C2 Chapter 2

I can’t describe this kind of pain. Blinding comes to mind, but that might just be because my eyes are slammed shut while I wait for either the pain to pass or my life to end. In any case, the feeling of a baby wedging its way out of my uterus makes it hard to focus on anything else, even the outrageously sexy man propped between my legs barking orders at the other two.

“Get water boiling,” he tells Sexy #1. “And you,” he says to Sexy #3, “get me clean rags and the sharpest knife you can find.”

“No,” I say, trying to sit up. “Take me upstaAAAIIIIRRS... I need to LLLLLIIIIIIEEEEEE down.”

Sexy #2 shakes his head. “No, you’ll stay down here. You’re in no condition to be moved right now.” He locks eyes with me, and the pain ripping through me ceases momentarily as I get lost in his forest green gaze.

“Who are you?” I ask, panting through another contraction.

“My name is Zev, Bernadette. I’ll make sure you deliver the child safely.”

The brutal contractions fade again as my head spins. Zev? A doctor I’ve never met who knows my name and waltzed into my bar moments before I went into labor?

“No one calls me Bernadette unless they’re trying to piiIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSS... me off. And I don’t think you want to doOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO... that.”

“Anger won’t help, but a charge of adrenaline can’t hurt,” Zev says, as he directs Sexy #1. “Get behind her and support her back.”

I feel strong arms slip around my waist and I lean into his chest. I have no shits left to give. “What’s your name, then?” I ask when I can speak again.

“Darius,” he says, his lips brushing against my ear with his words.

“Zev and Darius,” I repeat, mostly to make sure I heard right the first time. “And how about yoooOOUUUUUUUU?!” I say to Sexy #3 right as another contraction hits. This labor is progressing much more quickly than what the lady in my birthing class described.

Before the third mystery man can answer, Darius chimes in again. “Rune, take her other arm, even out the support.” Okay, I guess Sexy #3 goes by Rune. It also seems as though these guys know each other, even if they like to sit at different tables when they go out.

The pain dulls enough for me to do some quick math. Outside, the storm’s getting worse. Inside, I’m going into labor a week early. Most importantly, three oddly-named, unconscionably sexy men are helping deliver my baby with a calm very few men show in the labor ward. So... WTF?

“I’m surprised we all arrived at the same time,” Rune says to the others. “I was sure I had a head start.”

“We work off the same prophecy, old friend,” Zev responds in his gruff baritone. “There’s only one star to guide us.”

“The only surprise,” Darius says, “is that we never had a discussion as to what we’d do when it came time to take the child.”

My head cranks toward Darius at these words. Is he talking about my child? I’d ask him directly but another contraction wracks my body and I scream, clutching Darius and Rune’s hands with all my strength. Neither even flinches.

Meanwhile, with my eyes clamped shut, I feel a firm tugging at my pants. “You cannot deliver this child while wearing these,” Zev says calmly.

Oh God, I hadn’t thought about this part. Shit.

“Someone get me a blanket at least,” I say through clenched teeth.

Darius and Zev look to Rune, who swiftly pops up and moves to the kitchen.

“He’s good at finding things,” Zev explains.

As advertised, Rune promptly returns with an armful of large towels

“Will this do?” he asks, suggesting he could go back into my kitchen and find more, somehow better towels.

“Those are fine.”

He drapes the cover over my abdomen, as Zev gets me half naked.

“I will be watching you, dog,” Darius says with an unfriendly bite to his voice. “Don’t think for a second you’re quick enough to catch the baby and escape.”

Zev barks out a short laugh. “Oh, Darius, how I’ve missed your playful name calling. And don’t expect me to run, I wouldn’t want to deprive myself of tearing you apart.”

“Now’s not the time to revisit old wounds,” Rune says in a condescending tone, like a bored professor explaining something simple to his students for the tenth time. “You can carry on with your bickering when the prophecy is fulfilled and the fae flourish once again.”

“Cocky as ever,” Darius mutters.

As fascinating as this exchange is, the language terrifies me. If I wasn’t so actively birthing a child, I would absolutely sprint into a deadly storm to get away from these men.

