Chapter Eight
Everything went really fast for a while, people rushing around and doing things. They took the baby and then someone was carrying him to the clinic, setting him down on the bed and covering him with a blanket.
Doctor Jensen was already there, with his baby on a table and under a heat lamp.
“What is it?” he asked again.
Cade, standing by his side, gave his hand a squeeze. “It’s a boy, Dara. A little boy. A beta.”
“Oh. That’s… that’s good.” Out of nowhere, he started to cry, tears streaming down his cheeks as hiccuping sobs shook him. Cade pulled him into a hug and someone wrapped another blanket around his shoulders. He was home, at last.
“Max,” he tried to say between hiccups.
“Shh, don’t worry about that now. You’ve been through a lot. Let’s get your little boy looked after and your shoulder sorted, okay?”
“Zane will be back in a week. If he finds out I’m gone…”
“A week? That’s plenty of time. We have two alphas on the case.”
Dara tried to pull himself together.
“Hunter seems like a good guy.”
Cade nodded against him. “He is. He really is. Seth’s pretty cool, too.”
Dara tried to laugh. “He makes terrible jokes.”
“Ollie’s here, he’s looking after my little ones. Davyn is away with Eve running matchmaking events. We’ve called him, he’s on his way home right now.”
“That’s good. I’ve missed him. I’ve missed all of you.”
The baby started to cry, and Dara pulled away to look at him.
“What’s wrong? Is he okay?”
“If he was a human baby, he’d be in real trouble. But being a miniature shifter, he’s holding his own. We’re just going to warm him up and give him a little oxygen.” Jensen gave Dara a reassuring smile before turning back to his work.
“Can he hold him?” Cade asked.
“As soon as he’s stable,” the doctor called over his shoulder.
When Dara looked to Cade, he found his brother watching him closely. “The baby, is he Zane’s?”
Dara burst into tears again, and Cade just held him, rocking him gently.
“They were going to kill Max. I had to,” he mumbled against Cade’s shoulder.
Cade pulled back so they were eye to eye. “Did you and he mate?” He reached for Dara’s T-shirt as he spoke, trying to draw it up to see his back.
“No,” Dara replied, shoving his shirt down. “He wanted to, and we tried but I couldn’t. I just don’t feel that way about him.”
“How did that happen then?” Cade said, nodding to the baby.
“I was trying to distract him, and he thought it would make a difference. It didn’t, and he didn’t want a baby, so he wasn’t too happy about it.”
“And you?”
Dara felt his lower lip tremble and he couldn’t even look at the baby as he spoke the truth. “I just wanted to keep Max safe.”
“Oh, Dara.” Cade’s arms wrapped around him again, holding him tightly. “I am so sorry. I’m sorry we didn’t look harder, didn’t find you, that we left you to face this alone.”
The baby started to cry again. Dara shuddered, feeling a heavy sense of guilt flood him. He hadn’t wanted Zane and he certainly hadn’t wanted the alpha’s baby. And now he had both.
The others rushed away with Dara and the baby, leaving Seth and Hunter to sort out the car.
“What now?” Seth asked. “Should we go back out and keep searching?”
Hunter shook his head. “We need to know more. It’s possible wherever they’ve stashed Lucas is the same place they’re holding Max. And we need Dara to tell us about Zane. So, we stay here for now.”
It was hard to argue with logic. Red Fang’s territory was large, especially with their more recent conquests. Looking for Lucas was like the proverbial needle in a haystack. There was something else bothering Seth and no one he trusted more to share his concerns with.
“Hunter?”
“Yeah, Seth?”
“My wolf… I think I felt it.”
“What do you mean?”
“When we were in the car, right at the end. It was like a rippling under my skin, a sense of power, there and gone. I’ve never felt anything like it before. Why now?”
Hunter didn’t answer right away.
“I mean… maybe the stress of the situation,” Seth continued. “But why then and not when Dad was hurt and Lucas was taken?”
His friend looked from him to the car. “Maybe it’s not a case of when. Maybe, it’s a case of who.”
“I’m not following.” Hunter couldn’t have been suggesting what Seth thought he was suggesting.
“When, exactly, did you feel your wolf?”
“Right at the end, when the baby was being born. Dara was squeezing my hand and making that sound that I don’t think anyone is supposed to make, ever, and…”
“It was your voice he responded to, even when he was out of it. Your voice broke through the pain and pulled him through.”
“I still maintain that my voice must be more grating than yours. That makes more sense.”
Hunter clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t look for sense in this, Seth. Look at me and Cade. Where’s the sense in that? There isn’t any, and yet, it works.”
“Yeah, but you’re you and Cade’s Cade. I’m just me. And I don’t have a clue who Dara is.”
He walked around to the front of the car, staring at the clinic in the distance.
“And yet you felt your wolf for the first time while holding his hand, delivering his baby.”
Seth turned to Hunter. “Yeah. His baby. Presumably with another alpha. Doesn’t that suggest he has a mate out there already, someone to play happy families with? Clearly, my wolf’s radar is way off if it hit on him.”
“Again, Seth. Look at me and Cade. Neither of us would have pegged the other as a potential mate.”
Seth laughed. “Yeah, well. He was in a cage. You were having the equivalent of a teenage rebellion. It actually makes perfect sense. You chose a boyfriend you knew my Dad would hate, and he chose the alpha he thought was a gullible sucker.”
“Hey!” Hunter protested half-heartedly.
“Okay,” Seth said, trying to be serious for once. “Let’s say you’re right and there’s some connection between me and Dara. There is no way this is the right time to pursue it. We just freed him from imprisonment in a lighthouse and he’s just had a baby. What, am I supposed to wander up with a bunch of flowers and a box of chocolates and invite him out on a date?”
“No,” Hunter agreed. “You have to leave the romance stuff aside for now and focus on what’s important. Dara has information we need to help us find Lucas and hopefully Max into the bargain. It seems to me you might stand a better chance of getting that information from him.”
“What if he’s not ready to sell out Zane?” Seth wondered aloud. “I mean, chances are he’s the baby daddy, right?”
“Yeah, but you heard him. It was all about protecting Max. If Zane took them both prisoner, I can see how Dara might have played along to keep Max safe.”
“Going to bat for his brother. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Speaking of brothers, I should call home, check in with them.”
“You should,” Hunter said. “I’ll stick my head in at the clinic, see how things are going.”
“Find out if it’s a boy or a girl, will you? My mom will want to know what color booties to knit.”
“Sybil’s never even met Dara.”
“That won’t stop her, Hunter. You know I’m right.”
Hunter couldn’t hide a wistful smile. Seth knew he missed his family. “Yeah, I know.”
“Hunter?”
Another shifter jogged up to them. “Beth says she needs a hand in the nursery. Milo is at it again.”
Hunter turned back to Seth.
“Go,” Seth said, “I’ll check in at the clinic and ring home after.”