Chapter 36: Pups

The Hospice had three wings and one Luna, and that night Max ran the length of all of them.

The healer had called in every midwife in the three packs.

They moved through the corridors with armfuls of linen, calm and brisk and frightened.

Max was not calm.

He was in the Tyros wing, kneeling on the bed behind Joel.

Joel sat propped against his chest with both fists wound in the sheet.

"Breathe," the healer said.

"I am breathing."

"Breathe out."

"I'm doing it wrong," Joel said, in a thin furious voice, "I can feel it, I'm doing every part wrong."

"You are doing it very well."

"Don't lie to me."

"Joel." Max put his mouth against his temple. "You're counting. Keep counting. I'm here."

Joel counted.

It went on for four hours.

He got to eleven hundred and something and stopped, with a shout that cracked the plaster.

Then there was a thin high wail.

The healer lifted something small, wet and furious, and laid it on Joel's chest.

Joel stared down at it.

He had stopped breathing.

The baby had a fuzz of black hair and a fierce red face.

It opened its mouth to yell again, and its grey eyes blinked at the lamp.

"Oh," Joel said.

His hand came up, very slowly, and touched the small back.

"Oh. Hello."

"Hello," Max whispered, and found his own face wet.

"I counted," Joel said. "I got to the end."

"You did."

"I didn't have to sit on the stairs."

"No," said Max. "You didn't."

He kissed him, hard, and then he had to run.

Down the corridor James was swearing in a high cracked voice.

He swore at the midwives, at Max and at the ceiling.

Max came through the door as he drew breath for another.

"You," James panted. "You did this. I'm going to be so charming about it later. Oh, fuck."

Keep reading free with an account. Start They Took His Inheritance, He Claimed Three Alpha Mates from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.