“Oh, I was told to watch out for you.” The door made a noise. “Come in.”
Duke wrenched the door open and ran in to find himself face to face with a desk and a young woman sitting behind it. “Bram?” he blurted.
“You go right down that hall, he’s the second door on the right. They’re expecting you,” the woman said.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Duke wondered at her cool demeanor, but then he was at the door, and there was Bram, whitefaced and sweaty, naked in some weird chair, surrounded by nurses.
“Duke!” Bram held out his arms and Duke pushed through the humans to get to his mate. “What happened?”
“Humans happened. They gave me shit at the gate, threatened not to let me out at all. It doesn’t matter, I’m here now, we’re okay. I love you.”
“I love y—” His voice choked off and his face screwed up in a grimace. Bram’s grip tightened painfully on Duke’s hand, pulling on him so hard Bram almost picked himself up off the chair. “Oooooooh.”
“Breathe through it, honey,” an older nurse said. “Short breaths, like we told you.”
Bram nodded and began panting rapidly. His stomach tightened up into a high, hard ball, and a rush of fluid ran out of the opening in his omega line.
“Good, you’re doing so well, Bram, I can see the head of the first one coming.” The nurse issued a short string of commands and everyone else went into a flurry of action. Stambourg came through the door, hands held up in front of him. One of the nurses helped him on with a set of gloves and, Duke assumed, filled him in, since she used a lot of terms and numbers he didn’t understand.
The doctor came over to peer at Bram. “How is everyone? Excited? Everything seems good so far.”
Bram’s contraction had stopped and he looked anxiously up at the doctor. “But there’s still five weeks to go!”
“Well, that would have been ideal, but twins are often early remember, and at this point, they should be mostly past the development stage and just putting on weight. We’ll do an evaluation as soon as they come out and go from there, but we have to get them here first.”
Bram nodded and his belly tightened again and he groaned and leaned into Duke.
When the contraction ended, the doctor nudged Duke. “Just give him two fingers to hold. I’ve seen moms break their husband’s fingers during labor.”
No sooner had Duke followed Stambourg’s suggestion than Bram was in the middle of another one. This one seemed to go on longer, and there was hardly any time after it finished before the next one started. Tears streaked Bram’s face and he hardly seemed aware of anything except his body and the pressure to bring the babies into the world. To Duke, it felt like it was going on forever, and he swore he’d never ask Bram to carry another pup if this was what it took to bring it into the world.
A commotion at the foot of Bram’s chair distracted him from his mate’s suffering. Low voiced commentary led to one nurse moving away to a cabinet on the far wall, coming back with some metal instrument. “What’s that?” Duke demanded.
“They aren’t coming out the way I expected,” the doctor said as he peered at Bram’s line with a small penlight. “The opening seems large enough. I wonder if they’re—” His sentence broke off and suddenly the first pup slid into his hands. He caught her expertly and passed her over to a nurse who held a clean blanket to wrap her in. “Well, there’s one. Shouldn’t be long before the next one. You’re doing great, Bram.”
“Is the baby okay?” Bram begged, leaning over the edge of the chair to see what they were doing. When Duke looked over, they had her on a table with a bright light shining down on her while they poked at her and did things with instruments Duke didn’t recognize.
The doctor smiled. “Your daughter is fine. She’s a little underweight, by human standards. The tall fellow over there is the neo-natal expert. We went to school together and I can guarantee you he’s the best choice for your babies. He’ll make sure everything’s fine.” The thin wail of a newborn shivered into the air and Bram sat back with a relieved expression.
They only had that brief respite before the contractions for the second baby took over. Bram groaned and hung onto Duke for dear life, but it only took a few before their little boy made his entrance.
The nurses carried him over to the neo-natal doctor, and the group there flew into action.
Bram lay back in the chair, oblivious to everything except his babies on the other side of the room. “How are they?” he croaked.
