His Christmas Magic

by Drea Roman

  “Why are you here?” His voice is worried, but his face looks relieved as he takes me into his arms. He smells of smoke, and I cling to him.

  “Nick warned me that my vision was coming true. I came to save you.”

  “You saved us, too,” Eddie croaks, his voice obviously hoarse from the smoke of the fire. He gently settles the young man in his arms down on the ground. Taking a moment to brush the man’s shaggy golden hair away from his face, he runs his hands over the prone man’s body. Colt does the same thing from his position on the other side of their unconscious patient until the two horse shifters accidentally brush fingers as their hands meet over the man’s chest.

  Both Eddie and Colt jerk their heads up at the same time with matching expressions of shock on their faces. They gaze at each other for a full minute, Eddie’s face awash with glowing happiness and Colt’s face stunned and a tiny bit fearful.

  “You?” Eddie asks, a joyous smile spreading across his face. “It’s you.”

  “And him,” Colt whispers, his eyes flicking down to the man sprawled between them on the ground.

  Eddie’s voice vibrates with happy excitement. “Colt! How did I never know it was you?” He grabs the beefy Clydesdale by the neck and lays the mother of all kisses on him. When he finally releases Colt, the larger man looks dazed, his eyes wide with surprise and wonder, but also a hell of a lot of fear.

  “No,” Colt chokes out. “I didn’t know. I mean. . . I. . .” He blushes and glances between Eddie and the unconscious man furtively, as if he doesn’t know what to think. He swallows hard and seems to purposely refocus his attention on the unconscious man who lies across on the ground between them. “What are we going to do about him?”

  Eddie throws back his head and laughs before giving Colt a smacking kiss on his forehead, finally releasing him to take the third member of their triad into his arms. “We mate him, you silly Clydesdale. After he’s conscious and can give consent, of course.”

  “And after he’s been checked out at a hospital,” Darren supplies dryly, and he lets me go so he can walk over to them. He helps Colt and Eddie to their feet as the three discuss what to do next.

  “Obviously,” Colt replies, his voice shaking with myriad emotions at once.

  I laugh, joy bubbling over inside me now that my mate is safe and my friends have just discovered each other as mates. But a searing pain laces through my lower abdomen, causing me to scream instead. As I collapse on the cold, hard ground, Darren rushes over and cradles me in his arms.

  “The babies?” he asks as he starts to run his hands over my enormous baby belly.

  “No shit, Sherlock!” I snap, then immediately regret it. “Sorry, sorry, the pain took me by surprise, is all.” Another contraction rips through my body. I scream again, my back bowing in pain as I feel my water break, the fluids gushing from my ass, immediately soaking my pants. “Fuck, fuck, fuck! They’re coming.”

  “Here? They can’t come here.” Darren’s calm voice grates on my already paper-thin nerves. Grabbing him by the collar, I scream in his face as the next contraction rolls through my back and abdomen.

  “Now, now, now! They are coming now!” Tears roll down my cheeks as I fall back into Darren’s arms as the contraction releases me for a moment.

  Without another word, Darren scoops me up and runs toward the fire ambulance. Eddie slings his unconscious mate over his shoulder like a limp bag of potatoes as Colt runs past us, his speed astonishing me. He throws open the back door and jumps up into the rig. Darren doesn’t pause as he hands me up to Colt, who lays me on a gurney before turning to take his own mate from Eddie’s arms. Darren hops up next before Eddie slams the double doors closed and runs around to the front.

  “We won’t make it to the hospital,” Colt tells Eddie. “Take us to the firehouse.”

  I would nod in agreement, but my contractions are mere seconds apart at this point. “Oh, my fucking God! Get them out! Get them out!” I thrash on the gurney as Darren tries to hold me steady. The truck fires up, and Eddie throws it into gear.

  “Hold onto your hats,” he yells back at us, sounding entirely too chipper about the situation.

  “You hold onto own your hat, you gatverdamme horse!” I yell back at him.

  The two gurneys bounce around the inside of the truck as Eddie speeds us down the dirt road away from the still-blazing barn. A larger fire engine flies past us going in the opposite direction, headed to the fire we just left. My body tightens, contracts, and then releases again, and I can pull in a full breath for the first time in several minutes.

  “Tuck, I have to take your pants off. Colt, hold him still.” Darren makes quick work of my pants as Colt slips his arms underneath my shoulders and pushes me up into an almost sitting position.

