Chapter Twenty-Four

Kirk

The closer to Delanie Hope's birth we got the more I doted on Chasten and the more he let me. No longer did he complain that I did most of the cooking or reminded him when it was time to check his blood sugar or have a snack. I also took up guard duty, answering the door and not allowing anyone inside. As the days passed, he spent more and more time in his wolf form. It wasn't part of his original birth plan but I was quickly coming to suspect that he was going to give birth while furry. It wasn't that uncommon for shifters to do and doctors were trained for it as well.

When Doctor Dreala came to check out the birthing room, Chasten hid in the bedroom refusing to shift back to his human form. Her ‘inspection' didn't take as long as I thought it would and within half an hour, she gave the room a thumbs up and insisted on checking on Chasten. It took me a few minutes of coaxing him, but in the end, he agreed to see her. She took one look at his twitching belly and asked me if we had all the baby supplies we'd need for the first few days of our daughter's life. Thanks to Chasten's obsessive ‘baby' shopping and the baby shower our friends hosted, we did.

"Good and I'm glad the birthing room passed too," she said, her voice low and steady. "That baby's coming today, Kirk. Maybe not right this minute. Maybe not within the hour, but today. Do you think you can get him in there?"

"I know I can," I said and shooed her off into the birthing room to get things ready.

Her expression didn't look fond of being shooed anywhere, but she was in our territory now. I tiptoed back into the bedroom not wanting to set off any anxiety or fear in Chasten. I peeked back into the bedroom where we had left him in the bed, but he wasn't there.

"Mate?" I called out softly and tiptoed toward the bathroom on my socked feet.

The first snow of the year had come the night before and Chasten insisted we both needed to put socks on. I hated fabric clinging to my feet around the house, but I gave in to my pregnant mate.

A whimper sounded from under the bed, and I smiled to myself, no longer sure we'd make it to the birthing room. For a second, I almost barricaded the door. The need to keep the world out radiated all over our mating link from Chasten. Instead, I stretched out on my belly and asked him what the plan was over that same link.

Chasten put his paws over his eyes and shook his head. We weren't going anywhere. So, I left Doctor Dreala to muck around in the rest of the house and grabbed some clean towels from the bathroom and stretched back at the foot of the bed with my mate. I massaged his ears and face as early contractions moved through his body. I stayed with him, only getting up to turn out the lights and grab a pillow to lean on while I was down on the floor.

Eventually Doctor Dreala did make her way into the bedroom earning growls from Chasten. She didn't get too close. Instead, she lingered against the far wall near the bathroom door. As the minutes ticked into hours she came and went refreshing a hot basin of water over and over as if she couldn't figure out what else to do with herself. She knew not to come too close unless something went wrong. I was pretty damn sure Chasten was all wolf now and he'd take off a finger to protect himself and the pup making its journey from his body into the big, scary world.

"We'll see the leaves and we'll take so many photos to show Delanie when she's older," I said, whispering to Chasten about our upcoming trip in between contractions. He panted hard and if I hadn't worked in the hospital to see the occasional laboring carrier come through, I might've worried. I hated seeing him in pain. Hated the fear that dribbled all over our mating link when all I could do was stay by his side as he followed his wolf's natural instincts and gave birth to a beautiful grey wolf pup.

Doctor Dreala tried to take a step forward when the first whimpering yip-whine broke free from our pup but Chasten growled and moved her closer to him until she found a teat. Her big appetite made me grin as Chasten licked her clean.

"She gets that appetite from you," Chasten teased me over our mating link.

"I'll happily take credit for that" I said, running my hand gently over his head again.

More than an hour passed before Chasten calmed down enough to let Doctor Dreala get a look at Delanie. She declared her healthy if in need of a real bath and gave her all the baby shots that would protect her against the big wide world that she was yet to meet. She lingered but we fell asleep with me half under the bed with Chasten and our pup. Later, I'd wake up with a sore neck, but for the moment, I was the happiest wolf in the world and had the best sleep of my life with my mate and pup close by.

Epilogue

Chasten

Something fell on my nose, and I startled awake. Delanie Hope let out a long yip that sounded almost like a swear. A leaf had landed on her too and she was not having all this nonsense of trees spitting their dead skin all over her – no matter how many pretty colors they came in.

"It's a leaf, Del," Kirk yawned, scooping her up under her belly and pulling her up to the top of the truck bed with us. She let out a protesting bark and squirmed this way and that until she saw he held her morning bottle of formula all mixed up with deer broth we brought from home. Her eyes grew into saucers and a second later she shifted back into our not quite one year old baby.

"She's always hungry," I teased.

"Had to feed before she tries to eat another squirrel," he shrugged.

"I miss coffee."

"We'll drive and get coffee after she eats," Kirk laughed. "And our breakfast too. Too many leaf peepers to go hunting right now."

"We're leaf peepers," I screwed up my face pretending to be mad.

"Yeah, and we didn't buy hunting tickets either. Probably were sold out by the time we knew we needed them."

"I still say no one would've missed that squirrel she tried to eat."

"I don't think so either. I would've let her have it, but it was faster than she was, and Del has to learn to be faster if she wants to eat them."

"Meanie," I rolled my eyes at him, but he was right.

"We'll take her hunting when we get back home. I'll catch a squirrel and turn it loose in the backyard or something."

"Isn't that cheating?"

"Not really. That one might be faster than her too and smarter than me and get out of the backyard with its life," he shrugged and glanced at my belly.

"I'm not," I shook my head.

