CARTER PUSHED OPEN the front door of his house. “Piper?”

He listened for any sound of her. Normally, she’d be in the kitchen, or reading in the family room, or even taking a bath, but the house felt strangely empty.

“Piper?” he called again.

He frowned, standing in his entrance hall with his hands on his hips. It wasn’t like her to go out without mentioning her plans to him first. She still didn’t really know anyone in town, and was understandably cautious about the possibility of her husband finding out where she was. Maybe she’d gone to see the midwife. She hadn’t mentioned an appointment, but perhaps something had happened. An unexpected punch of worry hit him. He hoped everything was okay with the baby.

Not wanting to waste any more time, he backed out of the house. Felicia only lived a couple of blocks from here, and he’d be there in a matter of minutes.

He arrived at the midwife’s home, out of breath, his anxiety increasing, but when he asked the older woman if she’d seen Piper, she only shook her head.

“No, sorry. She hasn’t been here. Is everything all right?”

Carter bit his lower lip. “Yeah, I’m sure it’s fine. I’m probably overreacting.”

She gave him a reassuring smile. “Perfectly normal for an expectant father.”

“Sure.”

Leaving again, his confusion deepened. Maybe she’d gone for coffee with Anna, but then he remembered she didn’t even drink coffee. What he’d told the midwife was probably right, and he was overreacting. Piper might even be home by now.

He picked up his pace, planning to head home as well, but a familiar figure walked toward him. His muscles tensed. It was Kimberly, and by the smirk on her face, he thought she might have some idea where Piper was.

They came face to face, both drawing to a halt in the middle of the street.

“Where is she?” Carter demanded.

Her eyebrows lifted. “Who?”

“You know who—Piper.”

She shrugged. “No idea. She was still at the house when I left her.”

“What were you doing at the house?”

“Just filling her in on a few details. Seems she didn’t know about how you needed to produce an heir to keep your place as alpha.”

His unease intensified. “What did you say to her?”

“Only that, and how you would have been cheating on me when you were getting her pregnant. I thought she deserved to know what sort of man she was having a baby with.” The smirk grew wider. “Assuming that’s even your baby, of course.”

Anger surged inside him, and he clenched his fists at his sides, trying to hold it in. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“No? ’Cause from the look on her face, I thought Piper had every idea.”

He didn’t want to get angry with Kimberly—after all, he understood why she’d be hurt, thinking he’d cheated on her, even though it wasn’t the truth. He couldn’t tell her what had really happened though, not if he was still trying to protect the story about Piper and the baby. And it wasn’t only his part he was trying to protect. He didn’t want the town to start asking questions about where Piper had come from either, or about the identity of the real father. Protecting her was more important than keeping his place as alpha.

The realization surprised him. Yes, Piper’s safety was more important to him. For the first time in his life, he didn’t care about the rest.

Leaving Kimberly standing in the street, he ran back to the house, blowing through the door like a sudden gust of wind, leaving it swinging in his wake. He took the stairs two at a time and hurried toward her bedroom. A quick scan of the room confirmed his fears. She’d taken the clothes he’d bought her, and the bag she’d been using was gone. Dammit.

Carter went back downstairs to the entrance hall.

He hesitated, unsure what his next move should be. Should he jump on his bike and ride around town, see if anyone had spotted her? But she barely knew anyone in town, and definitely didn’t trust anyone else yet. Not that she should have trusted him. He’d not told her the whole truth, and he knew she’d be hurt and angry. No, she wouldn’t still be in town. She’ll have done what she was doing when she first came into his life.

She’d have run.

He needed to find her. She shouldn’t be out, alone, so heavily pregnant. Anything could happen.

There was one way he knew how to find her. Her scent had been the thing that had drawn him to her in the first place, and he knew he’d be able to follow it again now.

Without waiting another second, Carter called to his wolf.

He didn’t even bother to undress as the change began to happen. His body morphed into the shape of the big, black wolf, leaving his clothes in shredded rags. He shook the remnants from his body, pieces of material flying in every direction. He’d left the front door standing open when he’d come in search of Piper, so he leaped through the open doorway, a single bound taking him from the front porch down onto the street.

As a rule, the shifters didn’t change while in town. Here, they lived almost as humans would, and it was only when they were back in the wild that they morphed into their wolf form. So, to see a large wolf bounding through the streets would have been a rare sight to the townspeople, and to see it was their alpha himself was sure to get tongues wagging. Carter didn’t care about gossips at that moment; they could say whatever the hell they wanted. His sole focus was finding Piper.

The scent of her, that same vanilla and just-out-of-the-oven cupcake aroma that he’d caught on the first day, still spoke to him. It appeared in an almost visible track, like a jet stream across a bright blue sky. If she’d caught transport at any point, he’d lose the trail, so he prayed she’d remained on foot.

He moved fast, nose to the ground. She’d not headed toward Main Street, but had instead gone in the opposite direction, leaving the streets and houses in favor of the forest that surrounded them. As a species, they found being lost within nature soothing to their souls. It was only their human side that made them want to build walls and roofs to shelter within. Even in her condition, he guessed it was only natural for a shifter to want to be back with the natural world. Just because she’d not been able to shift and he hadn’t even seen her in wolf form, didn’t mean she didn’t still long to be during times of difficulty. He hated that he’d been the one to cause her such upset.

He kept running, tracking her scent. Going into the forest reduced the chance that she’d caught a ride with someone. He hoped she wouldn’t have taken the risk of crossing moving water. Not only would it be dangerous, he might also lose her scent.

She was heavily pregnant and in human form. She couldn’t have gotten far.

