Page 25 of His Treasured Mate

I couldn’t help but feel guilty for not realizing how close she was to delivery. In my mind, we had plenty of time to get through the reunion in Westin and return before this, but if it hadn’t been for the storm, we’d have already left and taken Sam with us.

It wasn’t that we didn’t have several fully qualified midwives in the Pack that could deliver. Heck, Sam was really only used for the high-risk patients and, at my insistence, Lily. But I knew that if we’d been away, and she went into labor with any complications whatsoever, I would never forgive myself.

“Well, are you sticking around or going?” my sister asked.

“I’m going already,” I snapped.

“They’re having a home birth,” she shouted after me.

On my run back to the car, I remembered to call my mate.

“Hey sweetheart.”

“Angel’s having the baby,” I blurted out.

“I know. I’m here.”

I paused between jumping into the car and starting it up.

“You didn’t think to call me?”

“I assumed one of the boys did. You always know everything before me.”

“Well, not this time,” I muttered, starting the engine and racing over to Austin’s house.

By the time I arrived, there was excitement in the air.

I walked into his house unannounced to find him standing there as everyone congratulated him. I’d missed it all.

“Thomas! You’re here just in time. I told them not to bother you. I know you’ve been busy.”

“What the hell, man? I’m never too busy for something like this.”

“Austin,” Paige complained. “How is Angel?”

Emmett reached down and stroked her baby belly. She was due around the same time as Lily.

One thing was certain, my friends and I knew how to make some babies. There had been a recent Six Pack boom.

“Austin, answer her,” Lily demanded.

“Oh right, it’s a boy!”

“Dude, she had the baby already?” Emmett asked.

“Yes. They’re getting cleaned up now.”

We all went quiet, listening for the cry of our newest kid, but there was nothing.

“Is everything okay? Is Angel and the baby okay?” Kate asked, hesitantly.

“Yeah, they're perfect. Why?”

“There’s no sound coming from the room.”

“Oh, right. Angel was a bit self-conscious about being in labor and everyone hearing her. So I stole a dampener from Thomas’s house.”

“You did what?”