Page 9 of Alpha Talk (Hemlock Wolf Pack: Life in the Happily Ever After #7)

Cody

Micah made good on his promise to stay with me as much as he could. He was there for every ache and pain and every crying spell. He was there when I needed my feet rubbed or help up to go pee. He was there right by my side when a week before my due date I shifted into my wolf and decided that I wasn’t coming out again until my pup was born. Micah didn’t even run off when I growled and snarled at Clyde when he tried to come in and look me over. Instead, he settled for asking Micah questions through the door. I didn’t let Micah out again until I was good and sure we were alone in the house again. To the pit of crows with the rest of them. Unless they were Micah, Silas, one of my kids, or one of the few friends I counted as family they could fly straight off. Pregnancy was hard enough without someone coming in here and poking and prodding my belly like they were the alpha who assisted in making my puppies. Clyde could go cop a feel on Ashley. He was his mate, not me.

Yes, even as I settled down surrounded by pillows, I knew I was being unreasonable. The human side of me knew it very well but it all made sense to my wolf, and he was the one in control. He paced in circles on the bed and then around it as the days wore on. With each passing hour it became more and more difficult to find a comfortable spot to lay. Sometimes we had Micah lift us up and carry us around the room. His strong hands taking on some of the bulk of our pregnant belly was the only reason we survived some of the last hours of our pregnancy.

We even begrudgingly agreed to soak in a hot bath a few days before our due date. Though, Micah was a Gilmore Witch and we should’ve known he was up to something. Had I been a little more human and a little less wolf, I’d have seen right through him. Whether his nose told him that we were close, or someone was whispering in his ear, not long after I stretched out in the hot tub everything inside me exploded in a warm gush of breaking waters. I howled as a contraction tore through me, squeezing and squirming, until I thought I might die right there in the bathtub. Silas said something I didn’t catch over the pack link, and I slammed it shut. No one needed to hear me sound so miserable. I’d scar my whole pack for the rest of their lives.

Micah rubbed the sides of my stomach, stroking with downward force. Had these past few days been early labor? Was that why Clyde had tried so hard to come see me? Why hadn’t Micah told me?

“I thought you knew,” he whispered, picking up my thoughts over our mating link. “I thought that’s why you didn’t want him in here.”

“I…. I guess, I just let my wolf have at it. The whole thing. I just let him take over. As long as you were there, I knew it’d be okay,” I told him over our link. “I trust you. I always trust you.”

“You’re okay. Everything is going as it should be,” Micah said, still pushing on my sides.

“How do you know?” I asked just before another train wreck of a contraction tore through me.

“Because I can smell it. It all smells right. You smell right. The pup is coming but you smell right,” Micah said.

“I love you!” I howled into Micah’s thoughts because the pain of our incoming pup made it too hard to think in full sentences for any length of time. So, I gave into the pain and into my wolf and let his primal nature take over. He knew how to have puppies without a doctor. He knew how to push and growl and howl all at the right times. Unlike me, my inner beast held no doubts about what he had to do. So slowly but surely, there in what was supposed to be a relaxing candlelit bath our puppy was born. He was born with long fur that stuck up at every angle because it was wet. It was dark brown and he had big brown eyes to match. Micah cleaned him and lifted him away from the water to wrap him in a towel even as he threw his hand around whining for a teat. My mate couldn’t stop grinning as I climbed out of the tub and made my way to lay on top of a pile of towels that seemed to magically appear in the bathroom. Exhaustion pulled at every bit of me but our pup had come yipping into this world a healthy boy.

“Stevie,” I whispered over our mating link. We weren’t the first in our pack to name a baby after my friend who gave his life to get Brone’s heir out of the way. Without his sacrifice I doubted any of us would be here today. So, his name was Stevie and he was the most beautiful wolf pup in the world.

Hello and thank you for reading! Whether this is your first book in this universe, or you’ve been around since the beginning, thank you!

Some housekeeping notes:

1) Yes! Everyone will find out what the heck was up with Raziel and Kodiak come the next book in this series.

2) We have family trees ! Really – trees in the plural! Thanks to the awesome Riley Morgan ! Thank you so much!

3) You can follow me here to keep up with all the upcoming releases and other fun stuff 3 3 3

4) Thank you all for your ongoing support. Y’all mean the world to me. I have lots of fun stuff planned for the Hemlock Universe after this series that I can’t wait for you all to explore! 3