CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Well?” Jason asked desperately when Urho made it back to Vale.
“Caleb’s locked in. I don’t know about the other doctors I’ve requested. Just let me look at Vale,” Urho said, shaking with restraint and fear. He ripped open his medical bag again and retrieved the flashlight.
Jason had done his duty and had Vale exposed from the waist down with one leg propped on the chair so that Urho could examine his anus.
Dropping to his knees, Urho held the light between his teeth and spread Vale’s slick-wet cheeks with both hands. The slick produced during childbirth was a similar consistency to that produced when an omega was aroused, or during heat, but it lacked the same powerful, exciting scent. The last thing an omega needed during labor was to deal with a horny alpha.
Unfortunately, Urho was beyond horny after being in Caleb’s room. He took a deep breath, trying to clear his nose of Caleb’s pheromones, and focused on his patient.
Jason paced restlessly beside them.
As Urho spread Vale’s ass and then probed inside with his fingers, Jason growled next to him. “Back off,” Urho ordered. “I’m checking him as a doctor, for wolf-god’s sake.”
Jason still crowded him as he finally worked his whole hand inside. Vale whined and shifted miserably, stuffed far too full with the babe and a large hand to be comfortable. Urho fingered the scar tissue, measuring its tension. When he pressed against it, there was more give than ever before. He felt the child move against his hand, and he checked the opening of the womb with his fingers. It was quite wide already.
“This is good,” he said, nodding and withdrawing. “The tissue is pliable. His omega glands are—”
Another violent bang from Caleb’s wing interrupted him, along with a suffering scream and a wail. Then another crash, another bang, cries of pain, and a desperate shout for help. Urho’s heart was shredded.
Jason met Urho’s eye, and he swallowed hard. “Where’s the village doctor?”
“I don’t know.” Urho wiped his shaking hand on a towel and closed his eyes, trying to take a steadying breath. “Hopefully soon.”
Jason stared at him, pale and scared.
“Vale’s doing well,” Urho assured him.
“But what about Caleb?” Jason whispered.
Urho groaned just as Vale screeched and hunched. His body tightened all over as he squirmed against some intense internal sensation. When the contraction had passed, Urho knelt again to check Vale’s progress.
The beta servant he’d left in the hallway outside Caleb’s room appeared in Vale’s open doorway. “He’s trying to get out! I think he’s going to hurt himself!”
Urho considered the syringe he’d prepared for Jason. All evidence showed that the relaxer did little to stop the pain of heat, but it did calm a panicked omega enough for them to take an alpha cock or, at a higher dose, prevent them from running. Still the thought of drugging Caleb, of leaving him to suffer in helpless, stoned silence was abhorrent.
“Help me!” Caleb screamed, the words echoed around the massive house. “Help!”
Urho’s heart rent even more at the pain in his lover’s omega’s voice.
“For wolf-god’s sake, help him!” Vale shouted suddenly, nearly kicking Urho in the face where he knelt with his fingers in Vale’s ass. He withdrew them quickly as Vale spun around, glaring at him. “He’s hurting. He’s suffering. Go in there and help him.”
“No!” Jason exclaimed, grabbing Vale by the shoulders. His face was almost as flushed as Vale’s was from straining. “We need him here. If something goes wro—” He bit off his words and added, “Vale, I can’t deliver this baby. It’s too risky. Urho stays with us until a doctor or our baby arrives.”
“A doctor’s coming,” Urho said to Vale, standing up so as not to be kicked in the face again. He tried to sound as confident as he possibly could. “He should be here soon.”
Vale looked like he was going to argue, but then he groaned and held his stomach. He strained, eyes bulging as another contraction gripped his body. His face grew purple with effort, and he clenched the back of the chair with white knuckles.
“That’s it,” Urho said. “Just breathe.”
Vale sucked in a breath, and his body clenched. He screamed.
A matching, wrenching scream echoed through the halls and the still-open door. Caleb’s cries grew louder and louder as Vale’s labor intensified. Urho’s mind spun. If he left now to help Caleb and something went wrong with the birth, if the other doctor botched the job—assuming the other doctor even showed—he’d never forgive himself.
