Chapter Twenty-Eight
Nixon
I was not ready for the baby to come, due date or not. Even though Randy and Titus both reassured me frequently that they would be all with the whole the reds think they own me and want to use me to breed a magical hybrid gargoyle army thing, I couldn’t relax, not truly, until that occurred.
I knew my worry was not good for our child, my blood pressure readings rarely giving Titus even a forced smile. But I couldn’t help myself. And when my labor kicked in, it was all I could do to force that panic down.
This was going to be one of the most important days of my life, and allowing the reds to ruin any part of it was simply unacceptable.
I went from horny to water breaking to full-on labor in a half an hour, and as I sat in the shower, my mates around me, supporting me through the pain and cracking jokes to keep me upbeat, all I could do was stare at them in awe. They were my everything. And then a contraction would strike and “it’s your fault” would start spewing from my mouth in various forms.
Samson arrived just when I thought I couldn’t stand it any longer. He immediately handed me a vial of I didn’t even care what and suggested I might want to get out of the shower, given that I was shriveled up like a raisin. Relief slammed into me so quickly as I swallowed the tincture that I was able to do what I’d thought impossible only moments earlier. I dried off and walked to the bed. With help, of course. I wasn’t going to turn down my hot naked mates when they offered assistance.
“How are you feeling?” Samson asked as if he was there to discuss a hangnail and not about to push a freaking bowling ball out of me.
“Hostile,” I seethed, and Titus broke out in laughter.
“I am not even in this field of medicine, but I know enough not to ask someone in labor how they are doing like that.” He playfully smacked Samson on the shoulder.
It was true Samson wasn’t the typical person to deal with babies, his focus on general shifter healing, but he had been the one monitoring my blood pressure throughout the pregnancy so he was the best fit. Not that he was the one doing the overly zealous monitoring that had become my life. No, that he’d left up to Titus the Overprotective, as I called him in my head every time he whipped out that darn cuff.
“Nixon, love, maybe tell Samson what you feel like so he can help better.” Randy squeezed my shoulder.
I opened my mouth answer just as another, stronger contraction ripped through me, and my bear, instead of me, could be heard throughout the room, startling all three men. Samson ran to his bag and dug through it as I kept my eyes glued to him. It was the only thing to keep me from losing my ever-loving mind.
Sure, I’d had every expectation that labor would be made of evil, but this pain, pain so great my bear broke through if only in voice, was something I naively had never anticipated.
Samson returned with yet another vial, this one boogery green. I could’ve given two shits by that point and drank it down. It tasted worse than it looked, but as the next contraction ripped through me, it was bearable-ish.
“That was not normal.” Titus spoke in hushed tones to Samson as if I weren’t a bear with amazing hearing.
“Tell them to stop.” I clawed into Randy’s arm, cringing when I realized what he had done.
“Sorry, love.” Titus was all saccharine sweet. Something was wrong. “I think we are going to get you dressed and head to my office. How does that sound?”
“It sounds fucking insane. I am about to have a baby.”
“A baby that is breach. You may need a C-section.” Samson spoke much calmer than his scent indicated he was. Not. Good.
“I saw this on television. You can just go in there and right the baby,” I spat. No way was I getting cut open if it weren’t needed. I could do this. I knew I could.
I hoped I could.
Fuck.
What if I couldn’t?
The tears began to fall as another contraction hit.
“That movie had an alien in it so hardly factual.” Randy sighed in my ear, punctuating his sentence with a kiss to my temple.
“Except.” Samson went back to his bag. “There is a thing we can do. Normally, I wouldn’t suggest it for this, but your contractions are faster than I’d like, so if we are to do it, we should do it now.” He wiped his brow with his forearm.
“Spit it out, healer.” Randy’s sweet tone was gone; he was all alpha—my alpha.
“I can help push back Nixon and allow his bear to take control, and then I can attempt to do as you suggested in a manner, only probably not as they portrayed in the movie and only to the extent that I can keep the body aligned and the cord free from obstruction.”
“Why would my bear need to be front and center and me pushed back?” No part of that sounded ideal to me. Not that the rest of the newly created birth plan sounded good.
“Because it will be painful and for the best with your blood pressure to have you not taking the brunt of that pain.”
“So, I would not be there for the birth. Not really.” I couldn’t agree to that. I’d been waiting for my baby for too long to miss its birth. Except that was selfish. I would do whatever was necessary.
“You would, I wouldn’t suppress you with the medication, just have you a silent observer. But after the birth, I would force a shift to heal you.”
“Do it,” I cried out as yet another contraction hit. They were getting so close. There was no time for all this discussion. Whatever was best for my baby was the way things needed to go.
“Your mates are in agreement?” he asked, and I growled until they nodded.
He handed me three vials, and I downed them all, and true to his word I fell into the background.
The rest of everything became a blur, the pain I instinctively knew my body was feeling never touched me, and as I heard the cry of our daughter—we had a daughter—Samson walked into the bathroom with her as my bear took over. I wasn’t aware enough to even know who’d forced the shift. I didn’t care.
I was a father, and my beautiful baby girl had a set of lungs on her that reassured me the entire time my bear was giving me what I needed—healing.