Page 23

“No, I’ve got this. It’s just a little frustrating.” It said a lot about his self-image that his confidence wasn’t getting shattered by it all.

“Understood.” I kissed him, stroking his cheek. “But you tell me if you need backup.”

“I will, Dimitri.” He sighed. “And we’ll have it done soon enough because if I get any bigger I’ll explode and that will be its own color scheme.”

I shuddered a little but had to laugh. It wasn’t the worst image he’d presented me with lately. As he grew more uncomfortable, his imaginations was swelling right along with his belly. The midwife wasn’t worried, but I hated him not feeling his best. “Hungry, omega?”

“No. I don’t have any room in me for food. It’s all baby in there.”

“You have to eat something,” I urged. He’d been eating well until the day before and, as far as I knew, he hadn’t had more than a few bites of anything since. “Keep up your strength.”

He waved a hand in the air. “If my back would stop hurting, maybe I’d have an appetite.”

Something rang in that. “How long has it been bad?” Considering he hadn’t held back from sharing his symptoms before now, it couldn’t have been long.

“Two days? But it was kind of dull until this morning. Now, it just hurts so much. I wonder if I could take something for it?” He moved right and left, stretching or trying to. “This is the worst.”

“Tyler, didn’t the midwife tell us that sometimes labor presents as back pain?”

He froze, eyes widening. “I forgot that. Dimitri, do you think I’m in labor?”

“I think you need to sit down.” I guided him to the one chair high enough and firm enough that he could still get out of it on his own. “And I’m going for the midwife. We will get her opinion.”

“I want to come.” He moved to stand, but I pressed him back down.

“No, you might be about to give birth, and I don’t want that to happen on the lawn in front of the alpha house or somewhere. Your birth plan is for having the baby right here in our bed, yes?”

He nodded. “You really think this is it?”

“Let’s find out.”

I strolled casually to the front door, so as not to alarm my mate, but once I hit the porch, I ran full-out to Melinda’s house. The midwife worked from home and had an exam room at the back, but most bears chose a home birth, so she rarely had a patient there for more than a short appointment. At themoment, she was sitting in the white rocking chair on her front porch, needlepointing something and sipping lemonade.

As I pounded up her steps, she set her glass and canvas aside and stood up. “Something tells me I’m done relaxing for the afternoon.”

I sucked in a breath, trying to get enough air to tell her what was going on. “Mate. Pain. Back. Baby.”

Melinda nodded. “If I am understanding you, Tyler is having back pains and you want to see if the baby is about to arrive?”

“Yes.” I held onto the porch railing, still out of breath. “Come?”

“Go back to your mate and help him get undressed and into bed. You have the birth plan right? Telling you how to get everything ready?”

“So, the baby is coming?”

“I didn’t say that, but it sounds like it. Remember when you were here the other day, I told you he was close. Go and I’ll be five minutes behind you, all right?”

When I hesitated, not that I doubted her, but I didn’t want to arrive without her and disappoint my mate, she laughed. “Okay, hang on.” Opening the door, she reached inside and picked up her bag. “I’m with you. While we go, you can give me details.”

I told her everything I knew, which wasn’t much, but when we entered our home, Tyler was no longer seated. He was standing next to the chair, a puddle around his feet.

“Looks like it’s go time.” Melinda led the way up the stairs. “How many do you want?”

“How many what?” If it weren’t for the seriousness of the situation, my mate’s expression would have been comical.

“Babies, but I was joking. I haven’t heard more than one heartbeat the whole time so unless you have a very sneaky hiding behind their sibling, it’s only one.”

Tyler had been unknowingly laboring for nearly two days, so once his water broke, things began to happen quickly. We got him undressed and settled just in time for him to start pushing.