BAD BOY ROMANCE: DIESEL: Contemporary Bad Boy Biker MC Romance (Box Set) (New Adult Sports Romance Short Stories Boxset) (139 page)

I dialed her number.

“Where’s Allegra?” I asked.

“Am I her watchdog now?” she asked and her tone made me bristle. A growl escaped from my throat, low and threatening. Sarelle’s breath caught in her throat. In person I would have been at her throat and she knew it. I hung up the phone. John phoned me back the minute I did.

“Allegra’s in the hospital,” Charlene’s voice came over the speaker. My body went cold, dragging down, and it felt like I was going to throw up.

“The baby?” I asked.

“She’s fine but she’s at some medical center that I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to her since it happened. Sarelle took her.”

Rage replaced the panic. I thanks Charlene and hung up the phone. I shifted, forcing it. Pain shot through my limbs, ripping through my body as the fur tore out of me. My body shifted, bones moving with a wet sound under my skin. My face extended, a muzzle coming first. My jaw hurt, I could feel my teeth change shape. Then everything went white and there was a loud ringing in my ears, and when I knew what was going on again, I was a wolf.

I ran. I went straight down the road. I didn’t care that it was broad daylight. They could reprimand me for that later. People knew we existed, they weren’t going to be institutionalized for actually seeing a werewolf. The cover was almost pointless now.

Sarelle was home. I could smell her, and I growled. I found her thread, the line of her energy that was attached to me, and I yanked at it. She came out of the front door a moment later, eyes wide, head wide. She moved like she was nervous afraid. She was in human form she still went down to all fours and cowered in front of me.

“You hung up before I could say anything else,” she said. She knew what I was angry about. But she’d still taken that tone with me. I lunged toward her and snapped my jaws over the back of her neck. Her short hair was in my mouth and it irritated me. She whimpered but she didn’t move. I bit down just hard enough to break skin, to be a warning.

When I let her go she stayed on the ground like that. I searched inside of her and I found her wolf, reeling and spinning, and I let it out, set it free from her own constraints.

She made a weird gurgling sound, and started shifting. She grunted and groaned and I was happy it hurt. She deserved a lot more pain than she was getting.

It didn’t take long before she was a wolf. Dark gray like a thunderstorm, with the black eyes.

She ran, and I followed her. She weaved in and out of alley’s avoiding the roads. The further we ran, the stronger than horrible feeling got. It was like it was tugging at me, pulling me in its direction, which was the same direction it was going. We’d run only for a few minutes when it was so strong that I didn’t need Sarelle to lead anymore, and I took over.

I ran faster, and she followed me, panting with the effort to keep up. It was Allegra – or something to do with her – pulling me closer. And I would let it.

I stopped in front of a small medical center. I’d heard about it but whenever I needed medical help I was usually on duty. I breathed in deeply and my nose confirmed but I knew with my mind. This was a wolf institution. There were so many of them around.

I focused on myself, turning it inward, and found the human that had subsided so far I could almost forget about it. I drew it back out, and changed. The fur withdrew, the bones reversed their process, and finally I was human again. I was naked, but I didn’t care.

Wolves hardly ever do.

I walked into the medical center. The woman behind the reception desk glanced at me and jumped into action. She offered me a doctor’s coat to throw over myself. She offered Sarelle a hospital gown. She glared at the woman but I ignored her. The power in the room crackled and I knew it was mine. That was why everyone was jumping out of the way, looking at me, cowering.

I knew where she was and marched down the corridor. Everywhere nurses and doctors turned their eyes down. Good for them. I wasn’t in the mood to challenge anyone.

A doctor with flaming red hair and eyes that looked like they could challenge me appeared in front of me. I wanted to push past her and into the room behind her. Allegra was in there. I could feel it. But the doctor put her hand up and I stopped. I pulled up my lips and sneered at her.

