Baby and the Wolf by Victoria Sue
Chapter Nineteen
Emmett stretchedhis feet out in front of him and examined them carefully. Ten slightly puffy toes. He was checking because he hadn’t seen them in quite a while. He blew out a breath and lay back, watching Calvin drill his gamma cadets. If Emmett had the energy, he would have chuckled, but he was exhausted and regretting reorganizing the kitchen cupboards this morning. It had started because he genuinely thought that if Ryker kept putting his favorite coffee cup in the wrong cupboard, then clearly the cups were all in the wrong cupboard and he needed to move them. And one cupboard led to another until he eventually needed the taller stool because he just couldn’t reach.
Calvin had done well out of the deal though. Ryker had come into the kitchen and caught Emmett on the stool. The new swear jar had benefitted quite considerably in one go, and the proceeds were going toward Calvin’s new bicycle. At the rate Ryker was filling it up, Calvin wasn’t going to have to wait until the holidays.
He hadn’t let Emmett so much as put one of his puffy toes on the floor after that. Then, he summoned Marco by bellowing as loud as he could which brought half the pack running, including Dinah who pronounced Emmett was “nesting,” whatever that meant.
“Don’t we have any comfier chairs?” Emmett grumbled to no one in particular. His back was killing him.
Ryker stopped his conversation with his dad and looked nonplussed. “But you loved it last week.”
Emmett huffed and blew a curl out of his face. “I’m going to get my head shaved.” He glanced over at his dad, hearing a chuckle, and narrowed his eyes. That had sounded suspiciously like he thought it was funny, and it wasn’t at all. His dad immediately pasted an innocent expression on his face, but Emmett didn’t buy it.
“Can I get you anything, love?” Ryker asked.
Emmett whined. “My back hurts. My feet hurt, and every time I even get a little bit comfy, I have to get up to pee.”
Ryker hunkered down next to him. “Well, how about I take you inside and give you a foot massage?”
Zeke coughed and turned a little pink. “I’ll leave you to it.”
“Now you’ve scared my dad off,” Emmett grumbled and sighed. “This is all your fault.”
Ryker nodded. “Absolutely.” He pulled the cover from Emmett’s knees and lifted his feet off the stool, setting them down gently.
Emmett narrowed his eyes. “You don’t even know what I’m blaming you for.”
He grinned and leaned forward to kiss Emmett. “You’re adorable when you’re grumpy.”
Emmett grabbed Ryker’s hand and heaved himself up.
“Grumpy?” he shrieked. “I’m not grumpy.” Then he paused, and before he could work out what was wrong, Ryker had swung him up into his arms. “Ryker,” he whispered, his voice wobbling a little.
“Yes, my gorgeous, grumpy mate?” He beamed at him, not in the least put out about generally being blamed for everything.
“Either my water just broke, or I just peed all over you.”
If a sudden pain in his back hadn’t robbed Emmett of breath, Ryker’s horrified face would have been funny. The bellow for Marco right in Emmett’s ear wasn’t, however.
“Put me down,” he demanded and arched as the ache in his back developed teeth.
Ryker took absolutely no notice of him whatsoever and rushed into their cabin, carrying Emmett despite his protests. His second bellow for Marco brought most of the pack running–again. One of the new younger gammas, Samuel, was so alarmed, he shifted into his wolf, obviously expecting an alien invasion or something.
“Don’t put me on the bed,” Emmett shrieked again as Ryker went to lower him down. “I’m wet.”
Ryker stood looking helpless until Chrissy ran in, took one look, and stripped the bed, covering it with the plastic they already had prepared, then clean sheets.
Emmett—who had previously said there was no way he was getting undressed in front of her—embraced his shifter’s casualness of being naked and simply didn’t care that they stripped him before putting him in a nice cool shirt they also had prepared.
Chrissy laid a small sheet over his lap and turned around while Ryker quickly washed him and made him comfortable.
Not that Emmett had any chance to appreciate it. “I thought you said this would take hours,” he accused Marco as soon as he walked in. “You said I would start getting warning.”
