There’s a collective groan, and only Leo says, “Yes.”
They bring Leo up to speed while he and Gideon move the couch so they can roll up the rug. He takes his food into Finn’s library to eat it so as not to set Rowan off again, returning in sweats thirty minutes later.
Rowan could hardly wait to get Gideon on his back again once he’d wrangled him away from the stinky food smells in the kitchen into the living room. Jay is alternating between pacing like the expectant father he is and clutching his chest like the old man healsois.
Grayson has taken himself outside to blow off someliteral steam. Swimming in the pool, he’s leaving a subtle trail of vapor in his wake. As if he’s heating the pool, rather than the pool cooling him down.
Where the pain in Rowan’s belly has been getting more frequent and intense, it’s the Wolf’s anxiety that is making Rowan twitchy. He’s trying to let Gideon’s back rubs and head kisses soothe him as they usually do.
It goes on like that for what seems like hours. The pacing, swimming, and soothing.
And there’s Leo—calm, steady, either washing dishes in the kitchen or standing sentinel in the hall. The moment he’d heard Nix wanted to labor on his own, Leo had made it his mission to keep the rest of them out. His disapproving stare did more to stop them in their tracks than the hand he’d once placed firmly in the center of Jay’s chest.
It’s late, after 11:00 PM, and no one has turned the lights on; the new moon is shining through the tall windows.
Rowan squeezes his eyes closed, and he presses his nose into Leo’s neck, letting the spicy cinnamon ease some of the pain that’s near-constant under his belly button. Wave upon wave washes over him, making him sweat and moan. He’s happy to bear it because he knows his mate is doing more upstairs to bring their babies into the world.
He blames a particularly bad wave for not hearing Gideon’s phone buzz with a text. The alpha had been sitting on the floor against the wall nearest the right-wing doorway with Grayson’s hair in his hand, alternating between a grounding pull and scratching his nails along the enigma’s scalp.
They all freeze when Gideon eases Grayson up, so he can stand up, too.
He glances at Jay, his expression unreadable for a moment before he announces, “Nix wants us.”
Alive and Kicking: Luca
“Oh, fuck,” Nix moans, and the bones in Luca’s hands creak ominously as he squeezes for the hundredth time in eight hours.
“She’s almost here, Nix.” Finn smiles up at them from his position on the floor between Nix’s knees.
Nix had decided he wanted to be on the floor (on his new yellow rug from Leo,isn’t it nice Luc? Well, it’s not so much anymore if Luca’s wet butt is anything to go by). He’s supporting Nix between his legs, against his chest, with both hands clutching his, as Finn perches in front of them on his knees, calm and focused.
Every time Nix tenses, Finn winces slightly, his expression tightening in quiet sympathy. Luca feels a matching pang low in his chest, like his body can’t help but echo Nix’s discomfort. The contractions are relentless now, hitting one after the other, and Nix’s pain feels like it’s flooding the room despite his tight grip on his scent, near-constant and impossible to ignore.
The air around them is shifting, though. The strong scent of blood and baking bread is gradually giving way to something sweeter—flowers and fresh summer grass. For a moment, Luca wonders if someone has cracked the window, but then he remembers watching Finn shut it earlier. If Rowan-wolf was outside…Finn had been worried he might lose it if he heard Nix in pain.
Leaning in, Luca presses his lips softly to Nix’s ear and starts humming Jay’s song, the one he’d written for Nix. The familiar melody seems to work almost immediately, easing Nix’s anxiety the way Jay’s presence usually would. It’s a small comfort, as if Jay were right there instead of downstairs,probably pacing a hole into the floor.
“I want Jamie,” Nix moans, his voice cracking, as if he’d plucked the thought straight out of Luca’s head.
All Luca can think is,finally.
Not just because he is exhausted—heis,bone-deep—but because Nix has always said he’s stronger when they’re all together. Luca knows why Nix kept them out. He couldn’t handle their concern, their pain, not when his focus had to be entirely on his girls.
“And the others?” Luca asks, so he can text the right people and say the right thing. This is Nix’s choice, after all. He’s been honored to be here every step of the way, but Luca wouldn’t be lying if he said he’d feel better if they were here.
He and Nix had been at the store, knee-deep in plushies, while Artem stood off to the side, pretending not to watch and wonder how they were going to fit the six-foot-tall giraffe into his tiny car.
Then Nix had seized up, crying out suddenly.
Nix had waved it off, muttering something about it being one of those Braxton-Hicks contractions. But deep down, Luca had known it was a lie. Nix had been having those all week, and this—doubling over and whimpering—wasnotjust one of those.
There was one piece of advice Ruthie had given him in the past month’s visits, and it was that this was Nix’s journey and his body, and they needed to let him decide how he was going to do it. And just be there to hold him up and love him. Of course, it made perfect sense—because what else had he been doing since Nix opened his eyes, looked at him, and called him his own?
The rest of the afternoon had gone similarly, with the occasional gasp of pain, until they were eating ice cream treats from Artem on the bench outside the Baby Gap when Nix had waddled over and thrown his out.
Two scoops of Heavenly Hash, right into the trash can.
Now, anyone who knows Nix Rhodes knows he will fight you (and win) for the last lick of ice cream. To see it go into the trash can means either there is an apocalypse incoming and he’s going to need both hands to kicksomeone’s butt, or he is in labor.
