Page 12 of Alpha Talk

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. I liked to think that Silas and Creon would’ve laughed too. Silas might’ve even made a joke about how much elves liked to be sucked off.

“I’ll let you get back to Cody,” Kodiak sighed.

“Hey, just take some time off, okay? Raziel is cool.”

“If you say so. Between us, I hope you’re right because if I need help killing him, that’s your job.”

Micah held up his hand again to show that despite being best known for being in a ‘boy band’ he was no stranger to war.

Chapter Eight

Micah

Outside of reassuring Cody that Raziel wasn’t a danger to anyone, I kept Kodiak’s worries to myself. There was no use in turning everyone against a guy because he didn’t want to be in a group with Creon. Alpha Talk was a therapy and support group. Those who attended had every right not to speak in front of anyone they didn’t want to. That was the only way groups like Alpha Talk worked out long term. Under different circumstances, I would’ve thought that Kodiak was sweet being so worried about his mate but every minute I spent telling him to put his furry bear balls on ice was a minute I wasn’t spending with my Cody.

While we opted not to have the BIG ultrasound, I did eventually convince Cody to allow Clyde to make a house call. Then I spent the whole time growling as the healer measured and listened to my mate’s pregnant belly.

“I could bite his whole arm off. Make him match you,”my wolf grumbled into my thoughts.“Maybe if I eat his hand yours will grow back and even if it doesn’t work – because let’s face it that is fucking absurd - he’ll keep his dirty paws off my mate. Cody is mine! That baby is mine! If Clyde doesn’t---”

“All finished,” Clyde said. “Everything is sounding really good. You’re right where you need to be. Before you know it, your pup will be here. How are preparations going?”

“We know what we’re doing!”my wolf growled into my thoughts.

“We have everything,” Cody spoke before I managed to get a single word out.

“Great,” Clyde smiled, but kept me in his peripheral vision. “Let me know if there is anything I can do to help and I’ll get out of your hair before Micah eats me.”

“You make a run for it, and I’ll let him gobble me up instead,” Cody teased.

Once we were alone, I locked up the house and came back into the bedroom to stretch out next to my mate. I stroked his pregnant belly, covering him with my scent. Clyde wasn’t a threat. He’d never been a threat to us. I knew that. On some level, even my wolf knew that, but that primal urge was still there. It didn’t help that Cody only begrudgingly agreed to see the doctor. I’d have done anything to keep him safe and happy.

“Scoot closer or lean over or something, alpha,” Cody said. “Lean over and press your head to mine. My belly’s in the way.”

I did and his calm swept over me. This was what we’d practiced coregulation for. So that one of us could share our calm with the other or so that we could find it together if neither of us had it at any given moment. I lost myself to his gentle breathing as our hearts synced up.

“I wish I could keep you like this for the rest of my pregnancy,” Cody chuckled.

“If the laws of nature allowed, I’d never move again, mate,” I said, sweeping a lock of hair out of his face and tucking it behind his ear. “I’d stay right here with you forever.”

I sang to him as he drifted off for a nap and it wasn’t a lie. I’d stay right here with him forever if I could. Still, the demands of life would rear their ugly heads again. Someone had to cook and clean and eventually one of us would need to pee.

Chapter Nine

Cody

Micah made good on his promise to stay with me as much as he could. He was there for every ache and pain and every crying spell. He was there when I needed my feet rubbed or help up to go pee. He was there right by my side when a week before my due date I shifted into my wolf and decided that I wasn’t coming out again until my pup was born. Micah didn’t even run off when I growled and snarled at Clyde when he tried to come in and look me over. Instead, he settled for asking Micah questions through the door. I didn’t let Micah out again until I was good and sure we were alone in the house again. To the pit of crows with the rest of them. Unless they were Micah, Silas, one of my kids, or one of the few friends I counted as family they could fly straight off. Pregnancy was hard enough without someone coming in here and poking and prodding my belly like they were the alpha who assisted in making my puppies. Clyde could go cop a feel on Ashley. He was his mate, not me.

Yes, even as I settled down surrounded by pillows, I knew I was being unreasonable. The human side of me knew it very well but it all made sense to my wolf, and he was the one in control. He paced in circles on the bed and then around it as the days wore on. With each passing hour it became more and more difficult to find a comfortable spot to lay. Sometimes we had Micah lift us up and carry us around the room. His strong hands taking on some of the bulk of our pregnant belly was the only reason we survived some of the last hours of our pregnancy.

We even begrudgingly agreed to soak in a hot bath a few days before our due date. Though, Micah was a Gilmore Witch and we should’ve known he was up to something. Had I beena little more human and a little less wolf, I’d have seen right through him. Whether his nose told him that we were close, or someone was whispering in his ear, not long after I stretched out in the hot tub everything inside me exploded in a warm gush of breaking waters. I howled as a contraction tore through me, squeezing and squirming, until I thought I might die right there in the bathtub. Silas said something I didn’t catch over the pack link, and I slammed it shut. No one needed to hear me sound so miserable. I’d scar my whole pack for the rest of their lives.

Micah rubbed the sides of my stomach, stroking with downward force. Had these past few days been early labor? Was that why Clyde had tried so hard to come see me? Why hadn’t Micah told me?

“I thought you knew,” he whispered, picking up my thoughts over our mating link. “I thought that’s why you didn’t want him in here.”

“I…. I guess, I just let my wolf have at it. The whole thing. I just let him take over. As long as you were there, I knew it’d be okay,”I told him over our link.“I trust you. I always trust you.”

“You’re okay. Everything is going as it should be,”Micah said, still pushing on my sides.

“How do you know?”I asked just before another train wreck of a contraction tore through me.

“Because I can smell it. It all smells right. You smell right. The pup is coming but you smell right,”Micah said.

“I love you!”I howled into Micah’s thoughts because the pain of our incoming pup made it too hard to think in full sentences for any length of time. So, I gave into the pain and into my wolf and let his primal nature take over. He knew how to have puppies without a doctor. He knew how to push and growl and howl all at the right times. Unlike me, my inner beast held no doubts about what he had to do. So slowly but surely, there in what was supposed to be a relaxing candlelit bath our puppywas born. He was born with long fur that stuck up at every angle because it was wet. It was dark brown and he had big brown eyes to match. Micah cleaned him and lifted him away from the water to wrap him in a towel even as he threw his hand around whining for a teat. My mate couldn’t stop grinning as I climbed out of the tub and made my way to lay on top of a pile of towels that seemed to magically appear in the bathroom. Exhaustion pulled at every bit of me but our pup had come yipping into this world a healthy boy.

“Stevie,”I whispered over our mating link. We weren’t the first in our pack to name a baby after my friend who gave his life to get Brone’s heir out of the way. Without his sacrifice I doubted any of us would be here today. So, his name was Stevie and he was the most beautiful wolf pup in the world.

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