“Chrissy said you had backache.” He arched an eyebrow like that was it.
“Sweetheart,” Ryker soothed and took his own pants off.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Emmett gasped. “If you think you’re getting out of this and going for a run—” He cut the words off and swore as the next pain took him by surprise.
Ryker smiled, going for the closet and swapping out his pants for some shorts. “They were wet. I’m going nowhere.”
It was bedlam. Most of the pack seemed to think they urgently needed their alpha for something until Emmett had enough and sent everyone out except Ryker and Marco.
“Why are you so calm?” Emmett cried again in an hour when nothing seemed to be happening.
“Emmett,” Marco said patiently after examining him. “You’ve a while to go yet. Having a baby is usually a long business. The movies always make out like women give birth in the back of a taxi, but that never happens.”
“Then I want to get up,” Emmett said.
“What?” Ryker spluttered before Marco had the chance.
“I want to go for a walk.”
“Are you—” Ryker managed to cut off the words he probably would have regretted, but Emmett didn’t care. He needed to move. They’d had about six different people in and out for the last hour, and Emmett felt like a sideshow.
“Actually, that’s a good idea,” Marco put in smoothly. “Helps things progress naturally.”
The look Ryker sent him could have singed his beard, but Marco seemed unperturbed.
“I’m going,” Emmett said determinedly. “You can come if you want.”
Ryker—who had been cool, calm, and collected right up to that point—was suddenly backpedaling, but Emmett wasn’t interested, and Marco just grinned and helped him on with some loose shorts.
“Shoes?”
Emmett shook his head. “No, I want to wriggle my toes in the grass.”
Ryker made another suitably disgusted noise, but took Emmett’s arm and supported him as he shuffled forward. He had to breathe through a contraction, but the relief on his poor back from standing up was tremendous. Marco handed Ryker a blanket, picked up one of the books Darriel had left in the room the last time he visited, and sat down in the easy chair.
Emmett yanked on Ryker’s arm when he no doubt would have had an opinion on that, and they walked slowly through the big doors leading to the grassy area in front of their cabin.
“Do you want to sit in your chair?” Ryker said anxiously.
“No,” Emmett said, feeling a hundred times better for being outside. Maybe it was the shifter part of him. “You keep saying pup, but what if it’s a cat?”
Ryker looked at him, seeming surprised at the question. “It’s a figure of speech. The likelihood of you having an omega is tremendous because of your panther line. If so, he or she may not shift at all.”
Emmett stopped and caught his breath. The pain had moved under his large belly. “I think I’m ready to sit down.”
Ryker spread out the blanket in the shade of the trees.
“I can’t see the claw,” Emmett commented after a moment of staring at the forest. “But Fox is a little obvious.”
Ryker grinned sheepishly. “They just want to keep you safe, and I’m having trouble saying no to your grandmother.”
Emmett nodded and blew out a breath. “Are there any pups about?” He winced as the pain started again.
“No, we made sure this area was private.”
“M-hmm,” Emmett said and squeezed Ryker’s hand as pressure built in his belly. “Help me take the shorts off.”
“Huh?” Ryker frowned.
“You said the pups weren’t here,” Emmett ground out as a near-constant pressure built in his abdomen.
“Emmett?” Ryker said suspiciously when Emmett started tugging at them himself.
“Now,” Emmett gasped, and Ryker quickly helped him, then swore as Emmett gripped his hand really tight. He turned his head, but Emmett grabbed his arm. “I swear if you bellow for Marco one more time, you’ll be sleeping alone for a year. I don’t want a million people here. Omegas have been doing this for centuries.” He screwed his face up, then panted as the next pain was so strong it took his breath.
“Omegas? That’s other omegas. Not you.”
Ryker in panic mode was adorable, but Emmett was stubborn. “I just want it to be us.”
“Are you crazy?” Ryker yelled.
“No,” Emmett gasped and rolled over. “Help me up.”
“What the fuck are you doing now?” Ryker yelped as Emmett hit him in the face with his elbow, trying to move.
