Page 48 of Donner

I rushed around the apartment for a moment, looking for everything we needed. None of it was where it should have been. Even my shoes were missing from the closet.

"Beau." Jax held up the bag with everything he needed for his hospital stay. "We planned for this." He pointed me to the apartment door, where my clothes sat folded on top of my boots.

I struggled into the clothes and boots, pulled on my jacket, and helped Jax into his oversized flannel shirt. Then, he texted Santa. Once again, the wind shifted around us as we returned to the research facility in Norway.

Dr. Haugen greeted us with a smile. "It's so good to see you! What a joyous day!" She shook my hand and then took Jax's arm to lead him to a wing of the building we hadn't entered before.

"This is our birthing ward," she said. "We have the finest equipment available for shifter births. I'm so glad you chose us."

"Me, too," Jax said. He'd been so worried about everything else surrounding his pregnancy, but not the delivery.

Everything from then on was a huge blur to me. We were introduced to a small team of doctors who would be assisting with the births. Three of them were mainly research doctors. The other two had spent several years delivering babies at a Norwegian shifter hospital, and they would be in charge. I sat in the small waiting room while they prepared Jax.

Now, it was my turn to worry. I wondered if the babies' room back home was ready. We'd set it up with five or six rolling scene changes so they wouldn't get bored while they were awake. If they were awake. I knew babies slept a lot, but they would travel to lush hills, deep caves, flower-covered plains, and an island in the middle of the ocean before they left our apartment for their first appointment at our local clinic.

A doctor waved me into the room for the hardest part, holding Jax's hand while he pushed. He was covered in sweat and gripped my hand like I was his lifeline. I held onto him for dear life, too. The doctors had everything they needed, and even Dr. Haugen had seemed oblivious to the dangers of omega births, but Jax and I had read horror stories in our species books from the research facility.

I saw my life pass before my eyes as the doctor told Jax to push. A life without Jax and our babies. A life alone.

I shook my head and gripped Jax's hand as hard as he gripped mine for that final push. Jax was my mate, but I was no longer alone, not like I had been in Miami. I had Mize and my other coworkers, and Jax's parents, and Derek and Jax's other elf friends. We had so many people around us. They would be here for us and for our children, even if something happened to either of us.

Nothing was going to happen to us. Our baby's first cry confirmed it. Time passed in a blur as we said hello to our firstborn, and then it was time for Jax to push again. Jax still had my full attention and my strength as he bore down and pushed out a second healthy child. I held our eldest as Jax expelled the last of the afterbirth and the doctor cleaned him up. Then, the doctor placed our second baby in his arms. They were both boys, but we wanted to wait until we knew their personalities before we named them.

"Are you strong enough to shift, Jax?" the tallest doctor asked him. Shifting into his reindeer form would help him heal from the stress his body had been under for the last several months.

"I think so."

The doctors took the babies from us. "We're going to take some blood from them now, as we agreed. Do you still consent to the tests?"

"Yes," I said for both of us.

"We'll be right back with these precious little ones," the doctor who had delivered them said.

Once they were gone, I helped Jax sit up, which looked painful. I wanted to hold him in my arms and tell him how proud I was of him. He'd given us two perfect babies. He struggled to his feet beside me and untied the hospital gown that was already open in all the wrong places.

Jax shifted into his beautiful beast. I stepped to the side so I wouldn't be gored by his antlers. He leaned heavily against me, and I worried he was still hurting. Then he shifted back and climbed into my arms, laughing and crying and kissing me all at the same time. I did my best to cover his exposed backside with the gown he'd left on the side of the bed, but the doctors didn't seem to mind the show when they returned with the babies. They beamed at us like we were miracles. I suppose we were. We'd participated in the great miracle of life, something I'd never planned but wouldn't change for anything.

Once Jax had fed each boy, he called me over to sit beside him on the bed. He had a baby in each arm. The one on the right had his eyes open and watched Jax's every move. "This one is Otis. He reminds me of the otter we saw in the Everglades." The baby on the left was fast asleep. He'd already wormed his little fist up to his mouth despite his swaddling clothes. "This is Charlie, like the happy silverback at the zoo."

"Otis and Charlie," I said, smoothing my palm over their tiny heads as I named them. "They're perfect."

"You're perfect," Jax said, beaming up at me.

"I love you." I kissed his forehead, and then kissed Otis and Charlie, too.

"Okay, time to rest a little, and then we'll send you all home," the delivery doctor said. He handed me Charlie and led the way to the nursery with Otis. There, Charlie and Otis had their own tiny beds, but several others were already occupied.

"It's unusual to have reindeer shifters this time of year," the doctor said, "but we had a litter of wolves this morning."

A litter. Holy shit. There were seven other babies in the nursery. I couldn't imagine taking home seven tiny babies at once.

"They were born as wolves and shifted into humans," he said. "It isn't as bad as you think."

"But seven babies!"

He laughed. "They have a pack to care for them. You'll have family to help with the twins, too. Before long, they'll be old enough to go to daycare, and then you'll have even more help."

I nodded. "We're lucky to have so many great people around us." The thought made my eyes sting. Gratitude swept through me. Ever since I'd met Jax, my life kept expanding to new experiences, new places, and now new people. I'd never known how big the void in my heart had become until it started filling up with everything I'd been missing.

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