Little Red and the big bad Alpha

Chapter 3 - A day of peace and nose breaking.

Edmund started to panic. He stood up. He sat down. He went white, red, purple, white again, and then stood up again.

“Now?”

“Yeah.”

He ran out of the room, up the stairs, shouting something about packing.

“Already packed!” Emilia called.

Edmund's feet pounded down the stairs into the nursery. “The baby's room isn't done!”

“Calm down, they won't send it home that fast.” Emilia groaned, dropping the bag onto the table, and headed after Edmund. Lilia heard the sound of a box tearing open, Edmund's panic flooding through the mate-bond, making her slightly anxious too.

Then a thud and a, “Alpha, sorry about this, but-” from Emilia.

She wandered back in, Edmund over one shoulder, squirming and trying to break free. She set him down on the kitchen floor and he glared at her. “Right. Daddy? Check. Overnight bag? Check.”

“Turkish delight?” Lilia muttered. She grabbed the box from the fridge. “Check.”

“I can't believe you can eat at a time like this.” Edmund groaned. “Oh my god. We need baby clo-”

“Got it.” Emilia pointed at the overnight bag.

“Massage oil for Lilia...”

“Got that too.” Another jab at the bag.

“Um. A camera.”

“Got it.”

Lilia gave up waiting and went to sit in the car, David glancing at her, the same panicked expression. He kept staring at her thighs like she was about to drop the baby then and there. It wasn't long before Emilia and 'Eddy-kins' was following. He sat in the back with her, Lilia suspected it was wiser, trying to not freak out from his panic.

The drive was fine at first. Quiet. Edmund kept rapping his hands on the side of the door, annoying David a little, but the radio was keeping Edmund calm.

The sight of the hospital flipped the situation around. Here, Lilia had expected Edmund to panic, and he did at first but it was her reaction that shocked her.

She usually had a great hold over her werewolf nature, could control it better than most, and interacted with humans easily as if they were no different from herself. Lilia had always been great at that. But the second she was in the hospital, pushed into a wheelchair, and surrounded by humans, her wolf-instinct started to go crazy.

This was not how any mother should give birth.

This was not how a wolf gave birth to her puppies.

She stared around, panic starting to flood her, surrounded by the prey. By eyes. By nurses. Forced to get out of her familiar scent covered clothing and into something that stank of starch and chemicals. Even Edmund couldn't calm her down, he too was starting to panic, and when they told her to lie down on a bed and open her legs...

Emilia had to pretend to 'hug' her just to hold her down. Lilia suddenly wanted her wolf skin. She wanted to change. She wanted to attack. She didn't want fingers there, she didn't want a prey animal near her baby, she didn't want to give birth like this. It was wrong. This was so wrong.

“Um. I need to go to the toilet. Be back soon, baby.” Edmund said sheepishly. And like that he was gone.

Lilia's nerves rose.

“Not far along.” The nurse announced cheerfilly. “Relax, sweetie. I'll get you some drugs to make the pain easier.”

Once the nurse was gone, Emilia must have assumed Lilia would relax, because she let go of her. Another contraction came across. This time, compared to before, it was bad. Maybe it was because her panic was rising, Lilia didn't know, but as it went on she started to ...loose focus. Loose sight of herself as human at all, rather as a wolf, a wolf that was surrounded by machines and chemicals and smells and bright lights.