“What does it look like, you big oaf.” Emmett gritted his teeth as Ryker helped him get up on all fours. “Sit.”
Ryker sat obediently in front of him, and Emmett threw his arms around his neck and panted through another pain.
“Emmett,” Ryker said cautiously. “I’m all for embracing nature, but there are at least five panthers, plus Fox, all looking at your bare ass now.”
Emmett laughed, then moaned as a tremendous pain seemed to make his belly go rigid.
“Fuck,” Ryker swore. He gave up and put his head back and shouted for Marco. He didn’t bellow though, and he let Emmett burrow his head in his neck. “I had to, sweetheart,” Ryker apologized. “Someone’s gotta catch it.”
And catch her they did. Less than seven minutes later on a blanket under the trees, Josephine Elizabeth Sullivan, after both their mom’s, was born to delighted parents surrounded by four wolves and seven panthers.
Plus Fox, who had shifted back in case anyone needed an extra pair of hands. Emmett wondered sometime later if shifter births always involved naked midwives.
“Only you,”Darriel murmured a few hours later when he’d had his first cuddle.
Emmett had finally consented to Ryker carrying him back to bed when Marco had finished delivering Josephine.
Darriel was showing Calvin how to properly hold his baby sister so that she was safe. Calvin was just as besotted with her as everyone else was likely to be.
Emmett sighed in contentment.
Ryker leaned back on the dresser, arms folded, a ridiculously sappy smile on his face.
“And she can be in the gamma squad, right?” Calvin asked and looked up at Ryker.
“Of course,” he confirmed. “You might need her to be one of your betas one day when you’re alpha.”
Calvin seemed to consider that carefully, then nodded his approval.
Ryker stepped over. “Why don’t you give her to me, then you can go and see if Dinah’s cookies have come out of the oven?”
Calvin bent down and kissed his sister’s head, then let Ryker take her. He scrambled off the bed and headed to the door.
“Hey!” Emmett prompted indignantly.
Calvin grinned and rushed back, climbed none too gently onto the bed and smacked a kiss on Emmett’s cheek before giggling, jumping down, and running out of the door.
Darriel also excused himself. They’d had a ton of visitors. His dad had just left, and Emmett was ready for a long-ass nap.
“Happy, omega-mine?” Ryker laid a sleeping baby in the very expensive crib her delighted great-grandma had bought her, took Emmett’s hand and kissed his palm.
“Very,” Emmett whispered and tilted his chin for a kiss. Ryker was quick to oblige, then eased himself very gently onto the bed and took Emmett into his arms.
“I love you,” Ryker murmured after a moment. “All three of you,” he added fondly.
Emmett’s cellphone rang sometime later after he had fed Josie. She was back asleep, cuddled in Ryker’s arms. He’d already spoken to Regina, but he answered it anyway, shooting Ryker a rueful smile.
“Emmett?”
Emmett froze. “Kai?” He sounded awful. “What is it?” He heard quiet sobs, then some shouting, and Kai gasped.
“Please, you gotta come and get me. My alpha’s dead, and they’ve taken Maddox.” He gasped. “They’re selling us and—” The words were cut off with a cry.
With shaky fingers, Emmett tried to call back, but it rang once, then went to voicemail. He tried a second time, and it said that person was not accepting calls.
Ryker bent and gave him Josie, taking the phone and calling Red. Emmett listened in horror as Ryker repeated what they had both heard. Ryker instructed Red to call their contacts and see what they could find out. He finally put Emmett’s phone back on the nightstand and sat on the bed.
Tears were running down Emmett’s face. “He said they were selling him.”
Ryker nodded grimly. “I heard.” He bent down and brushed a kiss on Josie’s forehead, then Emmett’s lips. “We’ll find him.”
Emmett gazed at the man he adored. He knew Ryker would do anything he could for him; he just wasn’t sure if rescuing Kai and his baby could be one of them.
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Don’t miss out on the free prequel, Baby and the Bear, available as a free download at Bookfunnel or Prolific Works.
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