Page 61 of The Pregnant Wolf Omega Next Door

Zenith froze. Everything stopped. Maybe he felt a tiny bit dizzy.

Then it hit him: There was a newborn pup on the towel behind Emre.

All his alarm bells began ringing again.

“Baby,” Zenith squeaked.

Emre panted for a while. “Grab a towel.”

Weakly, he tried to shuffle around, to get closer to the pup. Zenith slipped his hands under Emre to help him move.

When he was close enough, Emre licked the pup all over. Only then did Zenith realize that the pup was encased in a translucent sac. Emre had torn open the sac and was licking the pup’s snout, nudging it so it began to breathe.

The pup began to make tiny, whimpering sounds.

“Is it okay?” Zenith whispered, finally grabbing a towel.

“Think so.” Emre was still licking the pup, nudging it here and there. When the sac was off and Emre had licked the pup clean, he gnawed off its umbilical cord. Then he began to nudge the pup toward his belly.

The pup was incredibly tiny, with its closed eyes and damp grey fur.

“Do you want me to... dry the pup?” Zenith asked hesitantly.

“Would be nice. Please,” Emre said tiredly. The pup was sniffing; Emre helped it over to his nipple. It was such a tender moment that Zenith pulled out his phone and took a picture. Then Abbie came along, sniffing too.

“Here’s your new brother, hon,” Emre said, letting her investigate the newborn.

Zenith took another picture. The three of them belonged together, all happy like that.

Suddenly, Zenith felt like he was on the outside, looking in.

He was just Emre’s neighbor who happened to be sheltering them. But if things were different...

Emre looked up, meeting Zenith’s eyes. “Would you like to say hi? Not that he can see or hear you right now.”

Hope flared in Zenith’s stomach. “Really?”

He was already crouching and leaning closer, holding the dry towel between himself and the pup. When Emre nodded, Zenith carefully patted the towel around the newborn, gently using a corner to scrub down his fine dark fur. “Hey, pup. Welcome to the world.”

The pup twitched and latched onto Emre, wriggling his bottom. Emre nosed at him all over, rumbling quietly. The pup rumbled back. If he couldn’t see or hear his dad, did he feel the vibrations instead? Was that how he knew to rumble back?

“He’ll need some help with body heat; pups are not born with insulating fur,” Emre explained. “He’ll be sticking close to me for three to four weeks, until he can regulate his own temperature.”

“I’m warm too, if you need a break,” Zenith offered.

Emre’s face lit up. Zenith took another picture, and Emre huffed.

“I thought you might like pictures of this moment,” Zenith said, giving a small shrug. “Sorry I wasn’t more help with the birth. You did so great.”

“You helped just by being here, you know. I need to thank you for that.”

“Even with my useless suggestions?” Zenith guiltily tucked his phone away.

Emre laughed. “I don’t know, maybe it helped for me to get mad at you. The pup sure came out fast after that.”

Zenith laughed too. Slowly, he reached over, running his hand over Emre’s fur. Emre rumbled. “You’re amazing. Carrying the pup for so long, even when it made you uncomfortable as hell. I know you were trying to look for jobs; it couldn’t have been easy, with your belly fucking with your balance, and having Abbie to care for too. And yet you kept your pups fed and safe.”

The fur on Emre’s snout darkened again; he twitched his forelegs like he was trying to shrug. “Someone helped me with the rent. I came across some alphas a while back; they pointedme to those apartments and gave me enough money to cover rent for a while. Then they disappeared.”