“Sir, I need to help her onto the...”
“I said don’t...”
I grabbed his collar and yanked him down to my level. It was hard to do mid-contraction but I managed through sheer fury. “If you shift in this delivery room, I will raise this child to call another man Daddy. Do you understand me?”
His eyes flickered. He swallowed hard. Stepped back.
The nurse, to her credit, didn’t even pause. She helped me onto the bed, hooked up the monitors, checked my vitals. Professional, calm, clearly used to dealing with Alpha wolves losing their shit in the delivery wing. I lay back and the next contraction peaked and I gripped the bed rail so hard the metal creaked under my fingers. A sound came out of me that wasn’t a scream or a moan but something between, raw, animal, from a place I didn’t know I had.
Finneas was beside me, holding my other hand. His eyes were still flickering gold but he was keeping the wolf down. Barely. I could see the effort in his jaw, in the cords of his neck.
“Breathe,” he said.
“Don’t tell me to breathe. I’ve been breathing my whole life. I know how breathing works.”
The door opened. Mary walked in like she owned the hospital, purse over one shoulder, coffee in hand, hair pulled back like she’d gotten dressed in sixty seconds and driven here at illegal speed.
“I did ninety-five on the highway and I’m not sorry about it,” she said. She looked at Finneas, who was hovering over me with wild eyes and a clenched jaw. “Sit down and stop scaring the nurses.”
He sat. I almost laughed. Mary was the only person besides me who could give Finneas an order and have him follow it.
She took the other side of the bed. Put her coffee down, took my hand, and said, “Okay. I’m here. Tell me everything.”
“I’m having a baby.”
“I can see that. How far apart?”
“Three minutes. Maybe less. They’re getting worse, Mary. They’re so much worse than the Braxton Hicks.”
“You’re doing great.”
“I’m in a hospital gown with my ass hanging out and I can’t feel my dignity. I’m not doing great.”
“You’re doing great,” she repeated, firmer, squeezing my hand. “You’ve got this.”
The hours blurred.
The contractions came faster, harder, the spaces between them shrinking until there were no spaces, just waves crashing into each other. I lost track of time. Lost track of the room. The world narrowed to the pain and the hands holding mine and the voice of the nurse telling me things I absorbed about half of because the other half was swallowed by the next contraction.
Mary stayed on one side. Talking me through each one, counting with me, wiping my forehead with a damp cloth she’d conjured from somewhere. Finneas stayed on the other. Gripping my hand back, his face white, his jaw aching from clenching. He’d stopped growling at the staff. Progress.
“Fuck,” I hissed through a contraction. “Fuck fuck fuck.”
“Breathe through it,” Mary said.
“I am breathing. Breathing doesn’t help. Nothing helps. This is hell.”
“You’re doing so good, Andrea,” Finneas said during the lull after.
“If you tell me I’m doing good one more time I’m going to break your hand.”
“You’re doing amazing?”
“Better.”
Another contraction tore through me and I grabbed the bed rail with one hand, Finneas with the other, and screamed through clenched teeth. When it passed I was panting, sweating, and a thought cut through the haze.
“Where’s Grandma? Is she coming? Did someone call her?”
