Chapter 19 #2
"You're one of us now," Sergei called over his shoulder. "You're already showing signs of radiation sickness. It's the only way to give you a chance."
The passenger door clicked open and then banged shut. When Sergei returned with Amber in his arms, she also sported a new scar on top of her left hand.
"Just like that?" Lonnie asked. "We'll be able to shift into wolves?"
"Now, we wait and see. You could still die."
I didn't appreciate Sergei's flippant tone, but Gunnar held my immediate attention. He hunkered down on the leaves beside me and whimpered.
"Come on. Let's get inside." Sergei handed the still unconscious Amber to Lonnie and led the way around the fallen log. I nudged Gunnar back to his feet, and we followed.
The area smelled strongly of wolf shifters, but I had yet to see anything resembling a building.
When Sergei pulled aside a curtain of moss and unlocked yet another giant door with a metal crank, I wondered if we'd made the right decision to follow his directions.
He was a wolf, and he hated my father, but was that enough to make him our friend?
Inside, the space was worlds apart from Ivan's underground lab.
Natural stone caves branched off into dens filled with deer skins, bear pelts, and other bedding.
We followed the main path from the door to a large cavern with seats like an amphitheater.
In the middle was a circular stairway leading down to another level.
Instead of dank rooms, we found brightly lit offices and high-tech equipment.
The Paskal Industries labels raised my hackles until I saw a familiar face.
Bettina and her grandfather stood in a pastel blue exam room beside a low table.
"I'm so glad you're alive!" Bettina, never one for grand gestures, clasped her hands to her chest before motioning Gunnar to the table. "There are doctors here for you and your human friends."
"We'd almost finished the tunnel when your friends arrived," Nor Bertholf said. "Good thing, too. It would have been a bitch to collapse before the authorities arrived. We heard you left a huge mess in there."
"We'll clean it up," Sergei said. "The pups are the main concern." Sergei ran his hand down Gunnar's side. "You're safe, now, Tato. It's time to push."
I shifted back to my human form to better fit in the small space at the head of the table.
Clasping Gunnar's paws, I rested my forehead against his as he strained.
Hot breath washed over my chest with each agonizing howl.
Just when I thought I couldn't take another moment of feeling the intense pain through our bond, the dam broke, the first pup eased from his body, and a tiny wail answered Gunnar's harsh pants.
"It's a girl," Sergei said. "What do you want to name her?"
Sunflower was probably too on-the-nose. "Blossom?" I whispered to Gunnar.
"It's perfect."
Sergei handed her to me, still a wriggling little wolf pup, and I held her for Gunnar to sniff. He licked her cheek, and she shifted into a squirming human baby in my arms, her wrinkled pink skin bunching around her elbows and wrists. She was absolutely perfect, just like her name. "Blossom."
"I'll take her," a woman who smelled like wolf beneath the antiseptic reached for Blossom, but I instinctively clutched her to my chest. "It's for your United States birth certificate. I will return her to her tato for nursing as soon as I'm done."
I handed her over, but my arms felt cold the moment she left them. I wanted to trust these strange wolves, but my paranoia lingered.
"They've been kinder than your father ever was to us," Gunnar reminded me. "We will trust them until they prove untrustworthy. Right now, we need them."
My mate had a point, but Sergei and the nurse spoke to each other in their foreign language, while I couldn't tell the difference between Ukrainian and Russian. "What does that word mean?" I asked Sergei. "Tato."
"How you say …" he snapped his fingers. "Daddy."
Daddy. I blinked away the sharp pang of tears. We were already parents, of twins. We'd spent the last few months trying to stay alive, and now, on top of our freedom, we also had the responsibility of caring for these beautiful new lives.
Panic rushed to the surface, but I tamped it down. Gunnar needed me to be strong, as did our babies. I pressed my lips to the soft fur of his paw instead.
"It's going to be all right," he said.
"Shh," I whispered, though the other two could probably hear me. "I'm supposed to be comforting you, not the other way around."
Gunnar shook with another contraction.
"One more push," Sergei said. "I can see their head. Just a little bit more now."
Somewhere in the labyrinth, I heard Amber scream. Bettina and Nor were nowhere to be found, nor was Lonnie.
"Where are my friends?"
"They're with Dr. Ovnosky. If anyone can help them, she can."
My questions melted from my mind as Gunnar leaned forward, pressing his forehead to my chest and bearing down for another push.
His pained sounds had been reduced to grunts and harsh breaths, but I still felt the sympathy pangs building in my gut.
Finally, with a guttural cry, he sank back to the table, and a robust wail echoed off the stone walls.
"It's another girl." Sergei met my gaze with a pleased grin. "Do you have a name for her?"
"Chandra," Gunnar said through our wolf bond. "Blossom is our sun, and Chandra will be our moon."
"Chandra." The name sounded foreign on my tongue, but it fit the beautiful silver pup Sergei handed me.
She truly looked like the moon in the sky until Gunnar licked her cheek, and she turned into a ruddy, wrinkle-faced baby with a lush head of hair and a powerful set of lungs.
The nurse returned with Blossom in her arms. "It's time to shift, Tato.
We'll see if she takes to nursing. If not, we have some baby formula to last until we can get you back to your plane. "
I traded Chandra for Blossom, and Gunnar shifted, slumping onto his side on the table. "I should have done that sooner," he whispered. "My leg feels better already." He reached for Blossom, tucking her to his chest and rubbing her cheek until she latched onto his nipple with a greedy suck.
My heart ached for the time we lost. I wished I could have seen all his pregnant beauty in human form.
Would his belly have been round? He didn't have a single stretch mark across his freckled midriff.
His chest popped like he'd done nothing but pushups and bench presses for the last three months, but his flesh was soft beneath my questing fingers.
"I missed you," I whispered.
He grinned up at me. "Missed you, too. I kinda love you."
"You … love me?" Once upon a time, he'd hated my guts. "I love you, too." As soft as I said the words, he heard me. We were both wolf shifters, after all.
"It didn't seem right to say it when we were wolves." He gazed down at Blossom. "We made it out together. We did all this."
The nurse returned with Chandra in her arms. Taking my daughter, I listened intently as she explained we could keep the room for as long as we needed.
She showed me the pile of clothes Sergei had left for us and patted my shoulder.
"You will have questions. Come find me upstairs when you are ready for answers. "
I had tons of questions, starting with the baby in my arms already looking like she could hold her head up and crawl around the tile floor.
Now wasn't the time, though. Our babies suckled greedily for their first meals.
Afterward, Gunnar needed rest. My eyelids hung heavy as I watched the three of them together.
I was already failing as their father, but I, too, sank into exhausted sleep.