Page 215 of Labor of Love

Eric was also a great doctor. He was calm and incredibly knowledgeable, so it was a relief to see him striding towards us with purpose, his emergency medical bag already slung over his shoulder.

“What’s going on?” he asked, opening the rear passenger door and sliding into the middle of the back seats. He didn’t even blink at Martin’s disheveled, naked state.

Martin quickly repeated everything he’d told me, answering as many of Eric’s questions as he could. He said something about Tim’s body changing, but I didn’t understand what he meant. Eric seemed to have some idea, though, because he hummed thoughtfully while I tried to focus on driving us back to the edge of the forest where the pack was running.

From what I’d gleaned during my time living there, Beckett gave the pack some say about what happened in the town, including things as simple as where to take their monthly pack runs. A lot of the time, the pack would simply gather near Beck’s house and go from there. But on some occasions, like this one, other shifters would offer their properties as a starting point, for variety of experiences and to show their pack spirit.

“Park here,” Martin leaned forward in his seat. He braced himself for another hasty stop. “This way will get us to Tim the fastest.” He glanced at Eric over his shoulder. “Especially because you can’t shift.”

Eric nodded. As a dragon, he was huge. He couldn’t make it through the dense hardwood trees as quickly as he could inhuman form. At least, not without flattening half the forest. Not that I was opposed to that idea, seeing as it was my mate who needed help.

And he was my mate. We might have only been dating for six months, and we might have been taking our physical relationship slower than most, but I was head over heels in love with him.

A pang of guilt struck me. I’d been feeling that way for a while, but I hadn’t said the words out loud. What if the worst happened and Tim never knew that I loved him?

No. I couldn’t think that way. Eric was there. He was going to help. Everything was going to be fine.

It had to be.

I heard Tim before I saw him. He was crying out, and my bear was close to the surface. I wanted to destroy whatever was harming my mate, but as we broke through the brush and came to find him curled up on the grassy riverbank, weeping and sweaty and grimy, it was obvious there was nothing external to blame.

“C-Con…” Tim sobbed when he saw me.

I crashed to my knees at his side, oblivious to whatever the others were doing.

My boyfriend had my complete focus. I reached for his outstretched hand, running my other through his damp hair. “Shh, darlin’. I’m here, and so’s Eric. He’s gonna fix you up, okay?”

Tim grimaced, squeezing my hand with a surprising amount of force, before he curled into a tight ball again. “I think my spleen ruptured or something. It…ugh…it hurts so bad. And…”He scrunched his face up. “There’s this…hole. And…and I think Ipeedout of it or something, and…what if I’m dying?”

“I don’t think that’s what’s happening,” Eric interrupted, unpacking his supplies near Tim’s feet. “I’m just going to take a look, okay? I need you to lie back and open your legs for me, Tim. Can you do that?” Turning his attention to me, Eric suggested, “Can you shuffle around and prop him up a bit? Support him. Sitting with a leg on either side of him so you can hold him might be best.”

I did everything he said, only letting go of Tim’s hand so I didn’t twist his arm back unnaturally. As soon as I was behind him, with his back flush against my chest, I wrapped my arms around him and he gripped at my forearms, his nails digging in as more pain wracked his body.

“This might feel a bit uncomfortable,” Eric said, placing a gloved hand on the inside of Tim’s left thigh. My stomach churned with worry. “Take some deep breaths for me, okay, Tim?”

Tim nodded, jolting and yelping when Eric reached between his legs. “Owww!” he cried. “Stop.Please. It hurts. Please stop.”

Even though I knew Eric was just doing his job and trying to help my mate, Tim’s plaintive begging irritated my bear.

Don’t maim the doctor,I told myself.Don’t maim the?—

“Good. Good. You did really well, Tim,” Eric withdrew his hand, then looked up at us with a peculiar expression. He licked his lips, then said, “You’re not dying, and you haven’t ruptured an organ. But youarein active labor.”

Martin gasped, “Labor?!”

I’d forgotten he was even there.

Tim shook his head vehemently. “I…that’s not possible. I’m a virgin. I…I can’t be…” He twisted around, his frantic, wet, red-rimmed eyes trying to meet mine. “I swear, I’ve never…I—owwww.”

“Shh, sweetheart, it’s okay, it’s gonna be okay,” I said, despite my own inner turmoil.

My boyfriend —mymate— was in labor with a baby neither of us knew existed. A baby we couldn’t have possibly made together.

Memories tickled the back of my mind. Fantasies of Tim in place of a thoroughly lubed beta…

What if…?

Eric removed his gloves, placing his hands on Tim’s stomach to palpate the area gently. “You don’t know when you conceived?” he asked. “Because your belly doesn’t appear large enough for forty weeks gestation, so I’m concerned this might be quite a premature?—”

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