One of the nurses brought him a cup, it smelled like water to Duke. Bram drank it gratefully, but his eyes never strayed from the anthill-like explosion of movement around their babies. “What’s going on?”
“They’re looking your babies over, assessing their alertness, and deciding how they want to go forward,” the doctor told them. “In a few minutes, we’ll have a better idea what’s going on.”
They waited tensely while the nurses started cleaning Bram up and the afterbirth came. Then the doctor carefully lined up the edges of Bram’s omega line and wrapped it thoroughly in gauze and elastic bandage. “We’ll get you a stretcher to take you back up to your room,” he said.
At that moment, the neo-natal doctor came over to them, holding one of the babies bundled up in a soft pink blanket. “I can let you hold them for a few minutes, but they’re both very small and I’m concerned about them being able to maintain their body temperature.” He laid the baby in Bram’s arms. A nurse brought Duke the other baby, wrapped up in a blue blanket. “After you’ve had a chance to say hi, we’re going to take them upstairs and set them both up incubators until I see some more fat on them. The good news is that they’re very close to being able to keep themselves warm on their own. All we need to do is feed them up right for a few weeks, and they’ll be right as rain.” He smiled and stepped back to whisper with Bram’s obstetrician.
Duke gazed down at his son. “Hello, Jedrick,” he whispered. “I’m your Da. Want to see your Ahmi?” Bram had picked the name up from listening to the old stories about omegas. Duke thought it suited him. He leaned over with their little boy, cradling him like he’d break at the slightest move. He was so small, and quiet. “How is she?”
“She’s gorgeous.” Bram smiled up at him and lifted one hand to move the blanket away from Jedrick’s face. “Aw, they do look alike. Look, Isolde. It’s your brother. You’ve never been so far apart, have you?” His smile faltered and he hunched over their baby girl a little. “Please be okay,” Duke heard him whisper.
And then it was time to give the babies back to the doctors, and he and Bram moved into the recovery room and held each other and hoped.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
I leaned on the side of the incubator and stared at Isolde. It was just after six in the morning—I’d left a note on my door for Duke to find me here.
One of the neo-natal nurses stopped by to check numbers and peer into the incubator. “It’s almost breakfast time for babies. Do you want to take her out to feed her?”
“Yes, please,” I said immediately. Not that I hadn’t been feeding them, but everyone knew that I was having problems making milk. They had us on a schedule—every two hours. And then I would pump at night when I was locked in my hospital room, trying to force my body to step up and do its job. But here I was, three and a half weeks in, and I was hardly making any more than I had the first couple of days. Apparently I sucked at making milk for my babies too, just like I’d sucked at gestating them.
It got so bad, we had to give them formula in between my miserable feedings, or they would have starved. But I still treasured these moments when I got to hold them and rock them and it was just the two of us together. The nurse handed her to me and I walked over to the rocking chair in the corner and opened my nursing shirt for another episode of mediocrity.
I was glad I’d been warned that new babies were really clumsy when it came to nursing. It only stood to reason that premature ones would be even clumsier. But Isolde
couldn’t stay on my nipple to save her life, which it was kind of about. She’d get on, suck a few times, then come off and cry. By the end of a nursing session, I was near crying too, though this morning Isolde seemed to have a full belly.
Not that it took much to fill her.
Duke came through the door. His smile lit up the room for me and I quickly dried my tears and put on a brave face. “Hi! You’re right on time!”
“I wouldn’t want to miss this.” He kissed me briefly, and watched while I changed her diaper, still under the observant eye of the nurse. She was friendly enough, but seemed to see me as some kind of idiot. So everything I did with the babies was watched like it was my first time diapering, or cleaning, or dressing.
As soon as I was done, the nurse came over to take her. “We’re just going to weigh your little princess, then she can go back inside the incubator to grow some more. ‘Cause that’s what babies do best, isn’t it darling?” she cooed as she carried our baby over to the scale. She laid Isolde on the tray and checked the display. “She’s gained again. That’s good. If she keeps on like this, she’ll be out of the incubator in a couple of days.”