“I know you’re here for Allegra,” she said. “We all felt you coming. But you need to clean up and put on scrubs. The baby’s already on it’s way and we can’t take the risk.

The anger dissipated, replaced by fear. I nodded and she took me to a room where I could clean up. I left Sarelle in the corridor looking like a patient herself in the hospital gown. I would deal with her later.

And there would be hell to pay. I’d just decided, she wasn’t fit for this pack. We could take care of formalities once I knew that my wife, my child, was alright.

Chapter 8

Allegra

I woke up feeling like I was being ripped apart. I screamed and a nurse came to me almost immediately. My skin was one fire. It felt like flames, licking over my body. I touched my head and my skin was slick with sweat.

“Something’s wrong,” I said, breathing hard. “Something’s very wrong.”

The pain in my stomach was worse than anything it had been before. And it was paired with cramps. Not contractions exactly, but cramps that made me feel like this baby was literally going to climb out of me.

Amelia was there a couple of seconds. Either someone alerted her or she’d sensed the danger by herself. She’d been at the hospital for back to back shifts since I’d arrived, and she was on call when she wasn’t there.

She put her hands on my stomach and closed her eyes. I could feel her, pushing vibrations into me, trying to calm the situation down. I was getting used to the sensation. She’d been doing it a lot. The baby had been making things particularly hard for us.

The werewolf medical center was strange. There were wolves everywhere, but I couldn’t figure out if there was some sort of pack hierarchy. With what had happened a while ago, and my position in the pack, I thought I’d be able to tell. Instead it turned out I’d just been in tune with my own pack, not wolves in general.

I couldn’t even pick up their magic the way I picked up the pack magic. And they did a lot more by feel and a lot less with machinery. It was great and disconcerting at the same time.

When Amelia opened her eyes again they were that white color, her pupils almost the only thing that was visible.

“It’s very strong,” she said. Was it just my imagination or was she breathing harder, like she as panting? “I can’t stop it. The change is ripping through your body like you’re a werewolf. This child is strong. I have never felt magic like this.”

I wanted to ask questions. Instead I cried out when another wave of pain tore through my body. Amelia shouted orders through the door and nurses were face masks and gloved hands poured into the room. They transformed the room into an operating room in no time at all.

“What’s happening?” I managed to ask.

“I can’t stop this change. If we don’t do something, it will kill both of you. We have to get this baby out of you.”

“It’s too early,” I said.

Amelia nodded. “We’re risking a lot. The baby might survive, or not. But if we don’t do anything, you’re going to die too. Babies have been born at thirty six weeks and survived. And if it as this much power you might be in luck.”

I nodded. A nurse pushed a clipboard at me to sign. A consent form so that I didn’t sue them if I survived. Great. I signed it without thinking twice.

The clipboard was removed, and I was turned and a needle stuck into my back almost at the same time. It felt like electric shocks were traveling down my legs. I cried out again. The left side was worse than the right.

“It’s the anesthetic kicking in,” Amelia said. “We’re going to do a c-section on you.”

They rolled me back and cleaned me up. It hurt like hell. The anesthetic made my nerve endings freak out, and it felt like they were using razor wire. They were quick. I had the feeling I wasn’t the first emergency caesarian they’d ever done. By the time they had the catheter in me I couldn’t feel anything in more.

They had me cut open before I knew what was going on. I took deep breaths, trying not to hyperventilate. Focusing on breathing alone proved to be difficult. In. Out. In again. And out.

I felt them tug at me, and hands pushed on my diaphragm. I struggled to breathe for a moment and my hand waved in the air, looking for someone else’s hand to grab. But there was no one. Everyone was busy with the operation or the checking my vitals. No one was there with me to hold my hand. Then Amelia looked over the screen.

“It’s a boy,” she said and smiled. Relief washed through me. Relief and something else, something warm and beautiful. I wanted to smile back, radiate that warmth. But instead it was replaced with something that felt more like terror. Power suddenly filled the room, so strong I struggled to breathe. It crackled around us like static, and I gasped. Two of the others gasped too, and Amelia looked up, her face showing lines of strain. She was fighting the animal down.

