Page 374 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Luka

“Hurry up!” Kitan said next to me as the two of us ran down the hallway to the hangar bay.

Sunder’s contacts had tipped us off about a mundane little bank robbery that had taken place down in Akrod.

As the doctor of the ship, I wasn’t expected to go with the others to check it out, but I wanted to find Akri very badly.

I was worried about his state of mind. If he was experiencing a kind of mating drive, the male might think he was having issues integrating with his body.

Ziame would try, but I was certain that I was the only one whose arguments would carry the right kind of weight to convince the former AI that he was not malfunctioning in a disastrous way.

When Noa and I experienced our fated mating drive—a phenomenon not experienced by any Aderian in centuries—I was a little freaked out myself.

I couldn’t imagine what Akri was thinking.

The Captain and his mate were already at the shuttle, talking with Sunder, who had his young son perched on his shoulders.

“Look, it’s a long shot, but we need to check everything,” the older male said.

“I think they would have headed for the port to try to escape, so see if you can track them in that direction.”

Kitan had abandoned me at the door to race inside the shuttle; I could hear him going through his preflight checklist by himself.

The gladiators had decided that they weren’t taking any of the women down to the planet, worried that they would be at risk in the slavery-friendly environment that this planet had.

Any of them could be stolen from the streets and sold.

So, Chloe, our navigator, was on the bridge, overseeing everything from there.

Fierce and his Ferai beast appeared next, a grin in place.

His sharp sense of hearing must have picked up on what Sunder was saying, because he slapped the Tarkan male on the shoulder in passing.

“If there’s a trail to follow, Snarl and I will find it.

” He tapped his fist to his chest in Ziame’s direction.

“Don’t worry, brother, we will find Akri. ”

I turned to follow Fierce onto the shuttle, nodding at my friends in passing, but jerked to a stop when my com started chirping with an alarm. I couldn’t go pale the way a human did, but I felt the blood drain from my face. That wasn’t any alarm. It was the alarm.

“What the fuck is that noise?” Thorin demanded, sticking his head out of the shuttle with a disgruntled expression on his face.

Beyond him, Fierce had his hands clutched over his ears, protecting his sensitive hearing from the violent screeching.

I had no time to be considerate of any of their feelings, and though I wanted to help Akri, this was far more important.

“I can’t come,” I said, and to my own ears, my voice sounded a little faint. The confused, excited feelings of my brothers assaulted my empathic senses when my shields dropped, overwhelmed by the chaotic mess in my head. “Noa’s water broke,” I added.

I was a medical doctor; I’d delivered babies before.

But suddenly, I was more nervous than I’d been before my first exams. I should have been running for Noa’s location, but I was still rooted to the spot.

“Hey, come on, brother. This way,” Sunder said calmly, his hand on my shoulder, turning me to the hangar bay door.

“You can do this. I’ll be with you every step of the way.

This isn’t my first baby either.” He was right.

Sunder was actually the only male who’d delivered a baby on the Vagabond. Why not make it two?

I broke into a run as soon as I was in the hallway, a cacophony of voices erupting behind me.

Sunder’s presence at my back was steady and calming.

When I burst into the med bay, Noa was sitting on the cot, Arianna at her side, the two smiling like they hadn’t a care in the world.

“Whoa, what’s the rush, darling?” Noa had the gall to say.

“Your water broke!” I pointed out as I rushed over. Why wasn’t she stressed? She looked so calm and peaceful… I yanked out my hand scanner to appraise the situation, checking the baby’s vitals by rote.

“I know, and I warned you like you wanted me to,” she said, folding a hand around my scanner to push it down from my face and look me in the eye.

“But the contractions are still mild and far apart; it’s gonna be a while yet.

” I took in a deep breath at her words, letting them settle over me.

I couldn’t be in this much of a panic when I was about to deliver my son.

We still had time. I could prepare myself.

“We’ve got this, brother,” Sunder rumbled.

“Go hug your mate. It’s going to be fine.

” Yes, good advice. Hug Noa, that was good for the oxytocin levels; she needed that.

I needed that. Everything was going to be fine.

My brothers would find Akri, and I would be holding my son in my arms by the time they returned victorious.