But if Caleb was left to suffer, he’d never forgive himself for that either. And neither would Xan, much less Caleb himself.
“Dr. Chase,” Ren said from the doorway, a terror-filled expression not giving Urho hope for good news. Ren held a hand in front of his eyes as though to protect himself against the sight of Vale’s nakedness.
Jason snarled protectively, but Urho put a hand on his chest and Jason calmed down, turning his attention back to Vale, who was rocking through another contraction.
Ren said, “I got a hold of Dr. Bainson in the village and he can’t make it. He’s actually delivering another omega right now. He suggested I call Dr. Snid, an alpha doctor on the outskirts of town, but according to his omega, he’s gone into the city to help with the flu epidemic.”
“Fuck,” Urho muttered.
“Sir, Mr. Janus is seizing now. His fever has gone too high for his body to hold. The cook is trying to cool him with cold water, but he’s not responding.”
Urho tore into his medical bag, found a bottle of medication he kept on hand for such horrific situations, and passed it to Ren along with a needle and another empty hypodermic. “One syringeful now. If he doesn’t calm, then another in eight minutes.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I know this isn’t your job but—”
Another cry from Caleb’s room rattled them all, and then Vale shouted as well, his body clenching as he bent over the chair he’d had his foot on. He groaned, gritting his teeth, and started to push. His asshole bulged and Urho swore he saw the start of the babe’s head.
“Wolf-god!” Ren exclaimed in horror. He grabbed the medicine from Urho’s hand and rushed away to administer the medication to Janus.
Adrenaline flooded Urho’s body, leaving him rushing with a giddy, razor-sharp focus as he knelt to the floor again to spread Vale’s ass cheeks wider.
“Is the baby coming?” Jason asked, rubbing Vale’s straining back and bending low to look. “Oh, wolf-god, is that his head?”
“Get out of the way.” Urho shoved Jason aside.
Jason shoved him back with an angry growl. Vale whimpered and then rasped, “I will murder you both if you get into a fight right now. There is a baby coming out of me and—aaahhhh!” He howled, hunching again, his entire body going tense as he pushed harder, flushing all over.
“Yes, that’s the head,” Urho said as slick rushed from Vale’s asshole.
Another scream came from Caleb’s wing, along with the sound of breaking wood. Then a violent thump. And another. Sweat slipped down Urho’s forehead and back, his hands shaking and his heart pounding as he stared at Vale’s asshole and waited.
“What the fuck is going on?” a voice snarled from the doorway.
Urho’s head whipped around to see Xan standing outside Vale’s open door, his blue eyes dangerously narrowed, his curly hair a mess, and a large bruise on his cheekbone and another on his jaw. A combination of confusion and rage warred on Xan’s face. “What the fuck is happening here?”
Vale gripped the chair hard and pushed again. The screams from Caleb’s room came even louder, and Urho turned to Jason. “Explain to him! I need to just…” He slipped a finger in beside the baby’s head, and Vale shouted.
Jason kicked Urho in the thigh. “Hurt him again and I’ll kill you.”
“Stop!” Vale whimpered. “I can’t… Let me… Oh wolf-god, fuck!” He grimaced and pushed again, his hole opening enough to reveal a large swath of the baby’s brown-fuzzed head.
“Mr. Riggs is locked in, Mr. Heelies, sir,” a beta servant from the hallway explained to Xan. “He’s in heat.”
“Well, don’t just stand there—take me to him!” Xan barked.
Urho yearned to go to Xan and hold him, explain to him what was happening, but things with Vale’s baby were moving too quickly. A rush of blood gushed down Vale’s legs, Jason cried out in panic, and Urho shoved him away before he could get between Urho and the prize.
The baby slipped out into Urho’s hands. Perfect, whole, and covered with slick, mucous, and blood. The child let out a lusty scream. Vale collapsed onto the chair, blood still coursing from his asshole, but he was oblivious, reaching out for the baby. The umbilical cord pulsed between them.
Jason fell to his knees beside Vale, and Urho passed off their blood-covered, plump, and perfect child to them. They took the sweet thing into their arms, and Jason burst into tears. Vale kissed Jason’s head, and then the baby’s, and the three of them huddled close.