  “Get your fucking hands off me,” I screech out at the Clydesdale, whose hands hold my body steady as his compassionate eyes hold my gaze.

  “Shh, it’s going to be okay.” Darren tries to reassure me, but I cannot curse him out as my breath is stolen just then by the strongest and longest contraction yet. I can feel my hipbones stretching in their joints as my body starts to open up in preparation for the birth of our babies. Darren’s gloved fingers probe my entrance. When did he put gloves on? Where did he find gloves?

  “He’s almost fully dilated. Fuck! How did that happen so fast?”

  The truck swings around a corner and slams to a stop, the two gurneys knock against each other, and the unconscious man nearly slides off. Colt reaches out and hauls him back onto the wheeled bed while still holding onto me with his other arm. It is a feat of strength that would amaze me if I weren’t currently splitting in half. I can’t breathe very deeply now, and I pant shallowly as the back doors fly open.

  “Xander,” Darren yells over his shoulder. “He’s delivering here, right now. I need Xander.”

  “Here,” Xander calls out as he rushes from the front door of the fire station with his medical bag clutched in one already-gloved hand. Darren steps aside as Xander slips into place at the end of the gurney and throws open his bag. “Your friend Nick called and said you were on your way.”

  “Nick called?” Darren asks, sounding shocked.

  Xander ignores him as he investigates my body, his gloved fingers a gentle counterpoint to the pain that is once again swelling inside of me.

  “Damn, I think a shoulder is stuck. The baby is crowning, but seems hung up. Darren, I need you to pull his hip up.”

  The sounds I am bellowing out now don’t sound human or even elven anymore. Darren’s calm reserve is gone as he lifts my right hip so Xander can shove his fingers into my now fully dilated asshole. I can feel them moving inside me as he tries to maneuver the first baby into a better delivering position.

  “Can’t you just snap them out?” Darren asks me, the fear evident in his voice now.

  I scream again as Xander tries to turn the tiny body inside me. “No, you Dunder-headed wolf!”

  “There! Here we go,” Xander calls out as I lurch forward, pulling out of Colt’s arms completely, my body demanding that I push with all the strength I have left. With another gush of liquids, I feel every inch of my first baby’s body as it finally slips out into the world.

  “It’s a boy,” yells Xander as the baby gulps in air before screaming at the top of his lungs.

  Darren’s grip on my hip loosens, and he gently sets it down on the gurney so he can take the crying child Xander is holding out to him. I fall back on the gurney as the tension leaves my body for a moment. Colt still props me up, and I am very grateful for his calm presence.

  “Holy shit,” Xander exclaims as something slimy slides out after the baby. “That was the placenta. That second baby is coming right now.”

  As Darren holds our firstborn, our second baby enters the world in the same way as his brother, leaving my body throbbing with an insane feeling of emptiness. But my heart is full as Xander places the second child on my abdomen. “Another boy,” he declares as he grabs a pa
ir of surgical scissors so he can cut the cords. With that done, he gently guides out my second afterbirth.

  Darren turns to me and lays the first baby boy into my arms before he picks up the second slime-and-goo-covered newborn. The look on his face is one of shock, awe, and bone-deep love.

  “Our babies,” he whispers to me as he leans down to kiss my lips. “Tuck, you did so well. Look at our babies.”

  A laugh slips out of me, exhaustion and exhilaration warring for control of my body. “Yes, wolf.” It is the only thing I can manage at the moment as my mate and I hold our baby boys in our arms for the first time.

  19

  Darren

  I sit on the edge of our bed, gazing down at the two towheaded boys nestled in my mate’s arms. “Goddamn, Tuck. You made pretty babies.”

  Tuck laughs. “We made beautiful babies, my mate. Though you are right. I did do most of the work.”

  Not even a day old, our identical twin boys are healthy and hardy. After having our babies and Tuck checked out at the hospital, we finally came home and collapsed into bed. Luck remained on our side as the twins settled right down to sleep between us. Though he couldn’t snap our babies out of his body, Tuck’s magic healed him within minutes of the delivery, much to the envy of the nurses on duty. “No fair,” a sandy-haired omega complained to Tuck. “My body still isn’t right two years after delivery.”

  The twins look like miniatures of Tuck with their white blond hair and crystalline blue eyes. We named our firstborn Thijs Anders after Tuck’s father and grandfather.

