“What the hell took you so long?” Declan demanded. The huge, blond bear shifter looked like he was about to kill someone. “Kendra has been screaming like this for hours.”
“It’s been fifteen minutes,” Adam and Clayne said in perfect harmony as Zarina pushed past them, running into the foyer and up the stairs to the second floor.
When another scream of agony came from up there, Tanner thought for sure Declan was going to shift completely. He’d only seen the big guy in grizzly bear mode once before, in Costa Rica when Kendra’s life had been in danger. He could be frigging scary.
“I’ll stay down here,” Tanner called out after Zarina’s disappearing backside.
“No, you won’t,” she said over her shoulder. “I might need your help, and it’s obvious that no one else down there is going to be of any use.”
Tanner blinked. The mere thought of being in the same room as Kendra while she was giving birth scared him shitless. “But—”
“Get up here!” Zarina shouted, her tone suggesting that if he didn’t come up on his own, she was going to come back down and get him.
Tanner looked at the other men for help, but they seemed more than ready to let him throw himself on this particular grenade. Cursing under his breath, he ran up the stairs before he went into hybrid mode and ripped a hole through the nearest wall so he could escape.
He almost turned and ran back down the stairs again when he rushed into the bedroom and found Kendra lying on the floor with Clayne’s wife/partner, Danica, on her right and Zarina kneeling between her legs.
Zarina glanced at him. “Get behind her, and help her sit up when it’s time to push.”
Tanner nodded. That didn’t sound too bad. At least Zarina wasn’t suggesting he assume a quarterback stance between her legs and help catch the babies on the way out. Just the thought of that made him queasy. Shit, he’d done emergency first aid on the battlefield, seen men and women with body parts completely blown off, and he’d never felt like this.
“Shouldn’t Declan be up here instead?” he asked as he walked in.
“He was,” Kendra said in between breaths. “I sent him downstairs. He was about to pass out.”
Tanner knew the feeling. Swallowing hard, he moved around behind Kendra. He was about to ask something completely lame like how she was feeling when another contraction hit and she cried out again.
His fangs extended in automatic response to the primal sound. Oh shit. He was going to lose it.
“Can’t you give her something?” he asked. “Make the contractions stop until later? When she’s more ready?”
Zarina didn’t look at him. “She’s ready. She’s fully dilated, and the first baby is in the birth canal. This is happening right now. Help her sit up a little. She’ll be able to push better in that position.”
Tanner got on his knees behind Kendra, then wiggled forward so she was leaning against his thighs. When he placed his hands on her shoulders, she screamed, pushed, and reached up to clamp one hand around his wrist so hard he thought she might break bones.
He was about to suggest again that Declan should really be the guy up here doing this when he heard a booming roar that shook the windows, quickly followed by the rapid pop, pop, pop of an automatic weapon. Glass broke, and wood shattered.
Shit. Someone was shooting at the house!
Danica jumped up and ran to the window. “Dammit! It has to be Thorn’s men. I guess we know what happened to the doctor and nurse now. That son of a bitch got them and made them talk.”
There was more shooting downstairs, this time from inside the bed-and-breakfast. It was followed by a long growl that Tanner immediately recognized as belonging to Clayne. The wolf shifter’s howls of rage were unmistakable.
“There must be a dozen or more of them out there.” Danica turned to them. Dressed in jeans and a tank top, her dark hair up in a ponytail, she looked more ready to go sightseeing than take down bad guys, but she was a seriously skilled agent. “More than the guys can handle on their own.”
Kendra was in midcontraction but nodded. “Go. I’ll be okay up here with Zarina and Tanner.”
Danica didn’t hesitate. Pulling her pistol from behind her back, she sprinted for the stairs.
“Maybe I should go help, too,” Tanner suggested.
Zarina shook her head. “No. We have to deliver these babies before any more of Thorn’s people show up, and I need your help to do it.”
Tanner nodded. While getting Kendra and her twins safely through this was their top priority at the moment, something told him Zarina was more worried about him losing control and going full hybrid if he went downstairs. She was probably right. But if Thorn’s men got through Declan and the others, Zarina trying to protect him from himself wasn’t going to account for much. If he had to fight people up here to protect Kendra and Zarina, he had no doubt his inner lion would take over.
Kendra gripped his wrist more tightly as another contraction hit. They were coming closer together. That had to mean she was close to delivering the babies, right?
“I see the head!” Zarina announced.
