“What’s wrong?” Paige asks.
“Sorry, just never seen a wolf in an ultrasound before. He’s shifted and I’m worried he might scratch or harm you if we don’t get him out soon.”
“You need to keep her safe,” Jonas says, his eyes glowing with a bit of silver. Ah, that must be his wolf, Hyde.
I direct Silas and Jonas to procure everything I need for a natural birth, or otherwise, as I figure out how I’m going to get this wolf to shift back into a human form. Then it becomes so clear what will work.
Silas is folding a stack of towels and I grab him by the wrist. He looks at me with worried eyes and I fear I may like him more than I can admit. He cares about this woman, maybe because she’s pack, or because now we know she’s Jonas’ mate. Either way, this man cares about their wellbeing so much that he would risk having me, a witch, here to help.
“I need you to command the baby to shift,” I tell him and he looks down at where our skin is touching.
I drag him over to Paige and place both of our hands on her stomach. Jonas makes a sound of complaint, but it slowly disappears as I channel Silas through me to the unborn child.
“What do I do?” he whispers.
“You need to command him as his pack Alpha to shift. You just have to think it, not out loud,” I say.
Silas takes a deep breath and I channel all his thoughts to the baby. It takes some convincing, the unborn shifter is clearly stubborn as fuck, distressed as hell. I wonder if wolf shifter babies feed energy off their mothers like witches do.
But it eventually pays off, the baby shifting, and Paige screams when it happens. Even though I’m panicked, I do what I’ve been taught and I bring a crying twelve pound, six-ounce wolf shifter into the world crying in what sounds like a howl.
Chapter 23
Violet delivers the boy, washes her hands, and immediately leaves the cabin without a word.
I look over at my closest friend, who just somehow gained a mate and a child in a matter of moments, and he looks happier than I’ve ever seen him.
“Tell her I said thank you,” Jonas says, touching the massive newborn and his new mate.
I nod and go outside, expecting her to be gone, to have popped out of existence, and headed back to her large, lonely home.
Instead, I find her on the edge of the woods, her hands shaking as she holds her head in her hands and sits on the bark of a fallen tree.
I sit next to her, and as soon as I do, the dry, rotted bark breaks and sends us crashing to the ground. I fall on my ass and knock the air out of my lungs, but when I glance over at Violet, she’s laughing with tears in her eyes.
“You’re so big you broke the tree,” she says, wiping the tears away and letting out a breath of air as we stare up at the treecovered sky. A good number of the leaves have fallen, but it’s nothing like the crunchy leaves you see up north.
We don’t even bother getting up from the forest floor.
“You did good back there. Thank you,” I tell her and she looks at me with an expression I wish I could read.
“I’ve got to say, that is by far the most dramatic, intense birth I’ve ever seen. Not to mention the first boy, and the first one over nine pounds. That poor woman.”
“Witches only have girls?” he asks.
“It’s our blessing,” she says with a smirk, and I shake my head. “So, are we going to talk about the fact that your best friend found his mate while she was giving birth?”
“What’s left to say?”
“His devotion toward her was instant,” she says and I nod, trying to fight my own instincts and devotion toward the witch next to me. Her coming here and helping my pack has unfortunately only endeared her to me more.
“That’s typically how matings work.”
“Do all wolves have a mate?”
“Yes, and no. I suppose we all have a mate. I’d say about a quarter or so find mates. Others have chosen mates.”
“So you have a mate?” she asks, and I brush it off.