“Who the hell are you people? How did you know my name? Why...aaaAAAAAAHHHHHH!” I can’t even finish the question, which is for the best because I didn’t really know what to ask. Everything about this situation needs answers, but for now I’m just going to hope these men keep helping since I’ve got nowhere else to go.

“Hold my hands, Bernadette,” Darius says from behind me. “Squeeze when you feel a contraction and focus on pushing.”

“You three stop acting like psychopaths and I will.” My face probably shows that I’m terrified, but I don’t let on with my words. Growing up in a Massachusetts bar, I learned to talk tougher than I felt at a very early age.

Rune lowers himself to the floor, pressing gently against my knee, spreading my legs a little further and bringing back a shade of self-consciousness. He catches my eye and clearly sees a discomfort that goes beyond just the physical.

“When you feel a contraction, push your leg against my hand. That will activate the muscles you need to move the baby along.”

I’m about to throw out another verbal lashing when I see Zev nod. “He’s right. I’ll keep my hand on the other knee.”

I’m surrounded by men who might all be murderers, but without any other options I’ve landed on implicitly trusting Zev based on his word that he’s a doctor...if I like. I hope it’s the doctor claim that got Zev in my good graces and not the ruggedly handsome face, which has always been a weakness of mine.

Whatever the case, the new position helps. I scream and push between breaths, barely aware that Darius has put a wet washcloth over my forehead. I trust he grabbed a clean one and not the towel I’d been using to mop up Joe’s beer.

Everything about this birth has gone wrong, and yet I find the situation strangely empowering. I’d planned on a very sterile, clinical, hospital bed delivery, none of that froufrou home or water birth stuff that the neighborhood midwives tried to sell me on. But now, sitting at an incline against a guy named Darius, two dudes named Zev and Rune side by side between my wide open legs, naked butt on the cold floor of an empty bar, I feel a small rush of pride over my natural birth. Who needs an epidural when you’ve got creepy intruders?

“The head is emerging,” Zev says without a trace of happiness in his voice, casually explaining that my labor pains might soon come to an end. “Push harder with the next feeling of contraction.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, have I not been pushing hard enough for you?”

Zev gives me a confused look, clearly not a sarcasm buff. This will make my feisty tone less effective.

As another wave of agony ripples through my torso, my legs start to close as my muscles flex. The pressure from Zev and Rune’s hands gives me a little extra oomph in my push and suddenly the pain, while still incomprehensibly awful, takes on a new burn.

“She’s out,” Rune says, a look of awe on his face, just as the old clock behind the bar strikes midnight. I open my eyes, which have long been soaked with tears but now get a fresh coating. Just a few feet away, after growing inside me for the better part of a year, I see my baby. She’s crying, bloody, and perfect. I’m a broken vessel, torn and sweaty and surrounded by demented intruders, but I don’t care. I’ve never felt love like this.

“Rain...” I murmur, saying my baby’s name out loud for the first time. She was always going to have that name, but I promised myself I wouldn’t speak it until she arrived.

Rune holds the baby with great care, which at first puts me at ease before giving me a funny feeling. He stares at Rain with a kind of reverence that has my hackles up, and he’s not making any move to hand her over my way.

“Give her to me,” I say in a steady voice, my body absolutely giddy about being done with the throws of labor.

He hesitates. His eyes shift from me to Darius to Zev, and there’s a palpable tension between the three. It pisses me off because... because give me my freaking baby.

He’s still cradling my daughter when Zev stands, his impressive stature becoming apparent. Darius rises as well, also a taller-than-average man.

“Give the child to her mother,” Zev says in a voice that’s both calm and terrifying. “I know what you’re doing, I know the impulse you feel, and neither Darius nor myself will let you move an inch from where you stand while you hold that baby.”

Maybe it’s that I’m still in agony and sitting in afterbirth, but these guys strike me as a special kind of crazy. Nevertheless, Rune seems to catch Zev’s drift and he carefully leans over with Rain. I’m about to hold the baby I’ve been waiting so long to meet.

“Do you wrap the placenta around the child now or later?”

Rune’s question feels like a mix of the right words in the wrong order. Wrap the baby in the placenta?

“Do I what now?”

“Or is that something the elders do while your body mends?”

