by Aspen Grey
He wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me out the front door onto the porch, which had been shored up and repainted. It was going to need a full replacement at some point, but we’d only had four months to work on the place and we had to pick our jobs carefully.
He took me down the stairs and I kicked my feet through a pile of golden and burnt orange leaves that had fallen from the trees. It was October and fall was beginning to set in. Mountainside may have been a pretty boring, ordinary town, but the scenery was absolutely gorgeous. I’d even thought about taking up photography so I could print out some landscapes and hang them up in the house, but that hobby would have to wait until after the baby came. I was in no shape to be hiking my pregnant ass up and down Mist Peak.
I looked down at the brick walkway that led from the steps to the driveway. Brooks said he hadn’t even noticed it when he moved in until one day he tripped over one of the bricks that was poking up through the grass. We’d dug them up one by one, spread out a bed of stone dust and sand and repaired it. It reminded me of something you’d see leading up to a cottage in a fantasy story for kids.
Most of the flowers I’d laid out, Supertunias and tulips, were obviously gone, and I couldn’t wait until spring when I could load the place up again. I really wanted to get an ivy plant crawling up one of the sides of the house, but Brooks wasn’t sure about that. After all, he’d been the one who’d repainted the whole place in beautiful forest green. We’d have to redo the siding at some point, but what we had would last for a while—at least until our baby boy didn’t need constant attention.
“It’s really something, isn’t it?” I asked him.
“It’s ours,” Brooks replied as he pulled me in for a hug.
“Does it bother you that your dads aren’t here to see it?” I asked him.
“Honestly, not really,” he said. “I never knew what it was like to have parents, you know? Do I wish that I’d been raised differently? In a happy home with a functional family? Sometimes. But then again, if that had happened, my life would have been completely different and I never would have met you.”
“Well, you still might have,” I smiled.
“Maybe. My point is, everything happens for a reason. But what about you?”
“Oh, yeah, I’m really sad my evil father who sold me to an even more evil alpha isn’t here to share this with me!” I laughed.
We looked at our house together while the sun went down then made our way back inside. The fumes weren’t even noticeable, so we made our way upstairs and into the bedroom. Brooks and I had been unable to keep our hands off each other throughout the pregnancy. I didn’t know whether it was still the honeymoon phase, or whether it was something about me having a baby bump that drove him wild, or maybe it was just how our relationship was always going to be, but we were like a couple of horny teenagers (I mean, I still was!).
After seeing him come twice the first time we fucked, Brooks and I had been working together to see how frequently he could have multiples. It had actually become quite rare that he wasn’t able to come twice when we had sex, and it generally only happened during marathon sex when his one and only orgasm was so intense that he simply flopped over onto the bed like a dead fish. Tonight, we were hoping to get him up to three.
As soon as we got into the room, I was on my knees and pulling down his work pants. Even flaccid, his dick was ridiculously huge, but he wasn’t going to be flaccid for long. I wrapped my lips around his alpha cock and began sucking, using the opportunity to deep-throat him without worrying about gagging or coughing. But Brooks got so damn hard so damn quick that I found myself struggling almost immediately.
“God, why is it so hard to deep-throat you!?” I laughed.
“Hey, I guess you just gotta man up!”
“Man up!?” I gasped. “Are you kidding me? God, I wish my dick was this big just once so you could know what I was dealing with! I do pretty good, ya know?”
“You do, babe,” he told me. I tried again, but gagged and coughed again. “Fuck!”
My throat was sore, and I thought that maybe a glass of water might help, but the one by the bed was empty. I grabbed it and stood up.
“I’m gonna get some water, I’ll be right back,” I told him.
“You’re just gonna leave me like this?” he protested, indicating to his enormous hard-on.
“Oh, it’ll be ten seconds!”
Before he could snatch me by the hair and force me back down to my knees, I raced out of the room (with a bit of difficulty as my own cock was getting pretty hard), and down the stairs to the kitchen. I filled up the glass and headed back, but that was when I heard it.
The sound of shattering glass.
I whirled around to see the glass of the study (the second mini-living room on the other side of the stairs) smash in. It was a wolf, a big alpha, that I’d never seen before. But I knew instantly who it was.
It was Mark.
I was so shocked that I stumbled backwards, rolled my ankle and fell back to the floor. I landed hard on my butt and felt something like a balloon popping inside of me, and as the horrible alpha stalked towards me, fangs bared and eyes angry, I realized what had happened; my water had broken!
“BROOKS!” I screamed at the top of my lungs as Mark lunged at me.
What is he here to do? Surely he can’t think he’ll be able to get me away from here and back home with him!
I grasped my stomach as a contraction hit me. Mark landed on top of me, his paws on either side of my head, and opened his mouth to strike.
He’s going to kill me!
Chapter Ten
BROOKS
I burst from the bedroom and shifted at the top of the stairs. I smelled the son of a bitch before I saw him, and when I heard Eric’s scream, I threw myself over the railing and down to the first floor. It was Mark all right, shifted and towering over my mate, his jaws open for a death strike.
