Chapter Six
Neighborhood watch was usually uneventful.
I didn’t fully understand the pack’s need for security at the best of times, but the additional roster during pack runs had something to do with a kidnapping attempt during a run a few years earlier.
That was all I’d needed to know when I originally volunteered my services.
Admittedly, when I’d first volunteered, I had still been human — a potential shifter at best. After the successful Unlocking, I was disappointed to miss out on the occasional pack run, but I was proud to help keep the rest of the pack safe.
Even if all I kept them safe from was the occasional tourist asking for directions or, on one memorable occasion, a pet dog that had escaped from a backyard in a nearby town and who had managed to travel all the way to us.
So, I was on high alert when I watched the raccoon racing down Main Street in the direction of the Alpha’s home.
There were a handful of raccoon shifters in Shifters Sanctuary.
As far as I knew, they were all related.
From a distance, I wasn’t sure which one was moving faster than I’d known a raccoon could run, but I sensed panic in the air.
Knowing my gut hadn’t ever led me astray before, I turned the key in my truck’s ignition and the engine rumbled to life.
Shooting a text to let the person in charge of tonight’s neighborhood watch know I was leaving my post because something seemed off, I drove after the raccoon. It didn’t take me long to catch up.
The animal shifted as I slowed my truck behind him, and I felt even more on edge when I recognized the figure illuminated by my headlights. Martin. Tim’s best friend.
Tim’s best friend who had been his run partner.
“What’s wrong?” I demanded as soon as he had wrenched open the passenger door. I didn’t even give him a chance to climb onto the seat. “Where’s Tim?”
Breathing heavily, Martin grimaced, shaking his head. “We need a doctor,” he managed between panted breaths. “Tim’s…hurt.”
The passenger door wasn’t even shut before I planted my foot on the accelerator, growling out, “What happened?”
Martin yanked the door closed and clutched at the ‘oh shit’ bar as we hurtled towards the dragon-run doctor’s clinic. It shared the same plot of land as the Alpha’s house and was where I knew the on-shift doctor, Eric, was holding down the fort that night in case of any medical emergencies.
“I don’t know,” the raccoon shifter answered my question, sounding almost as worried as I felt.
“We were running —we’ve always played a game where he chases me to the river.
Have done for as long as we’ve been able to shift— and for the first time ever, he didn’t catch me.
He was…uh…he was slow.” Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Martin’s long fingers drumming on his bare thigh anxiously.
“When he got to the water’s edge, he yelped and shifted back.
He was bleeding from…well, from somewhere I’ve never seen before on anyone…
and he said his stomach was killing him.
” Martin’s voice clogged with tears, making my heart clench.
“He’s, um, he’s convinced he’s dying. I don’t…
I mean, I’m a beta. I don’t know anything about omega biology, but I don’t think he’s dying.
Maybe his appendix burst, or something?”
I put my foot down harder. There was no time to lose.
Martin slammed his hands on the dash when we lurched to a sudden stop in the tiny parking lot, a spray of gravel and dust heralding my speedy arrival. Before we could get out of the vehicle, the clinic’s door opened, and Eric stepped out.
He was about my height, blond and attractive, with a body that appeared gym-toned.
To look at him, you’d guess he was maybe in his early forties, so it was a bit of a mindfuck to discover he was a hundreds-of-years-old dragon.
I’d learned that Eric had purchased most of the land in Shifters Sanctuary decades ago, and that it had been his idea to form the pack when Beckett had accidentally discovered he was an alpha. The first in centuries, in fact.
Eric was also a great doctor. He was calm and incredibly knowledgeable, and it was a relief to see him striding towards us with purpose, his emergency medical bag already slung over his shoulder.
“What’s going on?” he asked, opening the rear passenger door and sliding into the middle of the back seats. He didn’t even blink at Martin’s disheveled, naked state.
Martin quickly repeated everything he’d told me, answering as many of Eric’s questions as he could.
He said something about Tim’s body changing, but I didn’t understand what he meant.
Eric seemed to have some idea, though, because he hummed thoughtfully while I tried to focus on driving us back to the edge of the forest where the pack was running.
From what I’d gleaned during my time living there, Beck gave the pack some say in what happened in the town, including things as simple as where to take their monthly pack runs.
A lot of the time, the pack would simply gather on the lands near Beck’s house and go from there.
But on some occasions, like this one, other shifters would offer their properties as a starting point, for variety of experiences and to show their pack spirit.
“Park here,” Martin leaned forward in his seat. He braced himself for another hasty stop. “This way will get us to Tim the fastest.” He glanced at Eric over his shoulder. “Especially because you can’t shift.”
