The Alpha Captain's Secret Baby novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: First Shift

"Move the table," Hattie said. "Floor. I need floor."

I scooped Emil off the bed and into my arms, and he screamed against my neck.

Rhys was already in the doorway in his undershirt, wide awake.

He didn't ask what was wrong.

He took one look at my son and swept the coffee table out of the living room with one arm, so it hit the wall and stopped.

"Put him down," he said. "Right here, on the rug."

I laid Emil down.

His small back bowed up off the carpet, and his legs jerked.

The sound came again, the wet crack of bones moving under skin.

"He needs an anchor," Hattie said. She was kneeling already, setting out a silver bowl of water and a bundle of dried leaves she had taken from her bag. "An Alpha-line wolf, close, in his own shape."

"Tell me what to do," said Rhys.

"Change. Lie down next to him. Let him smell you, and let him hear you breathe."

Rhys stripped off his shirt and went down on his hands and knees on the rug.

I had never watched him shift in the light.

It was fast, and it was not gentle.

His spine arched, his shoulders rolled, and dark fur ran across his back.

A moment later there was a wolf on the rug, huge and black, with gray eyes.

He crawled the last foot and lay down with his chest pressed to my son's side.

Emil's scream thinned into a whimper.

"Good," said Hattie. "Willa, you too. He's frightened, and he needs his mother's scent."

I didn't need to be told twice.

I pulled my sweater over my head and let the change take me, the old stretching pull I hadn't felt in a year.

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