Chapter 20 Guy
Guy
I opened the front door as quietly as I could and peeked around the corner.
Fable was nowhere in sight, but that didn’t mean anything.
The further he’d progressed in his pregnancy, I swore he’d developed hearing as keen as any shifter.
Whether that was a hint to the nature of the child he carried, it was too early to say.
All I knew was that if I disturbed his nap, there would be hell to pay.
I might’ve been the largest beaver in this lodge, but that didn’t mean I had no self-preservation instinct. I was not immune to common sense, and all alphas knew that pissing off a pregnant omega was a very, very bad idea. And one who was two weeks past his due date? Practically a death sentence.
“You don’t have to tiptoe,” he called from somewhere deeper in the house. “I’m awake.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. Fable sounded almost… chipper. That was weird, right?
“I brought your favorite treats from Clara’s bakery,” I called as I kicked off my boots at the door, buttering him up just in case his upbeat mood was a trap. He wouldn’t tear my head off if I had cinnamon knots—unless I didn’t hand them over fast enough, of course.
I loved my mate, I truly did, but I was also a little scared of him these days.
His mood was on a hairpin trigger, between the swollen ankles, aching back and hips, lack of sleep, and a bladder the size of an acorn.
I mean, who could blame him? He hadn’t even been able to eat more than a bite or two of his favorite sweet treats.
Any little thing might set him off. He would lose his temper and then immediately feel bad about it, the hormonal guilt making him sob uncontrollably.
It was a rollercoaster but with no way to get off the ride.
He would never admit it, but he was absolutely miserable.
He really wanted to be one of those omegas who loved being pregnant, who glowed like the sun and spoke only of joy, but the truth was, he’d been counting down the days to his due date with giant red X’s on the calendar.
Except then we’d gone marching straight past that date, and every morning he woke up with no sign of baby, he wound up a little tighter, and the only thing that would help was that baby coming out.
We’d tried just about everything by now.
Spicy food, long forest walks, and every night before bed, he demanded I try to fuck that baby out of him—which I was more than willing to help with, with great diligence—but nothing worked!
Darion, the lodge midwife, had told us to be patient, but at the same time, he couldn’t quite hide his concern.
Fable was human, after all, and that was a little outside his realm of expertise.
There were far more complications with humans than with shifters, and I’d caught him studying human medical journals on more than one occasion.
Setting the cinnamon knots down on the counter, I went in search of my mate. I found Fable in the nursery, folding itty-bitty onesies. He was humming softly, swaying back and forth as though already holding our baby, his belly far out in front of him.
“Hey, sweetheart,” I said gently, prepared for his head to spin around like in The Exorcist.
Instead, though, he simply beamed at me, the perfect image of the mate I loved and adored. “Hey, dear. Did you get all your work done? I missed you.”
My guard was up. Was this a trick? “Um, yes, work’s all done. Pierre and Olivier are all set to take over the business for the next few weeks so I can be home with you and the baby. Isn’t that great?”
Fable smiled dreamily, not a hint of his fiery temper in sight. “That is great! We should do something to celebrate, don’t you think?”
“That sounds nice. What did you have in mind?” Against my better judgment, I let myself relax.
“How about a date night, just the two of us. Who knows when we’ll have another chance. As soon as the baby arrives, it’ll be all diapers, feedings, and sleepless nights. So I was thinking we could cook dinner together, maybe the maple rosemary chicken?”
“My favorite,” I replied, moving in to stand behind him, and I wrapped my arms around his waist, supporting the weight of his belly the way he liked, to give his back some relief. “What else would you like to do?”
He leaned back against my chest and sighed. “Hmm, I was thinking we could go on a kind of babymoon tomorrow. You know, like a honeymoon before the baby arrives. We could drive down to Saguenay and stay at that hotel with the hot springs, for old times’ sake.”
And while I doubted that we would be going so far anytime soon, I liked making plans. “That sounds incredible. I love the way hot springs make your skin glow.” I pulled the neckline of his shirt back so I could kiss his mating mark.
He hummed. “And then maybe we can—” Fable’s words cut off, and his body went rigid in my arms. “I knew it!” he shouted, spinning around to face me. “I knew the second I made plans, this baby would make an appearance. They were holding out for the most inconvenient time!”
“W-What?” I stuttered, confused as hell. But then Fable pointed down, and when I followed his finger, I saw that his pants were wet. “Is that…?”
“Yes!” he cried, triumphant. “My water broke! Let’s go!
” He grabbed my hand and dragged me out of the house.
And it was a good thing he seemed to know where he was going, because I was still confused about the turn we’d taken.
A second ago, we’d been planning a trip, and just like that, we were suddenly at baby time?
“Darion! C’est temps!” Fable shouted, loud enough to bring our neighbors’ attention all down the block, faces pressed to windows.
More than one person yelled “Bonne chance!” after us as we marched down the street, offering us luck, and I waved back at them.
No surprise, Darion had heard us coming and was waiting by his clinic door for us. “So, what approach would you like to take? Birthing ball? Water birth?”
