A doctor with flaming red hair and eyes that looked like they could challenge me appeared in front of me. I wanted to push past her and into the room behind her. Allegra was in there. I could feel it. But the doctor put her hand up and I stopped. I pulled up my lips and sneered at her.
“I know you’re here for Allegra,” she said. “We all felt you coming. But you need to clean up and put on scrubs. The baby’s already on it’s way and we can’t take the risk.
The anger dissipated, replaced by fear. I nodded and she took me to a room where I could clean up. I left Sarelle in the corridor looking like a patient herself in the hospital gown. I would deal with her later.
And there would be hell to pay. I’d just decided, she wasn’t fit for this pack. We could take care of formalities once I knew that my wife, my child, was alright.
Chapter 8
Allegra
I woke up feeling like I was being ripped apart. I screamed and a nurse came to me almost immediately. My skin was one fire. It felt like flames, licking over my body. I touched my head and my skin was slick with sweat.
“Something’s wrong,” I said, breathing hard. “Something’s very wrong.”
The pain in my stomach was worse than anything it had been before. And it was paired with cramps. Not contractions exactly, but cramps that made me feel like this baby was literally going to climb out of me.
Amelia was there a couple of seconds. Either someone alerted her or she’d sensed the danger by herself. She’d been at the hospital for back to back shifts since I’d arrived, and she was on call when she wasn’t there.
She put her hands on my stomach and closed her eyes. I could feel her, pushing vibrations into me, trying to calm the situation down. I was getting used to the sensation. She’d been doing it a lot. The baby had been making things particularly hard for us.
The werewolf medical center was strange. There were wolves everywhere, but I couldn’t figure out if there was some sort of pack hierarchy. With what had happened a while ago, and my position in the pack, I thought I’d be able to tell. Instead it turned out I’d just been in tune with my own pack, not wolves in general.
I couldn’t even pick up their magic the way I picked up the pack magic. And they did a lot more by feel and a lot less with machinery. It was great and disconcerting at the same time.
When Amelia opened her eyes again they were that white color, her pupils almost the only thing that was visible.
“It’s very strong,” she said. Was it just my imagination or was she breathing harder, like she as panting? “I can’t stop it. The change is ripping through your body like you’re a werewolf. This child is strong. I have never felt magic like this.”
I wanted to ask questions. Instead I cried out when another wave of pain tore through my body. Amelia shouted orders through the door and nurses were face masks and gloved hands poured into the room. They transformed the room into an operating room in no time at all.
“What’s happening?” I managed to ask.
“I can’t stop this change. If we don’t do something, it will kill both of you. We have to get this baby out of you.”
“It’s too early,” I said.
Amelia nodded. “We’re risking a lot. The baby might survive, or not. But if we don’t do anything, you’re going to die too. Babies have been born at thirty six weeks and survived. And if it as this much power you might be in luck.”
I nodded. A nurse pushed a clipboard at me to sign. A consent form so that I didn’t sue them if I survived. Great. I signed it without thinking twice.
The clipboard was removed, and I was turned and a needle stuck into my back almost at the same time. It felt like electric shocks were traveling down my legs. I cried out again. The left side was worse than the right.
“It’s the anesthetic kicking in,” Amelia said. “We’re going to do a c-section on you.”
They rolled me back and cleaned me up. It hurt like hell. The anesthetic made my nerve endings freak out, and it felt like they were using razor wire. They were quick. I had the feeling I wasn’t the first emergency caesarian they’d ever done. By the time they had the catheter in me I couldn’t feel anything in more.
They had me cut open before I knew what was going on. I took deep breaths, trying not to hyperventilate. Focusing on breathing alone proved to be difficult. In. Out. In again. And out.
I felt them tug at me, and hands pushed on my diaphragm. I struggled to breathe for a moment and my hand waved in the air, looking for someone else’s hand to grab. But there was no one. Everyone was busy with the operation or the checking my vitals. No one was there with me to hold my hand. Then Amelia looked over the screen.