I watched her put our baby back in the plastic incubator box and attach the wires to the sensors on her body—heart rate, temperature, breathing. Then she went to get Jedrick out for us.
She let Duke hold him for a minute and carry him over to me. I sat back down and held my arms out, hiding my fear and my tears.
But I loved them so much, and when Duke put Jedrick in my arms, my heart overflowed with happiness. I settled him on my un-nursed side and guided his mouth, rubbing his cheek over my nipple so he knew to turn and look for it. He settled quickly but, just like Isolde, he only drank a couple of mouthfuls before he let go and began to cry.
And then I did too, sitting there holding my baby and not knowing what to do to fix this.
“Bram, sweetheart, what’s wrong?”
“I can’t do this,” I sobbed. I tried to set Jedrick on again, but he just flailed around and wouldn’t nurse, crying so I thought my head would break. I knew my heart was. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” I handed him off to Duke and stumbled from the room, banging into walls and doors until I got down the flight of stairs to the maternity ward and could barricade myself in my room.
I lay on the bed and cried until my pillow was soaked.
A large warm hand landed in the middle of my back, and then one side of the mattress sank beneath me. Duke’s deep, comforting voice rumbled through the pre-dawn darkness. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re doing fine. This is hard, really hard. I wish there was something I could do to take some of the load off your back.”
“It’s not your responsibility. You’re not omega!” I wanted him to go away because there wasn’t anything he could do, and I wanted him to stay and make it all better.
“No, but I’m your mate. And these are my pups.” He lay down on the bed and pulled me into his arms. “You know what we did when you left? The nurse gave me a bottle to give to Jedrick. And he seemed fine. He didn’t eat much, but he ate, and then she walked me through changing him and you know what?”
I took a few deep, shaky breaths and asked, “What?”
“It’s not the same as the natural method, but they didn’t look any worse for wear. And I know it’s selfish of me, but I enjoyed sitting in that chair and holding my son, feeding him, taking care of him. If you don’t mind, I’d like to do it more.”
“You might have to, since I can’t seem to do anything right for them.” I curled my fists in Duke t-shirt and hung on for dear life.
“You’ve done plenty right. Their doctor came by while you were gone. He says they’re doing really well, that he thinks you’ll be an excellent parent. You’ve never said no, never argued. Everything he asked you to do, you did without complaint. And I know you’ve worn yourself to the bone to do it—we all do. We all see it, except for you. You need to stop beating yourself up. I don’t care if you can’t nurse them. There are tons of humans who use formula. I’d rather have a happy, rested mate and happy, growing pups, than put you through this torture. And them, too. It’s not fair to any of you to expect this, and if you want to stop, I’ll beat anyone who criticizes you into a pulp.” His voice softened. “This is our family, and these are our choices. You can keep trying if you want, but I need you to understand that I’ll be happy and support you with whatever choice you make.” He kissed the top of my head. “The nurse told me that sometimes, when the babies come early, milk is late showing up in human women. It’s probably the same with us. It could be that you just didn’t have time to get ready to make enough. It’s not your fault—shifters don’t have twins. We’re not made for them. You were amazing to keep them going as long as you did, and I couldn’t be prouder or love you more.”
“Really?” I sniffed and burrowed closer into his embrace. “You’re not mad?” Or disappointed. I thought I could handle mad better than disappointed.
“No.” He chuckled. “Not mad. You want to stay here and nap for a while? Then we can go back and maybe we’ll each feed one?”
I could feel my agitation and my despair fading slowly the more he talked, and the more he said, the more I believed that it would be all right. “Which one do you want?” I asked, not because I needed to know, but because I just wanted to listen to his voice rumbling beneath my ear.