It’s late and I’ve labored, so I’ve got zero brain space for these weird questions. Fortunately, Zev steps in.

“She doesn’t share your rituals. Here they eat the placenta. Just pass the child, Rune.”

While I have no intention of eating the placenta, Zev’s suggestion is less bonkers than the previous one. Rune does as he’s told, with a mild look of disgust on his beautiful face.

As I take her into my arms, I feel my shirt being lifted. Darius, in the most forward and inappropriate move ever, is taking off my clothes while I’m incapacitated. My bar-owner instinct is to swing the baby at him like the bat I keep behind the counter to scare off the occasional drunk who has one too many. Fortunately, my maternal instinct steps in and stops me.

Darius manages to read the room and explains himself. “She needs to feel your skin.” Of course I know about skin-to-skin time and how important it is, but this delivery and my new company has thrown me off my game. I drop a little of the tension and let Darius resume with the unprompted disrobing.

Finally, naked as a jaybird, I get to hold my baby. As soon as I press her up to my breast, she stops crying and my heart melts all over again. Her little lips inch along my skin, searching for a nipple, and it’s absolutely the cutest thing that’s ever happened in the world.

As she starts to nurse, a hand cups the underside of my breast to make the feeding angle easier. I honestly don’t know which weirdo’s weird hand it is, I’m too absorbed watching my sweet girl. While my eyes stay locked on Rain, I half-listen to more outlandish conversation from these men who should feel free to leave at any time.

“When did you notice the approach of the star?” Darius questions the other two, his calm voice floating over my head.

“We started watching the sky two weeks ago,” Rune answers. “Violence in the realm had escalated, and the Readers announced the nearing of the date.”

“I arrived last night,” Zev adds. “Waited in the woods until the moment arrived. And you, Darius? Surely your kingdom knew of this day well in advance.”

There’s a tense moment between the two men, neither speaking, breathing or blinking.

Darius finally responds, “Of course. We’ve known for months.”

While every inch of my being wants to scream, what the hell is going on?!, I resist. I’ll learn more by listening, and I don’t want to do anything that might startle Rain. She’s lost the nipple and is making the softest little murmuring sounds.

“What now?” Rune asks, his voice quieter than before. “We’ve arrived at the moment we all expected but never spoke about. There’s only one child, and I see only one way out.”

Whatever Rune is saying makes Zev tense, as I feel his hand squeeze my thigh more tightly, and it sounds like he’s... growling? Lack of sleep and an exhaustive labor have worn me out. I’m sure the growl was just in my head.

Darius puts his hands on my shoulders, sending a shiver down my spine that’s both exhilarating and terrifying. “It may come to that, Rune, but you’ll be up against Zev and myself if you make a false move. We all want the child, but she’s of no use dead or unhealthy.”

Now I’ve heard enough to pipe in. “I’m sorry, ‘you want the child’? I don’t know who you are or where-”

My voice stops. It’s the craziest sensation, because I know what I wanted to say and now I’m silent, my brain’s in a fog, and all I can do is stare into Darius’ eyes, like I’m in a trance.

“Let her go,” Zev says, though the words don’t really register in my clouded head. “She needs her wits about her.”

“Let’s get her up to her bed,” Rune says. “The baby is asleep so the mother should rest as well.”

Maybe it’s the mention of rest, but my mind suddenly becomes mine again and my voice returns. “Yes, please. And someone call a real doctor, I think I need actual help-”

“You’ll be fine,” Zev cuts me off. “Darius, carry her up. I’ll clean the baby and then come up to tend to the mother’s wounds.”

“I’ll tidy up down here,” Rune says. “Needn’t create a scene that garners unnecessary attention.”

Zev gently pulls Rain away from me, which I allow because I’m not sure I have another option. As Darius lifts me from the ground and starts carrying me upstairs, my emotions overwhelm me. I’m scared shitless, utterly confused, and deeply in love with my newborn baby. And, while this situation makes me feel incredibly uneasy to say the least, it’s not lost on me that I’ve currently got three dashing men waiting on me hand and foot. Unfortunately, from what I’ve gathered, they came to steal my baby, and the only way that’ll happen is if they kill me and rip her from my cold, dead hands.