“It’s a boy,” she said and smiled. Relief washed through me. Relief and something else, something warm and beautiful. I wanted to smile back, radiate that warmth. But instead it was replaced with something that felt more like terror. Power suddenly filled the room, so strong I struggled to breathe. It crackled around us like static, and I gasped. Two of the others gasped too, and Amelia looked up, her face showing lines of strain. She was fighting the animal down.
Three nurses curled away from me and the baby, and their eyes changed to different colors. Amelia told them to leave and they did. She looked up at me and her wolf was there, but she held on, fighting the change. I was relieved. I needed a human in the room. I was tired of wolves losing it around me. I couldn’t deal with it now. Not during birth. Not when I felt like I had no one.
“This is not just the baby,” she said. And then I felt that familiar wash of power. It flowed through me, heated up my body until every inch of me was one fire, and I knew he was here.
“It’s the alpha,” I said. “It’s my husband.” And I gasped because it was getting so strong it was like I was drowning. I had goose bumps everywhere. I curled my hands around the sheet that covered the mattress and the top half of my body squirmed. I was glad the bottom half of me was paralyzed. I wouldn’t have been able to hold still for them to finish up the operation.
Amelia gave orders to the two nurses that managed to stay in the room, and she disappeared. One nurse was weighing the baby and checking his reflexes, mumbling under her breath. She sounded shocked surprised, and I was nervous that something was wrong. The other finished up and closed the cut, sowing me shut. I could feel the needle go in and out of my skin, feel the tug of the stitching, but it didn’t. I just knew that it was happening.
A moment later a slimy pink baby ended up on my chest, huddled in a blue hospital blanket, and they put a blanket over me, too. I couldn’t feel anything from the waist down. I didn’t have to. There was more than enough emotion going around the room.
I wanted to cry. The sensation was so intense, love for this little bundle threatening to suffocate me. And that roil of power that just wouldn’t leave, crawling over my skin and through my body.
And then Reid walked into the room, preceded by his energy, and the two nurses backed away. He spilled into the room like a force of nature, and the power changed from threatening to warmth as his eyes fell on the baby. He wore only a doctor’s coat, buttoned just below his chest and gaping dangerously between his legs as he walked.
“Allegra,” he breathed and I felt him, spreading over my skin before he reached the bed.
“It’s a boy,” I whispered and tears rolled over my cheeks. I took a deep breath, and I breathed in magic. There was just so much of it. Reid kneeled next to the bed and his eyes were the blue they became when his wolf was close to the surface. He leaned toward the baby, put his lips against him, and breathed in deeply. It was very animalistic.
And it was right.
Then he kissed me, and that power flowed from him into me and the whole room became warm.
“Wow,” I breathed. Reid nodded.
The baby opened his eyes, and looked at us, and they were pure and yellow, with tiny pupils. A little wolf stared out at us. A shiver ran down my spine.
“This is going to be a strong wolf,”
Reid said. “I don’t know what happened, but you gave birth to a wolf, like you are one.”
I lay back on the pillow, suddenly feeling drained. Amelia came into the room. She was submissive, but sure. Like she’d done this before. Like she was used to patients that were higher up in rank than she was.
“My congratulations to you and your wife,” she said. “A prince was born here today.” She bowed her head to Reid. He smiled and got up, and took Amelia by the shoulders. She looked into his eyes.
“You took care of my mate and my young. Thank you,” he said. She nodded, accepting his thanks, and it was like the urge to submit disappeared. She’d proved her loyalty. There was no challenge now.
“I don’t know what happened,” she said when he let her go. “This is very unusual. A wolf baby from a human. All this power… but the baby is healthy, like he’s been carried to full term. To full werewolf term. You are very lucky. If humans would be interested in this world it would go down in medical books as a miracle.”
Reid turned to me and smiled.
“You’re okay with this?” I asked. “The last time we’d spoken wasn’t exactly great.”
Amelia excused herself again. It was like she knew this was a touchy topic.