“I’ll arm wrestle you for Isolde,” he said, and tightened his arms around me so I couldn’t smack him for his joke.
I lifted my head and begged a kiss. “Thank you,” I said.
“No thanks between us. We’re mates—it’s what we do for each other.”
We lay there quiet for a moment and in the silence of his heartbeat, I made a decision. “I think I should stay home to look after the babies. I mean, omegas were never really meant to go to school. And I think all the focus on me being something I’m not might have caused this. If I hadn’t spent my time studying and worrying about marks and scores, I might have caught this before it got this bad. I don’t want to take the chance.”
Duke pulled away slightly so he could look at me for a moment. I could tell he was thinking about what to say and I prepared myself to hold firm in the face of his persuasion. Instead, when he did speak, it was entirely different from what I’d expected. “If that’s what you really want, then I’ll support you in that. But if you’re doing this as some sort of way to punish yourself because of a body that was never designed to carry two babies at once, you’re going to end up dumping your guilt on me and the pups instead. And that’s not fair to them.”
“That’s not what I meant to do. But what if I screw school up too?”
Duke frowned, though it didn’t seem to be at me, but at something inside his head. “Have you ever screwed up school?” He watched me for a moment, then continued. “For me, I’d rather you went to school and learned everything you can and came back to the pack with all that, because the best weapon a man can have is knowledge, and if anything ever happened to the pups again, I’d want someone to know what to do. I’m perfectly happy to stay home and look after them if you want to go out and earn credits. And I don’t care what people say about other omegas. You’re not any ordinary omega—I’ve known that for a while. What does surprise me is that you stay with someone as ordinary as me.”
Oh. Oh, Duke. I launched myself at him and crushed my mouth against his. And he kissed me back, and then held me until I felt ready to go back up to our babies.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
It was time. We were going home.
I finished packing my clothes into my suitcases while Duke looked after the twins. He sat in the rocking chair the nurses had scrounged for me when the babies had been declared big enough and healthy enough to sleep in bassinets in my room, a baby in each arm. His expression looked utterly content, relaxed and happy in a completely new way. Just another reminder of the miracle that our babies were.
“I think that’s everything.” I stuck my head in the ba
throom for one final check, but it was empty, cleared out and ready for the next shifter who needed it. “You ready to go?”
“Never readier,” he replied, and my heart leaped for happiness.
“Then let’s go home,” I said, and closed the suitcase. I leaned over to take Isolde from him so he could stand up, and let him pick up the suitcase, because we’d already had that discussion and I lost. Completely.
We stopped by the desk to sign papers and say goodbye. Kristy presented us with a huge basket wrapped up in plastic, filled with all sorts of treats and baby supplies. I was touched and I hugged the ones who were comfortably enough with shifters to allow it, and said a shy thank you to the others.
They made me ride in a wheelchair down to the door. Kristy pushed, while I held Isolde and the basket in my lap, and Duke trailed behind with Jedrick and the suitcases. We waited there while Duke brought the van around, two brand new baby seats in the back, Jedrick already installed in his. We tucked a sleeping Isolde into hers, checked the seat belts again, packed the suitcases and the basket, then said another goodbye to Kristy and the other nurse who’d come down with us.
And then, we were off.
We only stopped once on the way, just long enough to get something to eat, and to warm bottles for the babies. After Duke’s talk, I’d slowly given up on the dream of feeding my babies like any other omega and accepted that they would be fed formula. It helped that Duke took such obvious delight in holding our babies while they drank and that they had started to grow once I admitted defeat. I might have had a much darker time with it if it hadn’t been for him.
Finally, we drove up the road and I saw the walls and the gate to Mercy Hills. I reached for Duke’s hand and squeezed it, happier than I’d ever thought I’d be, coming back here.
“Get the papers out of the glove compartment, will you?” Duke said.
Duke's Baby Deal (MM Mpreg Shifter Romance) (Mercy Hills Pack Book 3) Page 22