Page 214 of Labor of Love

“Ow,” I cried, reaching a shaking hand between my legs. “What—” I stopped talking, feeling an open seam that hadnotbeen there before.

“What’s wrong?” Martin seemed as scared and confused as I felt. I hadn’t noticed him shifting back to his human form. He crouched in front of me with worry lines crinkling his forehead.

“I-I don’t know,” I whispered. Had something gone wrong during my shift? I’d never heard of that happening before, but maybe with my weight gain and lethargy, I wasn’t concentrating, or…something. “I’m…my body isn’t right.”

“What? Where?”

Lower lip trembling, I gestured hopelessly between my legs. Another cramp had my stomach tightening up, and I groaned, wrapping an arm around myself. “And I…I think my appendix has burst or something.”

It didn’t explain whatever was going on between my legs, but the pain distracted me from freaking out about that.

“Lie on your back,” Martin demanded, sounding nothing like his usual playful self. I could hear the fear in his voice as he added, “I’m going to have a look and then…then I’ll get help. I just…I want to know what to tell the doctors when I get them, okay?”

I nodded, biting my lip so I didn’t cry out as he carefully spread my thighs apart. With all the pain and terror, I didn’t have a chance to feel embarrassed about the situation, or about him seeing what had become of me.

“Whoa,” he muttered, and I struggled to prop myself back up on my elbows.

“What? What’s whoa—owwwww.” My belly seized again. Tears ran down my face.

“It doesn’t look like a tear or anything,” my best friend said. “It…it almost looks like…well, like it’s meant to be there, I guess.” He looked up from between my legs and suggested, “Maybe it’s an omega thing? An evolutionary thing now all these alphas exist again?”

Another cramp wracked my body. “My stomach is killing me. This can’t be norm—fuck!” The space between my legs ached —almost stabbed— with a strange sort of pressure.

“I’m going to get a doctor. Just” —Martin cringed— “hang in there.”

He pushed back to his feet and shifted into his raccoon form, racing off through the forest faster than I’d ever seen him run.

7

CONRAD

Neighborhood watch was usually uneventful. I didn’t fully understand the pack’s need for security at the best of times, but the additional roster during pack runs had something to do with a kidnapping attempt during a run a few years earlier. That was all I’d needed to know when I originally volunteered my services.

Admittedly, when I’d first volunteered, I had still been human — a potential shifter at best. After the successful Unlocking, I was disappointed to miss out on the occasional pack run, but I was proud to help keep the rest of the pack safe. Even if all I kept them safe from was the occasional tourist asking for directions.

So, I was on high alert when I watched the raccoon racing down Main Street in the direction of the Alpha’s home. There were a handful of raccoon shifters in the pack. As far as I knew, they were all related. From a distance, I wasn’t sure which one was moving faster than I’d known a raccoon could run, but I sensed panic in the air.

Knowing my gut hadn’t ever led me astray before, I turned the key in my truck’s ignition and the engine rumbled to life. Shooting a text to let the person in charge of tonight’sneighborhood watch know I was leaving my post because something seemed off, I drove after the raccoon. It didn’t take me long to catch up.

The animal shifted as I slowed my truck behind him, and I felt even more on edge when I recognized the figure illuminated by my headlights. Martin. Tim’s best friend.

Tim’s best friend who had been his run partner.

“What’s wrong?” I demanded as soon as he had wrenched open the passenger door. I didn’t even give him a chance to climb onto the seat. “Where’s Tim?”

Breathing heavily, Martin grimaced, shaking his head. “We need a doctor,” he managed between panted breaths. “Tim’s…hurt.”

The passenger door wasn’t even shut before I planted my foot on the accelerator, growling out, “What happened?”

Martin yanked the door closed and clutched at the ‘oh shit’ bar as we hurtled towards the dragon-run doctor’s clinic. It shared the same plot of land as the Alpha’s house and was where I knew the on-shift doctor, Eric, was holding down the fort tonight in case of any medical emergencies.

“I don’t know,” Martin’s worry made mine worse. “We were running —we’ve always played a game where he chases me to the river— and for the first time ever, he didn’t catch me. He was…slow.” Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Martin’s long fingers drumming an anxious rhythm on his bare thigh. “When he got to the riverbank, he yelped and shifted back. He was in a lot of pain.” His voice was clogged with tears. “He…he thinks something might have burst. Like his appendix or something?”

I put my foot down harder. There was no time to lose.

Martin slammed his hands on the dash when we lurched to a sudden stop in the tiny parking lot, a spray of gravel and dust heralding my speedy arrival. Before we could get out of the vehicle, the clinic’s door opened, and Eric stepped out.

He was about my height, blonde and attractive, with a body that looked almost gym-toned. To look at him, you’d assume he was in his early forties, so it was a bit of a mindfuck to discover he was a hundreds-of-years-old dragon. In fact, Eric had purchased most of the land in Shifters Sanctuary decades ago, and that it had been his idea to form the pack when Beckett had accidentally discovered he was an alpha.

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