There was no time to plan my own attack—no time to decide the best course of action. I simply hurled my full weight forward and slammed into him, sending us both tumbling across the floor to slam into the wall. I felt something in his body crunch and plaster rained down all around us. I heard Eric scream again.
I snarled and swiped out with my claw, hoping to find any part of Mark’s body that I could. But all I found was air. I scrambled away, trying to get my bearings, but felt the sharp, searing pain of two fangs burying themselves in my shoulder.
I roared with pain and threw my head up, slamming into Mark’s lower jaw at just the right angle to break his bite free. I leapt back and glanced over to where Eric was lying in pain, a wet spot on the floor beneath him.
The baby! It’s coming!
The realization hit me like high-dose octane delivered straight to my nervous system. I was filled with such rage and determination, such instinct to protect my mate and my future child, that my body seemed as though it was suddenly under the control of someone else—or something else—my pure alpha.
The pain in my shoulder spurned me forward. I kicked off the stairs, hearing the first one snap beneath my weight, and dove at him. Mark may have been a spoiled, evil, trust fund baby, but he was no slouch. He was fast and dodged out of the way at the last second. I planted my feet and slid to a stop. We faced off, his mouth dripping with foamy saliva as his eyes flickered from me to Eric and then back again.
I couldn’t believe it. All this time—the last four months—this prick had been stewing, thinking about how he hadn’t been able to keep the omega he bought, furious that another alpha had rightfully taken him from him. And rather than trying to kidnap Eric one day, he came here to kill him.
I snarled and dashed forward, snapping at Mark’s front legs. But he was quick and moved away and gnashed his teeth at me. He may have been a real bastard, but he was no slouch of an alpha.
“Brooks!” Eric cried out from behind me. His cry broke my heart. His safety was my number one priority. Even if I ended up getting mortally wounded
, Eric had to be safe. My child had to be safe.
Mark and I were caught in a dance—a lethal dance to see who would act first. Normally I would have been moving more, circling him and looking for an opening for my attack, but I had to keep myself between him and Eric, so I had very little room to move. I felt cornered.
Eric cried out again in pain. He was in full-blown labor now, struggling with the contractions. I should have been by his side in bed, not here locked in combat. I bellowed with rage and dashed towards Mark. He struck out with his teeth, but I ducked beneath them and drove my head into his chest. I heard the air escape his lungs as I hurled him back, but before I could follow up with a bite, he was back on his feet and baring his teeth at me.
This isn’t going to work. You need to do something to end it! But what?
Eric groaned again, and I chanced a glance over my shoulder where he was lying on the floor, propped up against the wall beside the door that led into the living room. Then, I had an idea.
I spun back to Mark before he got any funny ideas in his head about jumping on me, but instead of advancing on him, I began to back away. I moved slowly, putting one claw behind the other as I moved. Mark took the bait, probably thinking I was feeling weak from the wound in my shoulder. I wasn’t of course. It hurt, but I was more invigorated than ever. I had a plan now, and I was almost completely sure it would work—almost.
“B-baby,” Eric stammered. “Be careful!”
It’s okay, baby. I got this.
I kept “retreating” until I was by his side, my back to the living room door, which was open to let the air flow in onto the floors that were still slick with varnish.
Come on, you bastard!
Mark feinted at me, snapped his jaws in the air. I saw it coming and moved out of the way easily, then threw out a lazy claw to bait him into a second attack. Mark took the bait.
He dashed towards me, jaws open, aimed at my weak shoulder. But I was ready. I leapt into the air, not to attack him, but simply to get out of the way. He slid harmlessly beneath me and through the door into the living room.
Perfect.
The wet varnish on the floors killed his grip. His legs splayed out and he slammed down hard on his chest and slid straight into the brick chimney. He yelped as one of his legs bent awkwardly. I saw my chance. I only had a moment, but a moment was more than I needed.
I kicked off hard, leapt from the door of the living room all the way over to where he was doing his best to scramble to his feet, and closed my jaw around his back ankle. Mark roared in agony as I clamped down and snapped the bones. Blood spilled into my mouth and I tugged my head back as fast as I could like I was snapping a whip. He may have been a big alpha, but I was strong.
Mark soared through the air, crashed into the window and went straight through it into the front yard. The floor was slippery beneath me, but I managed to scramble after him and leapt through the broken pane to follow him.
“Get him, baby!” Eric shouted as I landed in the grass, my legs over the fallen alpha as he writhed in pain. Shards of glass stuck out from all across his hide. He tried to get to his feet, but his leg failed him and he fell again. He was finished, he just didn’t know it.
I could have ended his life right there and then, but my anger was pouring through me like lava screaming hot through my veins. This alpha was pure evil. It wasn’t enough that he’d actually considered buying an omega and then actually went through it—no, he then had to come back months later to try to kill him. This was a “man” who thought the world belonged to him and he could do whatever he wanted. I shifted back to my human form and stood over him, sweat and blood dripping from my body.
“You shouldn’t have come back, Mark,” I growled. “We’d moved on, forgotten about you. But you just can’t live in a world where you don’t win, can you?”
