreed to take him as payment. I don't imagine he is alive right now," Stella said grimly.
Wolf's Mate Mpreg Romance Box Set Page 48