Urho took the opportunity of their distraction to pull Vale forward so his buttocks were off the chair, and shove Vale’s legs apart. He pressed his hand inside, and felt for the stuck placenta—the source of all the blood. When he slipped a finger around the edge of it, he breathed a sigh of relief. As the placenta slipped from Vale’s body, the rush of blood stopped, and Urho finally took the time to cut the cord.
Drained, Urho fell back on his ass, wet with blood and slick, covered in sweat from the strain and effort.
Vale and Jason glowed, beautiful and perfect, as they stared down at their screaming, flushed child. “I should feed him,” Vale whispered. He tugged open his robe, placing the babe to his chest and cooing as the infant latched on and began to suckle.
Jason wiped tears from his eyes and kissed Vale’s forehead. The moment was intimate and sweet, but Urho had some work to do on Vale’s insides. The scar tissue had torn, and he needed to sew it up and paint it with iodine to prevent sepsis or infection.
It took only a little convincing to get Vale into the bed with Jason and their baby, and then Urho set about the work of making sure Vale would heal well. Jason and Vale snuggled their child and whispered names back and forth, as Urho worked silently.
But between the babe, Vale when Urho’s instruments pinched, and the sounds coming from Caleb’s room, there was still plenty of screaming and shouting going on.
This crisis wasn’t over yet.
As soon as the door opened, Caleb burst out, but Xan grappled him back into his room, fingers slipping on sweat-damp, naked skin. The room was a disaster. Broken furniture was strewn everywhere. Xan’s heart thundered.
“I’m here now, darling. I’m here.” He held Caleb tight and pressed four fingers into Caleb’s wet asshole. He kissed his sweaty hair and held him hard. “I’m sorry I’m so late.”
Caleb burst into tears and clung to Xan as he shuddered and quaked in his arms. “I need help,” he gritted out.
“I’m going to do such a good job helping you. I promise.”
Caleb sobbed as Xan led him back to the bed. The intense wave seemed to have passed, but Caleb was clearly an aching wreck. An alpha dildo lay on the floor by the bed, apparently unused, and Xan picked it up, an idea flashing into his mind.
Caleb shuddered and squirmed, flushed all over and covered in scratch marks from where he’d tried to tear out the heat. Xan smoothed back Caleb’s hair and kissed his forehead before helping him drink from a glass of water.
He then guided him from his ruined room to Xan’s own, relieved to find it all in one piece still.
“You came,” Caleb whispered as Xan soothed him, tucking him up into bed and curling in behind him.
“I got here as soon as I could.” He didn’t mention that he hadn’t known about Caleb’s heat until he’d arrived home.
Caleb nodded and shuddered. “He was going to help, but the baby came.”
“I know.”
“I made him promise. No strangers.”
Xan’s throat went tight. “But you suffered.”
Caleb’s mouth worked, and he spit out words like gravel under a tire. “I’d rather suffer than take another stranger. I hate the way I feel after.” He snuffled and held tighter to Xan. “I tried to run,” he whispered, as though ashamed.
“It’s instinct,” Xan reassured him.
“I know, but I wasn’t running to an alpha.”
Xan rubbed Caleb’s back and held him tight. Xan’s clothes were dirty after driving half the night in an adrenaline-fueled daze, and he felt covered with filth and ripe with stress sweat, but all of that would have to wait. “You weren’t?”
“It’s stupid. I wanted to outrun this. The heat. I wanted to run away from it, away from me.”
Xan squeezed his eyes closed and held tighter to Caleb. The scent of rising slick and the hint of a fresh wave on the way rose to his nostrils. He knew how his sweet omega had felt. He’d wanted to run away from himself too. That’s what he’d been doing every time he went to Monhundy. But he wasn’t running anymore.
“We can’t run from it, but we can face it together.”
Xan shucked his clothes while whispering soothing words to Caleb, and then he took up the alpha dildo. Once he had it in hand, rifled through the bedside table drawer in search of the tablets Urho had given him all those weeks ago now. The pills for stamina.
He took two.