“I know,” Reid said. “And I was an idiot. I didn’t know what was going on. Turns out this little monster was causing havoc before he was even born. I just lost it.”
I laughed. This little monster, he’d called him. That was about right.
“Sarelle lost it too when I went to see Maria and she arrived. Remember I told you?”
“Vaguely,” he said, but his face was hard.
“What’s wrong?”
“We have to take care of her. She’s not fit for this pack,” he said. I didn’t ask questions. We would sort it out later. Right now I wanted to make sure everything was okay with us, with the fact that we’d just had a baby.
“Are you ready to be a father?” I asked.
Reid looked at the baby. The baby had grabbed a bit of my hospital gown and clenched it tight in his fist. He made sucking movement with his mouth.
“I was scared at first that I wouldn’t know how to relate to the child because my life was magic and I couldn’t raise a human baby. But now it’s starting to look like this baby might be closer to my kind of magic than anything else.”
He leaned his forehead against mine.
“I think we’ll be okay.”
I sigh and relief flowed through me. I opened my hospital gown and coaxed the baby to my breast. I hadn’t thought about it all the time, but somewhere deep down I’d been nervous about our relationship. I’d been scared that we wouldn’t make it through this.
We sat in silence for a while, just absorbing everything that had happened.
“What are we going to call him?” I asked.
“Kurt,” Reid said. He hadn’t even thought about it.
“Kurt? Why?”
Reid shrugged. “It means in wolf in Turkish or something,” he said. I smiled.
“Wolf. That fits. Kurt it is.”
Reid smiled. There was knock on the door, and we both looked up. Sarelle stood in the door. She was wearing a hospital gown, and I wondered when she’d been admitted.
“Can I help you?” Reid asked and his voice was hard.
“I just wanted to congratulate you,” Sarelle said. “And see the baby. I felt the power. It’s still in this room. I had to see. It calls to me.”
It was new to me that the baby had called to her. Reid opened his mouth and I knew he was going to say no. But I put my hand on his arm and took over.
“Come on in, Sarelle,” I said. She bowed her head at me, and it was the first sign of complete submission she’d ever given me. She walked to the bed and looked at the baby. Her breath caught in her throat.
“So this is what an alpha looks like when he’s just a baby,” she said. Her words shocked through my body. But of course Kurt was going to be an alpha. There was no other way, not with all this power. “Congratulations,” she said, looking at me and then at Reid. I smiled and thank her. Reid just nodded.
Sarelle knew it was her cue, and she turned and left the room again.
“Why was she admitted?” I asked.
“She wasn’t. She ran here with me. I got the coat, she got the gown. They got the hierarchy right.” He smiled and I chuckled, shaking my head.
“So, now what?” I asked.
“No I get the pack here to see the new addition to the family,” he said and left the room. I lay back on the pillow and looked down at Kurt feeding. He was perfect in every way. And he was scary. It was beautiful and majestic, and his power would make everyone sit up and notice.
This was not going to be easy. But we had an alpha in the house that knew what to do. And we had the alpha’s mate. If I could survive Reid, I was sure we could do this.
Chapter 9
I spent five more days in the hospital. Amelia wanted to make sure I was strong enough to deal with the magic at home. I was still human, I didn’t heal the way wolves did.
The pack had all come to see the baby when they were free. They’d been very submissive, and all of them had commented on the baby’s power.
Reid had waited until I was home before he called the pack together. The meeting was at home, and I sat on the couch with a blanket. Kurt lay in a bassinette next to me when the first wolves came into the room. Every time another wolf arrived Kurt squirmed. Power was going to be as consistent as breathing in his life.
Sarelle came last. She’d been asked last. The whole pack was assembled when she stepped into the room, and the atmosphere was palpable. Sarelle felt it too. She stopped just inside the door and glanced at us, meeting everyone’s eyes except mine and Reid’s.
“Don’t sit down,” Reid said when she made for a chair closest to the door. “I want to talk to you, in front of the pack. Your submission in this pack isn’t good enough. You’ve disregarded Allegra as my mate when you failed to tell me where she was. And you disregarded my authority when you took that tone with me.”
