Page 72 of His Captor

Junior didn’t seem to care. My body spasmed again as my organs rearranged themselves for birth.

I guess I hadn’t really been paying attention in the birthing classes my doctor had insisted I attend. I knew vaguely that male omegas went through a pretty hair-raising process of, shall we say, reorganization when they went into labor. Simon had attended the class with me, and since he hoped to have babies someday, I’d spent more time giggling over the way he blanched at everything the instructor said than I did paying attention.

Simon might have been right to blanche, though.

Because our reproductive organs connected to our anus instead of an entirely different opening, like female omegas and betas, our bodies had to adjust to temporarily bypass the lower digestive tract entirely. It meant our labor was much faster, since shutting down the digestive system for too long could be deadly, but our afterbirth was a bitch to clean up.

I moaned, rocking harder as I thought about it. I didn’t know how much time I had. All I knew was that I didn’t want to give birth alone in an empty storeroom, on a bare mattress that would end up covered in shit, blood, and amniotic fluid. I didn’t want to have to break the news to Junior when I held him in my arms for the first time that this was just how it was going to be with me, because his papa was a mess.

The contractions subsided for long enough that I was able to flop to my side to rest for a moment. I reached out, feeling for Mace again. He was distant from me, but at least he wasn’t moving farther away. And he was…sad? I felt a strange, twisty feeling from him, like he was…disappointed? No, that couldn’t be right.

Then another contraction started.

“God, no!” I groaned, moving up to my hands and knees again.

The other thing I remembered from the birthing class was that, also unlike female omegas, male omegas did better if they gave birth either on their hands and knees or sitting up. That’s why special birthing supports had been invented for us. If I’d been in a hospital, I would have an entire scaffolding to lean into, and Junior could just slip right down and into the world, easy peasey.

I wasn’t going to get anything like that now. I wasn’t sure I would even have?—

I gasped as the sudden sensation of Mace drawing near to me again filled me.

“Mace!” I shouted, then groaned and grit my teeth as the height of that particular contraction hit me.

I didn’t have the wherewithal to cry out again, but I didn’t need to. Mace was definitely moving toward me. So close that I could?—

The door suddenly banged hard. I wanted to get up and answer it. I knew it was Mace on the other side. But with the contraction going full blast, sweat dripping off me, and an instinctual sense that I needed to stay right where I was and focus on birthing, I didn’t.

The door banged loudly a few more times, then crashed open.

And there he was. My hero, my alpha, the man I loved against all odds. He’d come to rescue me.

“Hayden!”

“Mace?” I moaned. “Thank God, Mace!” Then I flat-out cried. “I don’t want to have our baby like this!”

“I’ve got you, sweetheart,” Mace said in the most reassuring, powerful, alpha voice I’d ever heard as he practically flew to me. He dropped to my side and gathered me into his arms. “I’ve got you.”

The contraction subsided, but my emotions still ran high. Not only did I let myself be pulled into his arms, I threw my arms around his neck, buried my face against his shoulder, and wailed with fear and pain and relief.

“This night sucks,” I whined. “I’m never going to a fundraising dinner with you again.”

Mace laughed. I could feel his own relief in the sound and through our bond. It actually made me feel better.

“Let’s get you out of here,” Mace said, tugging my trousers up, then standing with me in his arms. “We’ll call an ambulance, if there isn’t one here already.”

There was a grave note in his voice as he said that. I felt the same twist of emotions I’d felt from him when he was farther away from me, but still.

“Has something happened?” I asked, lifting my head from his shoulder.

“You’re not to worry about any of that until later,” Mace told me in no uncertain terms.

I wanted to argue with him, accuse him of withholding important information from me, but another contraction started, which not only hurt, it sent me into a panic.

I was surprised Mace could carry me as easily as he did, what with my body being huge and with me writhing in pain. I was also surprised when we left the store room and ended up in a parking garage.

“Where are we?” I managed to squeeze out through panting breaths.

“Next to the hotel,” Mace said, carrying me up a set of stairs to the top level of the garage…which happened to be level with the ground and right next to both the Grand Hotel and the beach.

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