Chapter 2

Shay’s eyes found me from across the room. She didn’t need to use mind-link. I could tell from looking at her that something was wrong. Across the banquet hall, she wavered, gripping her stomach. I got rid of my drink and made a break for her. The crowd was cheering wildly at Shay’s teenage cousin, Natalie, who had caught the bouquet.

When I reached Shay, I wrapped an arm around her. “What’s wrong? Is it the baby?”

Her face was pale. White as a ghost. “It’s coming,” she said. I could barely hear her, but I could read the words on her lips and the fear in her eyes. “I think…I think it’s time.”

Then Jasmine and Natalie noticed the puddle at her feet. A shout of excitement rang out, and the banquet hall went silent. Murmurs filled the gap, growing and echoing as the music flatlined. Somewhere behind me, I could hear the voice of Shay’s mother, Mercy. “Get out of my way! Move! Where’s my daughter?”

Across the crowd, Stephanie looked around, confused. “What’s going on? Did something happen?”

Mercy nearly collapsed beside me as she reached her daughter. “Honey, what’s wrong? Is it the baby? Are you in pain?”

I turned to her mother, a lump in my throat. “Her water broke.”

Mercy turned almost as pale as her daughter. “We need to get to a hospital. The baby isn’t due for another month.”

I felt like I’d swallowed dynamite. My stomach turned, and I looked from Shay to her mother, probably turning paler than the both of them combined. My mate was in pain, and there was nothing I could do.

“Oh—I’m sure everything is fine,” Mercy said, sounding like she was trying to convince herself. “Eight months. Wow, eight months,” she murmured to herself.

Eight months was right. As far as werewolves went, Shay wasn’t all that early. Our pups didn’t take quite as long in the oven, so eight months was nothing to worry about. But the hospital was another concern.

The earliest a baby could fully shift was usually around a year, and I knew that. But still, I couldn’t help the panic squeezing in my chest. So many things could go wrong. So many. Especially given that Shay was a human and her child…wasn’t. At least not entirely. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard of a human having a half-wolf child. Human and wolf reproduction wasn’t a common concept in my world. There wasn’t a lot we knew about the medical aspects.

Mercy had one hand on Shay’s cheek and reached for my arm with the other, patting me reassuringly. “I’m sure everything’s going to be just fine. Don’t worry too much. The baby will be healthy, I’m positive about that, and that’s all that matters.”

I nodded shortly. She was right. The baby would be fine. It had to be. Everything else, we could figure out together.

“Let’s get you to the hospital.” I swept Shay up in my arms, though she gave me a bit of a fuss.

“I can walk!”

I pressed the thought into her, studying her wide and worried eyes. She was terrified. I couldn’t have that.

She smiled up at me—or tried, at least—and allowed me to lift her into my arms. She was heavier now, but for all I knew, she might’ve weighed the same as a feather. Her weight didn’t register. Didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except getting her to the closest hospital.

The party had gone into sheer panic behind us as everyone began to realize what was happening, but I ignored it as I headed for the door with Shay in my arms. Mercy fluttered after me, already on the phone with the nearest hospital. I was impressed by how she had handled the situation, spitting out information to whichever unlucky soul had answered the call.

“Yes, she’s eight months along. Yes. We’ll be there shortly. Please have a wheelchair ready for her.”

Leaving the hotel was a blur, but quickly, we were seated in my rental car, pulling out of the parking lot. I followed Mercy’s directions to the nearest hospital and pulled into the emergency loop, where a nurse was awaiting us with a wheelchair ready to go. As I gently helped Shay out of her seat and into my arms, the nurse looked up at me like she’d just witnessed the sun rising. She muttered something under her breath that sounded a lot like “romance cover,” but I ignored the comment. We strode in a small cluster to the entrance, where the nurse glanced over her shoulder at us and said, “Please wait here, I’ll have—”

“I can’t wait here,” I insisted. There was no way I would be separated from her. The thought was throwing me into a dark place, so I said the first thing I thought of. “I’m her husband.”

Fuck it. It would be true one day, that much I knew.

“And I’m the future lola,” said Mercy. Firmly, she added, “We’re coming with you.”

I wasn’t sure who the nurse was more intimidated by, me or Mercy, but she relented, and we carried on toward the birthing room. The entire way, Shay was huffing and puffing, clutching at her stomach and shifting uneasily in her seat. I hated to see her so uncomfortable. I wanted to take the pain from her and stomp it out.

, I reminded myself.

I sent a mind-link to her.

Shay didn’t reply, but I didn’t expect her to.

The nurse wheeled her into a room, and we were about to follow after when Mercy paused. A difficult look crossed her face. She was fighting with herself about…something. Maybe she was feeling guilty about leaving Stephanie’s wedding. I couldn’t blame her. “You…” she began. “You should go first.”