His sensitive ears pricked, picking up the sound of gasped breaths and moans of pain. She must be close. He moved faster, his paws pounding the forest floor. Hot air snorted from his nostrils, shoulders bunched as he ran, his tail flat. His heart galloped in his chest. Something was wrong, he could tell from the sounds she made, and not just that. Her scent had changed. That sweet, vanilla fragrance was overlaid by something else. Something darker, earthier.

Carter came across her suddenly, forcing him to skid to a halt. She’d managed to find shelter against a fallen tree trunk, and now sat on the ground, her back pressed up against it. Her legs were spread wide in front of her. Her skin was even paler than normal, her white-blonde hair matted against her face with sweat. She was panting, her eyes wild in her head.

She looked up and saw him, and relief spread across her face.

“The baby,” she managed between gasps. “The baby is coming.”

He wouldn’t be able to help in wolf form. Taking a couple of steps away, he lowered his head and willed his transformation back to human.

He was naked again, but that didn’t matter.

Carter dropped to his knees beside her. “Shit, Piper. What can I do? Can you make it back to town?”

“No, I can’t. No time.”

“No time? You mean the baby is coming?”

She nodded, tears in her eyes. She looked terrified and in pain, and he wished he could do something to ease her suffering. She suddenly clenched her jaw and put her chin down. She grabbed for his hand, and, when she took it, she squeezed it hard enough to make him worry about bones shattering. A low moan emanated from the back of her throat.

Shit, that was a contraction.

“Can I get the midwife to come here?” he asked, trying not to panic.

“No, there’s not enough time,” she managed when she could talk again. “I can already feel the baby coming.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck. He didn’t have any choice. He needed to help her deliver the baby. He didn’t think anything had ever truly frightened him his whole life. Maybe when he’d lost his parents, and had wondered how he was going to be alpha for the whole town, but even then it hadn’t been anything like this kind of fear. He was terrified he’d do something wrong and hurt either Piper or the baby. What if he killed her child? How would they ever get past that?

He shook his fears away. Self doubt wasn’t going to help Piper.

“We need to get your pants off, Piper,” he said. “I need to be able to see what’s going on.”

She shook her head. “No, no. Don’t touch me.”

“I have to.”

He eased his hands beneath her and carefully pulled her sweatpants, together with her underwear, down from her waist, over her bottom, and down over her thighs. He threw them away, and then grabbed the bag she’d brought with her. He found one of the big t-shirts she’d been hanging around the house in, and draped it across her lap to cover her modesty. He wasn’t sure she even cared at this point, too lost in pain and fear to give any thought to what he was seeing.

“I need to see what’s going on,” he told her, pressing her thighs apart with his hands. She gave another moan and shifted down farther, spreading her legs and allowing him to see.

There was a swelling between her thighs, a bulge where there normally wouldn’t be one. It was the top of the baby’s head already. He’d thought he be able to see hair, but there still seemed to be a membrane around the baby. It was the waters; they still hadn’t burst. The baby was about to be born still inside the bag of waters. He had no idea what he should do.

Piper gave another cry of pain, gritting her teeth and pressing her chin down to her chest. More of the top of the baby’s head became visible as she pushed.

“It’s coming,” he cried. “The baby’s coming.”

“I know it’s fucking coming,” she yelled back when the contraction had passed. “I can feel every single inch of it.”

Carter decided it was probably best not to say anything after that. He wanted to encourage her, but figured telling her to push was probably going to get a similar reaction. Instead, he waited, allowing Piper’s body to do what it needed.

She had another couple of contractions, more of the head appearing each time, and then the baby arrived, slithering out from between Piper’s legs. Carter tore the membrane from the baby’s face, and was rewarded with a gush of water. He was sure it was supposed to be lucky for a baby to be born in such a way, but he wasn’t concerned with that right now.

Already, Piper was recovering, sitting up to look down at the newborn.

“Is it okay? Why isn’t it breathing?” she cried.

He used his finger to remove the rest of the membrane from the baby’s face and quickly rubbed at the small body with a t-shirt. The baby was blue, but the moment he started rubbing, it opened its mouth and sucked in a lungful of air. On the exhale, a loud cry filled the forest.

Piper clamped her hand to her mouth. “Oh, thank God.”

Carter looked up at her. “It’s a boy, Piper. You have a son.”

They stared at each other in amazement. Tears trembled in her blue eyes, and a painful lump choked Carter’s throat as the enormity of what had just happened washed over him.

The baby was still attached to her via the umbilical cord.

“Dammit,” he said, looking around. “I don’t have anything to cut the cord with.”

“There’s a knife in the bag. I took it for protection.”

He didn’t want to think about how frightened she must have been to pack a knife, but he was grateful for it now. Way beyond any squeamishness, he cut the cord, separating the two of them.

Carter wrapped the baby in a sweater, bundling him up so only his tiny face peeped out, and then he handed the baby boy to his mother. Piper clutched the baby to her chest and burst into tears.

He pulled them both into his arms and held them, kissing Piper’s head, then her eyes, her cheeks, her mouth. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you the truth.”

She shook her head. “Not now, Carter. It’s okay, but we can do this later.”

She was right.

He stared down at the tiny pink baby in Piper’s arms, and then reached out and touched the child’s fingers. The baby’s fist opened and then closed around Carter’s digit, such miniscule fingers with a strong grip and perfect clam-shells of fingernails. He gazed down in wonder, and then the baby opened his eyes and looked right back at him. Dark blue eyes exactly the same color and shape as Piper’s.

And the alpha’s heart ballooned with unexpected love.