Three nurses curled away from me and the baby, and their eyes changed to different colors. Amelia told them to leave and they did. She looked up at me and her wolf was there, but she held on, fighting the change. I was relieved. I needed a human in the room. I was tired of wolves losing it around me. I couldn’t deal with it now. Not during birth. Not when I felt like I had no one.

“This is not just the baby,” she said. And then I felt that familiar wash of power. It flowed through me, heated up my body until every inch of me was one fire, and I knew he was here.

“It’s the alpha,” I said. “It’s my husband.” And I gasped because it was getting so strong it was like I was drowning. I had goose bumps everywhere. I curled my hands around the sheet that covered the mattress and the top half of my body squirmed. I was glad the bottom half of me was paralyzed. I wouldn’t have been able to hold still for them to finish up the operation.

Amelia gave orders to the two nurses that managed to stay in the room, and she disappeared. One nurse was weighing the baby and checking his reflexes, mumbling under her breath. She sounded shocked surprised, and I was nervous that something was wrong. The other finished up and closed the cut, sowing me shut. I could feel the needle go in and out of my skin, feel the tug of the stitching, but it didn’t. I just knew that it was happening.

A moment later a slimy pink baby ended up on my chest, huddled in a blue hospital blanket, and they put a blanket over me, too. I couldn’t feel anything from the waist down. I didn’t have to. There was more than enough emotion going around the room.

I wanted to cry. The sensation was so intense, love for this little bundle threatening to suffocate me. And that roil of power that just wouldn’t leave, crawling over my skin and through my body.

And then Reid walked into the room, preceded by his energy, and the two nurses backed away. He spilled into the room like a force of nature, and the power changed from threatening to warmth as his eyes fell on the baby. He wore only a doctor’s coat, buttoned just below his chest and gaping dangerously between his legs as he walked.

“Allegra,” he breathed and I felt him, spreading over my skin before he reached the bed.

“It’s a boy,” I whispered and tears rolled over my cheeks. I took a deep breath, and I breathed in magic. There was just so much of it. Reid kneeled next to the bed and his eyes were the blue they became when his wolf was close to the surface. He leaned toward the baby, put his lips against him, and breathed in deeply. It was very animalistic.

And it was right.

Then he kissed me, and that power flowed from him into me and the whole room became warm.

“Wow,” I breathed. Reid nodded.

The baby opened his eyes, and looked at us, and they were pure and yellow, with tiny pupils. A little wolf stared out at us. A shiver ran down my spine.

“This is going to be a strong wolf,” Reid said. “I don’t know what happened, but you gave birth to a wolf, like you are one.”

I lay back on the pillow, suddenly feeling drained. Amelia came into the room. She was submissive, but sure. Like she’d done this before. Like she was used to patients that were higher up in rank than she was.

“My congratulations to you and your wife,” she said. “A prince was born here today.” She bowed her head to Reid. He smiled and got up, and took Amelia by the shoulders. She looked into his eyes.

“You took care of my mate and my young. Thank you,” he said. She nodded, accepting his thanks, and it was like the urge to submit disappeared. She’d proved her loyalty. There was no challenge now.

“I don’t know what happened,” she said when he let her go. “This is very unusual. A wolf baby from a human. All this power… but the baby is healthy, like he’s been carried to full term. To full werewolf term. You are very lucky. If humans would be interested in this world it would go down in medical books as a miracle.”

Reid turned to me and smiled.

“You’re okay with this?” I asked. “The last time we’d spoken wasn’t exactly great.”

Amelia excused herself again. It was like she knew this was a touchy topic.

“I know,” Reid said. “And I was an idiot. I didn’t know what was going on. Turns out this little monster was causing havoc before he was even born. I just lost it.”