Jem, I whispered in his mind.Can you hear me?
Instead of a responding telepathic message, there was a low pain-filled whimper as the body before me shuddered.
I moved around to where I could see his eyes, but they were dull and glazed over. I began to nuzzle my Omegas body, checking for injuries. When I got to his belly and felt the muscles contracting, my heart clenched when I realized I had my answer.
We were having a baby!
Except it was too early, his body wasn’t ready, and there was a good chance that his labor was stress-induced which would only make the entire situation more dangerous for them both.
It only took a minute for me to run through the options available to me. I could either stay with Jeremy and hope for the best outcome of the premature labor in a setting with no medical care or I could leave him long enough to get help.
Obviously, there wasn’t any real choice.
I’ll be right back with help, I whispered in his mind, unsure if he was even aware of me.Try to stay calm.
Wiggling my way back out of the cave, I headed for the clearing as fast as my legs would carry me. At the edge of the trees, I threw my head back and yelled, my warbling cry echoing through the crisp air. A coyote howled in response and a moment later I saw dust rising up in the air as a vehicle tore across the field toward me.
I waited until I was sure that the Jeep’s driver had me in their sights to start back through the forest, leading the way to the cave where I forced my hyena back and stood panting as the security personnel clambered down. “He’s in the cave,” I huffed. “In labor and barely conscious. I’m going to have to drag him out.”
The man driving winced and turned back to the jeep for a first aid kit. He dug into it and came back with a roll of sticky gauze. “You’ll need to tie his paws together,” he said calmly. “Otherwise, there’s a good chance of him fighting when you start to move him.”
“I’ll be right back.” With my shift completed, I picked the gauze up in my teeth and worked my way through the hole. Yet another shift to be able to wrap Jeremy’s paws and then back to animal form. The shifts alone had me exhausted before I gripped the scruff of his neck in my jaws and began to drag him toward the exit as carefully as possible, wincing at every bump on the cave floor.
I backed out of the hole, dragging my Omega with me, stopping when his swollen belly caught in the cave entrance.
“We’ve got it from here,” the man who’d given me the gauze said, laying a gentle hand on my back. “Move away.”
I backed up far enough that the two men could kneel beside Jeremy, one on each side, and watched as they rubbed a shiny gel into his fur. Then, ever so gently, they began to work him onto his back until there was finally enough room to slide him out into the open.
“There we go,” the second man grunted. “Hold on there, fella,” he crooned. The two men locked their arms and lifted my Omega up onto the blanket-lined cargo area of the jeep. He looked over at me. “You riding?”
I nodded and leaped into the jeep, curling up beside my Omega and nuzzling his cheek. The jeep roared back to life and began to bounce over the uneven ground back toward the building housing the infirmary, the entire time I was praying that we’d make it in time.
I spent eight years in the Special Forces. After that, I spent another ten in the Böxenwolf Brigade before becoming a bounty hunter. I’ve brought in war criminals, murderers, and terrorists single-handed.
And I have never in my life been more terrified than I was in the ODI infirmary, trying to stay out of the way as a team of highly trained medical professionals worked to save my Omega and our baby.
“You can shift, you know,” one of the nurses huffed as she pushed past me. “A naked human might be less distracting than a snarling monster sitting in the corner!”
Despite the gravity of the situation, Chuck laughed and snapped a surgical mask over my snout. “Believe it or not, Sue, that’s not really going to be much of an incentive,” he said in response. “In this form, he already has his weapons at hand, if he needs to defend his mate,” Chuck told her. “As a human, it would take longer to bring them out.”
“We don’t get many Omegas in here with an Alpha,” he explained to me, “so they aren’t going to understand. Just ignore it.”
I nodded and tried to swallow my growl.
Once Jeremy was stable, Chuck came over to tell me that, early or not, the baby was coming, but they thought everything would be fine and, with the exception of a pain reliever and a very mild sedative to keep Jeremy’s blood pressure from spiking again, they were going to let the labor continue naturally.
Once the room was empty of everyone but the single nurse who was there to monitor his progress, I crawled up into the whelping box beside my Omega. I licked and snuggled him, offering as much comfort as my Alpha physiology allowed, doing my level best to make him comfortable in the hours that dragged on before the baby finally made her yelping debut.
When the nurse laid the sweet little pup on my Omega’s side, I gave in to what I assumed were my instincts and began to lick her clean. The nurse gasped out loud, but I ignored her, not stopping until our baby’s beautiful silver-gray fur was bright and fluffy, the fawn-colored spots nearly glowing.
“We need to take her now,” Chuck said softly, placing his hand on my hunched shoulder and squeezing firmly. “She needs some supplemental oxygen for a few hours. You stay with Jeremy and you’ll be able to see her from here, okay?”
I didn’t care for the idea of the pup being taken away, but I trusted Chuck with my life, so I huff-snorted an agreement and watched as they carefully placed the pup in the incubator across the room. Then, with one eye on the baby, I turned my attention to cleaning my Omega.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Jeremy