I nodded and started toward the room, but Mercy reached out and touched my arm. “Just…take care of my daughter. And make sure my grandchild is ready to meet me,” she said. “I’ll be with you before you know it. I’ll deal with my family.”

It was strange how much comfort that sentiment brought me.

I nodded, touching her on the arm before I joined the nurse and Shay in her room. By the time I’d gotten there, the nurse had already helped Shay into bed and changed her into a hospital gown. Her dress from the wedding lay folded on the chair nearby. It was strange to me how just an hour ago, we were kissing in an empty room, and now she was about to give birth to our child. Had that triggered all this?

There was no room for me to pull up a chair beside Shay as the nurses fussed over her on both sides of her bed. But I managed to sidle up next to one of them and at least hold her hand. Her face was tense, but she managed a smile as she looked up at me. I could hear her heartbeat ticking wildly in my ears. Or maybe it was my own.

“How are you feeling?” I asked, knowing it wasn’t great.

“Oh…you know,” Shay began. She didn’t have the chance to finish before her face scrunched up in pain as a contraction came. She squeezed my hand tightly, and I brought my lips to her knuckles. One nurse vacated the room and the other fluttered over to the computer to pull up Shay’s files.

“I hate seeing you like this,” I said, turning her hand and kissing her palm. “I’m so excited for our baby to get here, but…I wish there was something I could do to make it easier for you.”

Shay grimaced and shook her head. “It’s part of the experience, I guess,” she said. “This is motherhood; this is what I signed up for. I’ve been reading about this for months. I’m ready.”

I reached forward and brushed her hair from her face, tucking a tress behind her ear. I could see her hold back a wince, but I smiled fondly at her anyway. “Always the little researcher.”

She gave a small laugh and swatted playfully at my hand, but it was a brief moment of bliss before her face contorted in another painful grimace. I clasped her hand tight. “Tell me what I can do.”

“Just don’t let go of my hand,” Shay said. “Stay right here with me.”

“Always,” I promised. “Where else would I go? You’re my forever. I’m so glad that I found you. So fucking lucky.”

I was more than lucky. How was this my life? Shay had saved me, and now she was creating a whole new life for the two of us together. She had already given me more than I could ever ask for, and now she was giving me a child. Shay brought life into the world in every sense.

Shay’s face had gone a bit flushed. She was looking glassy-eyed and tired from enduring so much pain. Then the door opened, and a doctor stepped inside.

The next few hours passed like a dream.

All I could do was sit there, letting her squeeze my fingers, hearing her screams and whimpers and hating myself for putting her through it all. But Shay was stronger than I was. She bit out some jokes now and then—little comments like, “You’re having the next one.” I couldn’t help but think it was her way of comforting me. As if I was the one who needed comforting.

What good was being an Alpha werewolf if I couldn’t take pain away from my mate?

Hell rocked my world for what felt like an eternity, and then all at once, it came to a stop. A cry filled the room—the sound wailing from a set of tiny lungs. The doctor reached forward with a tiny wriggling baby and laid it on Shay’s chest.

I felt hot tears streaming down my cheeks as I watched her, her face drenched in sweat and a grin of relief and pride on her face.

“Congratulations,” the doctor said. “It’s a healthy baby girl.”

I was speechless. A girl. My girl. I looked at the tiny thing, and then at Shay, who for the first time all night had tears streaming down her face. She hadn’t shed a single one throughout all the hours of her labor, but now she was crying. Just like me, she cried from happiness. I could barely force the air into my lungs.

My daughter. My Shay. My girls.

. I had a daughter.

“Come here,” Shay urged me. “Come see her.”

I moved closer, afraid to even breathe on the tiny thing. She was so small—so much smaller than I imagined. I took a seat on the edge of the bed and gently placed a hand on her head, tracing softly along her crown. It was like nothing I’d ever felt before. Like peaches and clouds and velvet and warmth. I could feel the sting of my tears as I smiled down at her. “We’re so glad you’re here, Marina Santos Haywood.”

I felt like my heart was going to burst. A year ago, I had nothing. A year ago, I had a chain around my chest that was slowly killing me. I was dying—or, in other words, simply not dead yet. And here came Shay—this beautiful woman at a club who hated me at first glance. I never deserved her, and I knew it. Yet she’d given me everything a man could ever ask for.

A year ago, I didn’t think I’d live to see another day. Let alone watch the birth of my own child. My daughter.

, I had a

.

She was finally here, and she was fucking magical. The most beautiful thing I’d ever seen—the product of her mother, of course. But she was more than that.

Marina was a prophecy.

The Tamarack pack had an heir.