I looked back over my shoulder at the two shattered windows of my house. The floor would have to be redone and my mate was in there going through labor. Mark had brought ruin and misery upon my home, but I was victorious. With Eric’s love I could do anything.
“End of the line, pal,” I told him.
I shifted back to my wolf form, snatched Mark by the neck and bit down with all my strength. His jugular severed and his neck snapped at the same time. He went limp in my jaws and I dropped him to the ground—dead. There was no time to take a breather. Eric needed me.
I sprinted back to the house and shifted as I leapt up the steps. I almost took the front door off its hinges as I entered. Eric lay against the wall with one hand over his belly.
“Brooks!” he cried out as I raced over to his side. “Is he—?”
“He’s dead,” I told him. “What can I do for you? Are you all right? Tell me what to do, baby.”
“Can you bring me to the bathroom?” he asked. “And run a bath for me?”
“You do want to do a water birth?” He’d been talking about it and watching videos on YouTube, we just had never made a full decision. But Eric nodded vigorously, so I took him in my arms and carried him up the steps.
“You should wrap up your shoulder while you’re at it,” he told me, running his fingers around the two deep puncture wounds. “Does it hurt?”
“Don’t you worry about me,” I told him. “You just worry about bringing our little cub into the world.”
I brought Eric into the bathroom and set him gently in the tub. I took his pants down and he removed his shirt. I turned on the warm water and found an old washcloth to hold over my wound while I paid attention to him.
“Does it hurt?” I asked, instantly regretting the question.
Don’t say something like that! Take his mind off of it!
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that,” I said quickly. “Just…breathe, baby. Is the water temperature okay?”
The tub was filling more slowly than I’d like, but Eric nodded. “It’s fine. Can you give me something to put behind my head?”
“Of course!”
I got up quickly and snatched a towel from the rack, folded it twice and set it behind his neck. A slight smile came across his lips that helped to ease my nerves slightly.
“If only we knew a shifter nurse or doctor or something,” I grumbled.
“We don’t need one,” Eric shook his head. “I’ll be fine. I just need to—aahhh!”
Another contraction gripped him, causing him to twist with pain. I placed a hand on his cheek and kissed his forehead. He looked so incredible with his big baby bump and beautiful naked body lying in the tub as it filled with water. The power I saw in him—the ability to bring a child into the world—it filled me with wonder and awe. There was only so much I could do for him now. This was his job, his beautiful act, and all I could do was be there for him. He grasped my hand in his and looked at me.
“It’s close,” he told me. “The baby—it’s coming.”
“You can do it,” I smiled. “We’re going to be fathers!”
“Can you believe it?”
“I can’t wait,” I replied.
“Okay…” Eric exhaled, going back into himself for the final stretch. “I’m going to push now, baby.”
“You’ve got this,” I told him. “Easy-peasy.”
Eric actually chuckled at that one. “I wish.”
And then, he pushed.
Chapter Eleven
ERIC
I’d never fully understood what people meant when they talked about how having a child makes you feel. But now—having one of my own—it was like the entire world had changed. Colors seemed brighter, smells seemed sweeter, the morning sun seemed more brilliant and the wind that blew through the trees was more invigorating than ever.
It had only been three days, but they were the most incredible three days of my life, seconded only by the day I met Brook, and I don’t think he’d mind if I put him second to the birth of our child!
The first day had been incredible but strange. It was like I was high or something, my head drifting in some
higher realm of pure bliss while little baby Taylor—that’s what we’d named him—nursed and slept, nursed and slept and did it all over again.
It was difficult to describe how I felt when I held him against my chest. He was so sweet and soft and squishy and warm and I couldn’t believe that he’d actually come out of me.
“We made him, Brooks!” I must have said that a hundred times in the first two days. He was probably getting sick of hearing it, but I was still in awe. The love between Brooks and I brought this new life into the world.
He was an omega and smelled as though he was going to take after me. He had gray eyes still, as many children have, but his hair was definitely going to be the same color as mine. Brooks was thrilled with him, of course, and loved holding him whenever I managed to let him out of my grasp, but I secretly wondered if he hadn’t wanted an alpha.
“No, not at all!” he’d protested. “All I want is a happy little boy! Although I will have to work a little harder to keep the prick alphas away from him. Mark didn’t have sons or nephews did he…?”
We both had a good, dark laugh at that one. But he was right. If my time in Mountainside had taught me anything, it was that there were some really scary things in the world you had to look out for, and now that I had a son, my concerns were even higher.
But we’d actually met some pretty decent shifters in town one night—or rather Brooks had when he was out picking up some grape juice (which I’d suddenly developed a craving for) and some groceries. They called themselves the Webbers and lived over at the base of the mountain. Apparently he’d met their leader, Alexander, who had invited us over any time.
The house was still a wreck from Brooks’ showdown with Mark. Two downstairs windows needed to be replaced and were just boarded up with cardboard for now. The floor needed to be sanded down and refinished all over again and there was some wall damage as well. But in the scheme of things, it really wasn’t a big deal. The house would hold up, and our love would heal it. I liked having projects to do anyway, and as soon as I could bring myself to let Taylor sleep by himself in his crib, we could get to work together.