Fable took a deep breath of the forest air. “It’s a lovely day for an outdoor birth, don’t you think?” he said, before his face scrunched up and he doubled over with a groan, hands pressed to his sides.
I was quick to grab him to keep from tipping over, and he leaned his full weight into me, grinding out a guttural moan.
It was too fast, wasn’t it? I thought labor was supposed to take a long time, that it was supposed to start slow and gentle.
“Is it supposed to hurt this much?” I asked Darion in French, hoping to avoid scaring my mate with the question.
The midwife shrugged, a deep crease forming between his eyebrows. “I’ve never known childbirth to feel good,” he replied as a non-answer that did nothing to calm my nerves.
“English!” Fable grunted as he managed to straighten up. “If you’re going to talk about me, then I should at least be able to understand it so I can decide how much trouble you’re in later.”
I chuckled. “Fair enough, cher. We will speak only English.” I saw it as a good sign that he was still joking—or at least I hoped he was.
Darion was prepared as always, and he had an entire outdoor set-up for laboring omegas.
It wasn’t uncommon for shifters to seek comfort in the land of their lodge—or pack or flight or whatever their species called their group.
The very soil beneath our feet contained a kind of magic, as old as time itself.
I shouldn’t have been surprised that my mate felt this same need.
With each passing day since we’d mated, he’d become more a part of my life—of me.
And while he wasn’t a shifter himself, you’d never know it to look at him.
He had embraced every aspect of life in the lodge, and he was thriving.
So when he asked to deliver on lodge land, who was I to say no?
The back of the clinic faced up to the stream, the air filled with the relaxing sound of water burbling over rocks.
There was a huge daybed set right there on the ground, piled high with cushions, and I helped to lower Fable onto the edge.
He was already tugging frantically at his shirt.
“Help me get this off. I’m too hot.” His skin was flushed and splotchy, sweat already beginning to bead along his hairline.
He whined, driving my beaver into a tizzy.
“Pants too. Hurry.” I rushed to oblige, until he was fully nude, showing that the red splotches continued down his chest. He was panting hard, rocking back and forth in search of a more comfortable position and finding none.
A cool fall breeze picked up, and he sighed, tilting his head back as he basked in it. “That’s better.”
Was this normal? I shared a look with Darion, but he seemed almost as confused as I was.
Beaver births were usually pretty straightforward, though often involved multiples.
Darion had assured me there was just the one baby, using the brand-new ultrasound machine he’d ordered just for this occasion. That didn’t mean he couldn’t be wrong…
“Mon coeur, maybe we should—”
My words were cut off by his manic giggle. “No, it’s just me. I’m sorry, hun, I love you for trying to be with me on this, but there is no we. There’s just me.” He looked up at me, his eyes wide with an expression I’d never seen before. “Don’t worry. I’ve got this.”
I didn’t doubt that for a second. My mate was the strongest man I’d ever met.
So, even when he moaned and whimpered and cried, I reminded myself of that fact. He had this. I was just the witness to his glorious determination. For hours!
“I blame you,” he snapped, crouched down in the grass, squeezing my hands so hard that the bones creaked in protest. “You and your genes. It’s your fault this baby’s head is so big.”
I didn’t have an answer for that but to apologize. “I’m sorry, cher.”
“I don’t want your apology, I want this baby’s head to be smaller!” he said, before moaning, chin drooping to his chest in exhaustion. His hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat.
Darion knelt behind him, checking his progress. “You are very close now,” he promised. “One more big push.”
My beautiful, sweet mate showed off how much French he’d learned by using every single one of the swears he’d been taught, combining them in new and ingenious ways as he bore down, teeth gritted.
And just like that, as Darion promised, our baby came into this world. “Un garcon!” he told us, grinning, as he quickly took care of the baby, his reedy cry startling birds from the trees.
Fable sagged against me. “A boy? That’s what garcon means, right?”
“We have a son,” I confirmed, my vision swimming with happy tears.
Fable wasn’t able to shift in order to heal after the delivery, so with great care, I lifted him and carried him over to the bed and laid him down. Darion brought our son to us, cleaned and swaddled. “What will you call him?” he asked.
Fable and I grinned at each other, as we’d already picked names. “Patrick,” I told Darion, “after the great hockey player, Patrick Roy.” We had a theme going, after all.
“Take a moment, but you shouldn’t stay out here too long, since the weather is about to turn,” the midwife said. “Can’t you feel it?”
Now that he mentioned it, I could. I’d been so focused on my new family that nothing else had penetrated, but now, I looked up at the sky and saw that dark clouds had rolled in. “In a few minutes,” I told him. “We have time.” And I didn’t want to rush a single moment of it.
We curled up together on the daybed, and Darion brought a blanket over to keep us warm. Fable fed our son his first meal, and just as our son began to drift off, bow-shaped lips relaxed, a single snowflake floated down from the sky to land on Patrick’s forehead.
“Welcome to the lodge,” Fable whispered, kissing his forehead in the same spot.