It was a debate we'd had over the last few days. I had a nasty bout of motion sickness on the road and Kirk was ten thousand percent sure I was pregnant. I wasn't so sure. I thought it was all the curvy roads he took with a medium lead foot to keep up with the flow of traffic.

"I got the stick for you to P-E-E on," he said.

"I don't think that's a cuss word."

"I don't want our daughter to think she should run around and P-E-E on S-T-I-C-K-S like her daddy," he smirked at me.

"What here? In the trees?"

"The test is in the glove box with a specimen cup from work," Kirk nodded.

"Will you give it up if I go do this?" I laughed.

"Yeah because then you'll know I'm right and we'll stick to one cup of coffee a day," he said, righting Delanie's bottle that had slipped loose from her suckling lips. "You do want another one, still, right?"

"Only if you can promise me they'll be as cute as her," I said, nodding down at our baby.

"Probably. At least this cute," he said and booped her on the nose.

She shot him a dirty look but kept suckling as I climbed out of our makeshift bed in the back of the new truck, that Kirk only bought last month, to grab the pregnancy test. We hadn't parked near any of the bathroom stations preferring quiet so that Delanie would sleep to the convenience of having them nearby. So I headed into the woods until I couldn't see Kirk, Delanie, or anyone else and peed on the Frost forsaken stick and set the timer on my phone. Three minutes later – there they were. That damn little pixelated baby proving Kirk right.

"Love you," he said over our mating link, his words oozing with vindication.

"Love you too. You better not know before me next time."

"You knew! You just didn't want to believe it."

"We're not leaving early."

"Wouldn't dream of it. Hell, if we stay long enough Dreala might fly out to check on you. She's a full service doctor."

"Shut up and feed the baby!"

"Love you" he said again.

"Love you forever."

Keep an eye out for my next book where we return to the Starscale worlds! 3 3 3

Hello!

Welcome back to Hemlock Mountain! Whether this is your first book in this universe, or you've been around since the beginning, thank you! It means the world to me to be able to continue expanding this universe to new and exciting places!

Some housekeeping notes:

1) No, this book doesn't mean I've ‘dropped' Starscale Mates as a series. A medical crisis forced me to slow down, and I needed to write a book that wasn't as emotionally demanding. Book 3 of the Starscale Mates reveals a lot of backstory and that's heavy. I'm excited for it – as I finally get to write my favorite crew member as an MC.

2) This one was new to me, but a few readers have asked questions that I'd love to answer in slice of life stories. The first five of these are live on Amazon now. You can find the series here . More of these will come out probably in the new year. Maybe a bit before then if my health continues to improve.

3) We have family trees ! Really – trees in the plural! Thanks to the awesome Riley Morgan ! Thank you so much!

4) So many of you have asked what I'm going to do about (if anything) some of Xenos and Barry's kids – this is still in the making! I know it feels really far away since we're now on a world that isn't even Earthside, but if things go as I plan this is coming!

5) Someone recently asked me why I hyphenated true-mate. When I first started writing my first book, I thought the words true and mate just looked a little separated and needed to be tied together because of what their joint meaning was. So it became the way everyone in the Hemlock Universe wrote it.

6) You can follow me here to keep up with all the upcoming releases and other fun stuff 3 3 3

Happy Reading & Loads of Love!!

XOXO

~Maggie

Reading Order for Maggie's Books

This has been much asked for, and despite posting it on the blog and FB I always get folks asking. So, if I remember, it'll be tucked in here at the end of every book. It's also always posted in my FB group (Hemlock Wolf

Pack.)

The First Omega

Omega Studies

Omega Sight

Omega Magic

Healer's Oath

Omega's Homecoming & Ardan's Oath

Claiming the Shaman

The Sleeping Omega Prince

Omega Rebellion

Skystead Wolves

Mated for the Holidays.

Saving Cinder

Freeing Fenrir

Crow King's Heir

Alpha in Distress

Sky's Homecoming

All the Pieces of Us

As Long as You Need Me

Omega Midwife

Pheromone Swap

Making Room for Love

Behind Dragon Wings

Interview with a Captive Dragon

The Other Mr. Claus

Yuletide Bites

Stay with Us

Guardians of Glitter Bomb

To Save a Sidhe

Dead Mates Society

The Love We Choose

The Love Right in Front of Us

Alphas of Lore

The Vampire and the Beast

Catnip & Mistletoe

The Practice Alpha

Alpha Unleashed

Alpha Misunderstood

The Pride of Glitter Bomb

The Age of Lions

A Worthy Bear

Stuck Between Two Bears

Omega in the Stars

Just a Wolf

Canton: A Memoir

Wildlands Omega

A Wilder Alpha

Omega's Fall

Alpha's Curse

Alpha of My Heart

A Wildlands Yuletide

Omega's Second Chance

Alpha's Sacrifice

Omega's Return

The Little Hemlock King

The Kissing Wars

Haunted Mates

Keeper of My Secrets

Invisible Alpha

Banished Alpha

Kiss Me Better

Surrounded By Scales

Fanged Secrets

Omega's First Love

Deck the Halls with Harpies

A Yuletide to Remember

The Wolves At My Sides

The Fall Before the Heat

Witch of My Heart

Coyote's Fate

Fall with Me

The Impossible Week

Cursed of Frost

The Guardian's True-Mate

Omega Seeks Quiet Life

True-Mates' Reunion

Meet Me in the Stars

Stripped to the Scales

Bitten in the Wild

Call Don't Fall (You are here!)