Page 77 of Real

“Your water just broke. Do you want to go to the hospital? If you don’t go to the hospital, you’ll be giving birth here. Is that what you want?”

Buddy shakes his head over and over again. I don’t know what that means. He widens his knees and begins rocking again.

“Do you want to stay here to give birth?” I ask.

He finally stops shaking his head. “I can’t move.”

I think he’s probably right.

He grasps the couch we dreamed on a year ago and maneuvers himself onto his feet until he’s crouching with his ass near the ground and his knees spread wide.

“Timothy, Timothy!” He screams. Then he lets out a loud, deep groan.

He’s pushing. My mate is in labor, and he’s pushing. Panic overtakes me all at once. There should be someone with him here—someone professional. I don’t know what I’m doing.

“Keep breathing,” I say.

“I am. Don’t say stupid shit,” he snaps and lets out another loud groan.

I stand up and start pacing back and forth. The omegas at the compound had other omegas who had given birth before, not some clueless alpha who has literally no experience with this. Buddy’s deep moan turns to a higher pitched scream the next time. He’s in agony, and I’m freaking out. What is wrong with me?

I take in a deep breath and kneel down next to him again. “What can I do? Can I help?”

He completely ignores me and lifts his ass higher until I can see how dilated he is. Good God. There’s a little orange head trapped in there. That’s our pup.

“I can see her!”

“Ahhhhh! Timotheeeee!” A pup coated in a thick, viscous sac emerges from Buddy and drops to the floor. If I could shift into my wolf form, I’d eat the sac from the pup, but I can’t.

That’s okay. I never liked my wolf form much anyway. I haven’t missed it the way the doctors said I would.

I take the pup into my hand and break the sac open, peeling it off the head of our beautiful baby girl. Her little eyes and ears are still closed, but she already has a thick coat of auburn fur that’s soaking wet with amniotic fluid.

She’s mine. Just like our other children. The realization is overwhelming. I bring her to my shoulder and nuzzle her head. She lets out a little grunt.

Buddy is shuffling from side to side. “Is she okay? What’s happening, Timothy?”

“She’s perfect,” I say and crawl to his side, holding out our little girl for him to see.

Tears stream down his cheeks, and I don’t know if it’s because of the pain or relief. “Oh, she’s beautiful. She’s…”

He bares down with a low moan this time, and liquid floods the floor again. I crawl back to find a second pup on the floor. I pick her up and remove her sac like the first, bringing the two pups together to snuggle. The third pup comes not long after. But this pup isn’t a wolf. She’s a fox.

The doctor warned this might happen. When he tested Buddy’s blood, he said he was technically a fox shifter, even if he couldn’t take his fox form. It had something to do with the magic Dorian infused into Buddy when he was animated.

Also, none of the pups have sparkling paws. That’s what Skatt told us to watch out for.

Our pups don’t have light magic in their fingertips.

I release our fox pup from her sac and hold her next to her sisters. I worry Buddy will feel differently about her fox form than he feels about Maisy’s because of the tie to Dorian. But I needn’t have worried. Buddy smiles wide when he sees all three of them snuggling against me.

“Oh, a little fox! She’s just… They’re so…” he covers his mouth and sobs. “They’re ours, Timothy. They’re really ours.”

I wrap an arm around him. I’m big enough that I can hold my omega and my babies at the same time, but he wriggles away from me.

“I’m not done.”

The placentas. I forgot about them.

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