Eric nodded. As a dragon, he was huge. He couldn’t make it through the dense hardwood trees as quickly as he could in human form. At least, not without flattening half the forest. Not that I was opposed to that idea, seeing as it was my mate who needed help.
And he was my mate. There was no use pretending otherwise or bothering to correct my inner beast. We might have only been dating for six months, and we might have been taking our physical relationship slower than most, but I was head over heels in love with Tim.
A pang of guilt struck me at that thought. I’d been feeling it for a while, but I hadn’t said the words out loud. What if the worst did happen and Tim never knew how I felt?
No. I couldn’t think that way. Eric was there. He was going to help. Everything was going to be fine.
It had to be.
I heard Tim before I could see him. He was crying out in pain, and it made my bear want to come hurtling to the surface.
I wanted to hurt whatever was harming my mate, but as we broke through the brush and came to find him curled up on the grassy riverbank, sobbing and sweaty and grimy, it was obvious there was nothing external to blame.
“C-Con…” Tim sobbed when he saw me.
I crashed to my knees at his side, oblivious to whatever the others were doing.
My boyfriend had my complete focus. I reached for his outstretched hand, running my other through his damp hair. “Shh, darlin’, I’m here, and so’s Eric. He’s gonna fix you right up, okay?”
Tim grimaced, squeezing my hand with a surprising amount of force, curling over into a tight ball again.
“I think my spleen ruptured or something. It…ugh…it hurts so bad. And” —He scrunched his face up — “there’s this, um, this hole.
And it was bleeding and I think I peed out of it… and…and…w-what if I’m dying?”
“I don’t think that’s what’s happening,” Eric said, unpacking his supplies near Tim’s feet.
“I’m just going to take a look, okay? I need you to lie back and open your legs for me, Tim.
Can you do that?” Turning his attention to me, Eric suggested, “Can you shuffle around and prop him up a bit? Support him. Sitting with a leg on either side of him so you can hold him might be best.”
I did everything he said, only letting go of Tim’s hand so I didn’t twist his arm back unnaturally. As soon as I was behind him, with his back flush against my chest, I wrapped my arms around him and he gripped at my forearms, his nails digging in as more pain wracked his body.
“Alright, this might feel a bit uncomfortable,” Eric said, placing a gloved hand on the inside of Tim’s left thigh. There was a smear of blood on the pale skin there which made my stomach churn with worry. “Just take some deep breaths for me, okay, Tim?”
Tim nodded, jolting and yelping when Eric reached between his legs. “Owww!” he cried. “Stop. Please. It hurts. Please stop.”
Even though I knew Eric was just doing his job and trying to help my mate, his plaintive begging brought my bear closer to the surface.
Don’t maim the doctor, I told myself. Don’t maim the—
“Good. Good. You did really well, Tim,” Eric withdrew his hand, then looked up at us with a peculiar expression. He licked his lips, then said, “You’re not dying, and you haven’t ruptured an organ. But you are in active labor.”
Martin gasped, “Labor?!”
I’d forgotten he was even there.
Tim shook his head vehemently. “I…that’s not possible. I’m a virgin. I…I can’t be…” He twisted around, his frantic, red-rimmed eyes trying to meet mine. “I swear, I’ve never been with anyone. I—owwww.”
“Shh, sweetheart, it’s okay, it’s gonna be okay,” I said, despite my own inner turmoil.
My boyfriend —my mate— was in labor with a baby neither of us knew existed. A baby we couldn’t have possibly made together. Not unless…
Memories tickled the back of my mind.
Was it possible…?
Eric removed his gloves, placing his hands on Tim’s stomach to palpate the area gently. “You don’t know when you conceived?” he asked. “Because your belly doesn’t appear large enough for forty weeks gestation, so I’m concerned this might be quite a premature—”
“I’ve never had s-sex,” Tim insisted, sounding close to hysteria.
Eric soothed, “Okay, okay. Try to stay calm.”
“How?! How do I stay calm when you’re saying I’m—aaah!”
“There will be a logical explanation,” Eric’s tone was light and affable as Tim rode out what we now knew to be another contraction. “But, for now, we need to get through the immediate issue of delivering this baby.”
“I don’t want to,” Tim sobbed. “I’m scared.”
“I know,” Eric smiled understandingly, “but there’s no other option. You’re almost fully dilated, so we’re doing this here and now.” He turned to Martin, giving instructions to take my truck and arrange a support team back in town.
Martin didn’t need to be told twice. He shifted on the spot, and I didn’t stop to consider how bizarre it felt to hand a raccoon my keys before he was running off into the dark forest with them held tightly between his teeth.
Eric settled back between Tim’s legs, sliding on a new pair of gloves. “Okay, boys,” he said brightly, “it’s show time.”