  Thijs holds up his little baby fist, shaking it in the air. His tiny middle finger touches his thumb, and an audible snap sounds, sending tiny sparks sprinkling up into the air. Before either of us can respond, he giggles and does it again with his other hand. Tuck and I stare at each other, dumbfounded.

  “Are baby elves supposed to do that?” I ask, my voice reverently hushed.

  “No, we don’t get our magic until we are a little bit older, usually around age five. I’ve always heard this is because it is too dangerous to have a magical toddler.”

  I can’t smother my snort of laughter. “And we have a magic infant.”

  “They are both elves,” Tuck notes as he touches Thijs’ cheek reverently with the tip of his finger, “which means they will have my life span. You, too, of course. Since we are mated.”

  I figured as much. Mates really are until “death do us part.”

  Not to be outdone, Bryn Thomas, so named after my own father and grandfather, shifts into a white wolf in my mate’s arms.

  Tuck’s voice comes out in a higher pitch than usual. “Is he supposed to do that yet?”

  “Nope,” I reply, popping the p. “We don’t usually shift until we are around a year old. What do you know? We have two prodigies, one magic and the other shifter.”

  Bryn yips, then shifts back to his human baby form, but his diaper and cute “I’m a wolf” onesie are shredded. As I reach for him, intending to re-diaper and clothe him, he looks me straight in the eye before holding up his little fist and performing the same snap his brother did, sending an identical shower of sparks into the air. Shocked, I glance at where Thijs was nestled against Tuck’s chest, only to find another tiny white wolf sitting there instead.

  Tuck’s eyes are wide when they meet mine. “We are in so much trouble.”

  I can’t help but laugh at that as Thijs shifts back to his little baby self and giggles. Both twins wave their hands in the air, and it seems like they are communicating with each other. I pick Bryn up so I can put some clothes on his naked body, leaving Tuck to snuggle and coo at an equally naked Thijs.

  I lay my son on the changing table that sits underneath our bedroom window. “You can’t do that every day, okay? You will run out of clothes at this rate.” Bryn wiggles and coos as I diaper him and slip another onesie over his body. This one is a gift from Eddie and reads “Keep Calm and Love Horses.” After I nestle Bryn back into Tuck’s arms where he greedily accepts a bottle, I pick up Thijs and blow a raspberry on his naked little tummy. He giggles and kicks his legs in the air. Once he is clothed in a new outfit, his bearing the image of a wolf puppy chasing its tail, I pick him up and slip into bed next to Tuck. My mate hands me the second bottle, and I watch with awe as my son sucks it down. Once their little bellies are full and the twins have been burped, I lay them next to one another in the crib near Tuck’s side of the bed. They fall asleep almost as soon as their little towheads meet the sheets bearing frolicking horses of all colors and breeds, this token a gift from Colt.

  “You know,” I say to Tuck as I slip back into bed with him and take him into my arms, “the horses are going to spoil these boys rotten.”

  Tuck laughs. “As if you won’t.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  We hold each other for a while, watching our babies sleep.

  “I’m so glad you came to find me, Tuck.”

  My mate glances up at me with love and a hint of mischief in his eyes. “Who else could take care of you but a magical elf? You would get into too much trouble with anyone else.”

  I kiss him on the nose. “I can think of some trouble we can get into right now.”

  Laughing, my mate kisses me. As we snuggle together, I think about that night I found him in my horse barn. I was a lonely wolf then, and now my life is full of love, laughter, and magic. Looking down, I find my mate sound asleep in my arms. No matter what the future brings, I know I can face all of it with my wonderful mate by my side. Tuck crashed into my life just when I needed him, reshaping my world with his joy and healing me with his Christmas magic.

  Other Books by Drea Roman

  Hearts Intertwined series

  Loving Him, Book 1

  Saving Him, Book 1.5

  Coming Soon!

  Waves of Fate series (omegaverse with shifters)

  The Selkie’s Coat, Book 1

  Hearts Intertwined series

  Protecting Him, Book 2

  About the Author

  Drea Roman is an over-educated lady with cats, a ferret, lizards, a fiancé, a sister, and a wonderful village of like-minded friends, authors, and artists. All of this coupled with too many day jobs makes Drea a ridiculously busy woman.

  Connect with me!

  I can be found on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram under Drea Roman.

  Join my FB reader group, Drea’s Dirty Divas, for special stories and reading opportunities.

  Sign up for my newsletter for updates and exclusive story snippets.

  http://bit.ly/DreaRomanNewsletter

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