Page 39 of Racing the Storm

He was right, but I couldn’t help thinking what Kor would do when we came back with the knowledge that he had a child, and we had lost it.

“She won’t be able to keep away from him forever, though,” Danyal added. Then, startling me almost completely out of my mind, he laid a hand against my lower back and urged me to rejoin the other two Wolves.

Chapter

Thirteen

DANYAL

For all the things I’d prepared myself to learn about Mari, her being a Wolf wasn’t one of them. I had readied myself to accept that all manner of creatures existed in our world—and they still may. But it was oddly more shocking to me to find that Kor’s half-cocked theory was right.

It had started with Misha. He’d come to me with a hypothesis that Wolves were only noticed by humans when they started to come into the world with Wolf eyes. He believed that before the world knew about them, they looked just like humans—until they manifested their shift. It made more sense than Wolves being a late evolutionary jump, but the idea that these Wolves still existed was a lot for me to handle.

Especially after everything we’d been through.

Especially after finding out the Wolf sent to retrieve me was Mikael. I had been wholly unprepared to see his face. Part of me had been expecting Talia, though I knew she’d never leave her child behind. Or even Theo and Francisco.

But Mikael had traversed two continents and had prepared himself to take down an entire compound with one of the most dangerous humans inside.

For me.

I couldn’t quite process it. It was bad enough that in spite of the adrenaline coursing through me, and the fear knowing that Mari was going into labor, I still was ripped back to the memory of my one heat every time I blinked. And being able to smell him up close and in my space made me light-headed.

Luckily—or perhaps unluckily—Mari’s labor began to progress faster than I expected. I had no idea what time it was, but the sky was pitch black as her pain began to increase. I was half-dozed wrapped in a blanket when I was shaken awake, and I could see her brother hovering over me.

“Her water broke,” he said, then grimaced.

It only took a second for that scent to reach me—the pungent smell of impending life. He looked at me, half-panicked, like he expected me to know what the fuck I was doing, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him I wasn’t that kind of doctor. I had gotten more experience with trauma and general care since coming to Corland and being the only physician there, but I had spent my life studying things in a lab.

Not flesh and blood beings.

Pushing to my feet, I saw that Mikael was already awake, Mari’s head in his lap. She was lying on her back with her legs up, and her face was red in the dim camping lantern one of the Alphas had set up.

“Mari,” I told her quietly, drawing on my ancient, rusty knowledge, “I’m going to need to touch you and see where we’re at.”

She grit her teeth and nodded. “There’s…pressure.” She paused, then let out a long string of curses in Spanish, and I knew then the baby was coming.

“Okay,” I said and fell to my knees. “Arturo, get as many of the blankets as you can find, and use that little pack to start heating water. Mikael,” his name still tasted like ash and heartbreak on my tongue, and my heart ached when his gaze met mine, “get her into a squatting position.”

“But,” he started to argue, then shook his head and eased her up. It took effort, but eventually she was able to balance on her feet, her knees bent. She let out a low moan that stuttered into silence as another contraction gripped her.

I passed my hand between her legs and found blood, but not a worrying amount. She was pulsing amniotic fluid with each ripple of her muscles, and when I passed my hand by again, I could feel it. The crown of the head.

“The baby’s coming,” I told her.

She grimaced, her fangs extending, and she nodded as her eyes flashed blue. I realized I hadn’t known until right then that she was a Beta. Not that it mattered. “I,” she started, then her head lolled back against Mikael’s shoulder as he held her upright.

His panicked gaze met mine. “What do I do?”

“Keep her steady,” I told him. “This position will help.”

Arturo appeared by my side, and together we arranged the blankets beneath her. His hands were trembling, and I grabbed his wrist, trying to send him a pulse of comfort as only Omegas could do.

“She’s going to be okay.”

He shuddered, then he nodded, but it was punctuated with a low warning growl, and it wasn’t coming from him. I deliberately didn’t look over at Mikael, but I did remove my hand from Arturo’s wrist as I positioned myself between her legs.

“When the next contraction comes, bear down,” I told her.

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