“That was once!” she cried out. I glared at her and she fell quiet again.
“It’s happened before. We all know that you don’t have any respect for Allegra. She’s my wife, my mate and the pack’s second. If you disrespect her, you disrespect me.”
Sarelle shrugged but bowed her head. It was like she was trying to be defiant and caught herself afterward.
“We’re here to take a vote. It’s about your position in the pack. I wanted to exile you but Allegra asked me to make it up to the pack. She has mercy for you.” He looked at Sarelle like she was something distasteful. “Even though you don’t deserve it.”
I’d been upset that he’d wanted to kick her out. Everyone made mistakes. Sarelle was different, she didn’t submit. Reid had made it clear that it wasn’t something he needed in his pack. Especially now that he was a father.
Exile seemed harsh to me, but apparently werewolves did it that way. Sarelle had already had her chance – the fight with me for my position – and she’d lost. That was the end for her. He’d told me he wasn’t going to keep fighting with her. It wasn’t his job to keep forcing her to submit. His job was to fight other things to protect the pack, not to protect the pack from itself.
It had been a closed discussion. There’d been nothing I could say. I felt for Sarelle but I understood where he was coming from. And Reid was the alpha, after all. It my job as his mate to support him. So I would.
“All in favor of Sarelle’s exile,” Reid said. Most of the pack lifted their hands. Only Harry and Maria didn’t. I did as well because I couldn’t disagree with Reid in front of the pack, no matter what it was.
When I saw Harry I wondered how it would work, if they would still be able to date, and how it would affect the pack if they did. Or would they just break up? I would ask Reid about it later.
Maria was Sarelle’s friend, and I believed it had to do with more than the pack. But the show of
hands was enough. Sarelle’s eyes changed from gray to an ugly black and her face was riddled with anger.
“You can’t do this to me!” she cried out.
“You’ve endangered my mate. She was in surgery when I reached her because I hadn’t known in time.” Reid’s voice was hard. It hadn’t been nearly that dramatic but I didn’t say anything.
“Where am I supposed to go?” she asked.
“There are more packs at the base. You can find a place for yourself. But you’re no longer welcome here. You’re not an enemy, and when any of us run into you by chance we will not treat you as a threat. But you are not a friend.”
She opened her mouth to say something, and then suddenly she looked like she wanted to cry. She got up and stormed out of the room. I felt for her. I wanted to go after her. Kurt suddenly started crying, like he could feel what was in the room. I picked him up and rocked him against me.
Maria made to get up and follow Sarelle, but she glanced at Reid. He glared at her. I put my hand on his arm.
“Let her go. The pack has decided, she may go to her friend.”
He looked at me, and then he nodded.
“Go,” he said to her. When Maria left the room, only the men left besides me, he took a deep breath.
“I’d expected a fight,” he said.
“It might still come,” Harry said, and I believed him. He knew Sarelle better than we did. Reid nodded. I nodded. When it happened, we would be ready.
Reid left for duty again two months later. I was healed and ready to take care of Kurt by myself. I didn’t know how long he would be gone, but I’d never seen him this reluctant to go. In the span of a year he’d gone from completely opposed to having a child, to being the model father and hating to leave. It was beautiful to see.
The first weeks were hard. Taking care of a baby completely alone wasn’t easy. But then again, I wasn’t completely alone. We had “play dates” with Charlene and Carla, even though Kurt was still too young. Carla was weary of Kurt, and I had a feeling she could sense the power.
But while Reid was gone, and I was just a human, Kurt’s power was toned down too. Maybe it was stronger when Reid was here. Maybe it had to do with how capable I was to deal with it. Either way, when Reid wasn’t it was just me and Kurt, mother and baby, dealing with our everyday life.
BAD BOY ROMANCE: DIESEL: Contemporary Bad Boy Biker MC Romance (Box Set) (New Adult Sports Romance Short Stories Boxset) Page 122
