Bonus Story Bean There, Birthed That
Okay, look. This next story didn’t make it into the main novel because of “narrative flow” and “plot reasons” and something Cas called “editorial restraint,” whatever that means.
But we all know the real reason: It was too much for the world to handle.
Too powerful. Too emotional. Too many bodily fluids.
So here it is. The full uncensored birth extravaganza. There was shouting. There was crying. There may have been fainting. Ko swears it wasn’t him, which is adorable, considering I had the bruises from where he fell on me.
Anyway, if you want the real story, grab a snack, maybe a drink (make it a strong one), and dive in knowing you’re not ready.
We definitely weren’t.
— Zane D. Cimmerian
Seri
Three in the morning, and the octopus inside me had decided that my bladder made an excellent trampoline.
“Okay, okay,” I whispered to my unborn child. “I’m moving as fast as I can.”
Which wasn’t very fast at all. These days, getting vertical involved a series of strategic rocks, leveraging my elbows, and a final heave that left me slightly breathless.
I glanced back at my sleeping husbands, all three magnificent specimens sprawled across our big bed in their boxers, then sighed and waddled toward my bathroom, nightgown brushing against my swollen ankles.
The baby inside me shifted again, sending another urgent pressure signal that had me picking up my pace.
Still not fast enough, apparently. Warm liquid trickled down my inner thigh, and I groaned in frustration.
Zane’s ridiculous “When Will She Pee Herself Next?” chart taped to our bedroom door now needed its first timestamp in the ‘Total Embarrassment’ column.
Something felt different this time, though.
This was not the usual slow leak I’d grown accustomed to these past weeks, but a flood that soaked through my thin cotton nightdress and pattered against the tiles.
More concerning, the bathroom nightlight’s soft glow showed darker droplets in the puddle on the tile at my feet.
Then the pain registered, a shift ripping through me that stole all language except a guttural, “Hnnnnnng!”
My hands flew to my belly just as the first real contraction tore through me. Not the Braxton Hicks I’d been experiencing for weeks, but something entirely more powerful and purposeful. It was like a vise grip squeezing my entire midsection, stealing my breath, and my knees buckled.
“Husbands!” The word tore from me raw and ragged. “Baby inbound!”
My voice wasn’t particularly loud, nothing like a scream, but it might as well have been a battle cry for all the chaos it unleashed. Three pairs of supernatural ears picked up my distress call, and the response was immediate and overwhelming.
Casimir appeared first as he always did, trusty nine millimeter gripped in one hand and a pillow in the other. The nightlight caught the panic in his green eyes as they darted from my face to the puddle.
“Infant containment breach!” he barked, flipping the light switch on with his elbow. “Ko, get her vitals! Zane, towels and emergency kit!”
Koa shouldered past him, calm and solid as always, eyes wide as they swept over my hunched form. Then Zane, red hair sticking up at a dozen angles, stumbled in behind his brothers.
“What’s happen—” His words cut off as he registered the scene, his face draining of color so rapidly, I might have laughed if another contraction hadn’t chosen that moment to grip me. “Seri!”
“I’m okay,” I gasped. “Just starting to have a baby.”
“Now?” His voice cracked on the word as he staggered closer. “But we had a plan! There’s a schedule! Cas made charts!”
I wanted to point out that their “plan” had consisted mostly of arguing about the best route to the hospital and timing each other as they loaded Brummy into the car instead of me, but I was too busy to bother.
“Plans change, Z.” Koa reached for me. “All right, sweet girl. Let’s get you to the SUV—”
“No time!” I slid down the wall. “Floor’s… fine… just need—”
I gave up trying to speak and breathed through it the way we’d practiced during our private sessions with the midwife.
Thank the Goddess my bathroom was enormous, a luxury spa-like space with heated floors (currently appreciated) and enough square footage to accommodate four adults with room to spare.
“I TOLD YOU SHE’D GO EARLY!” Zane bellowed. “Pay up, you mother—”
I heard a gun’s safety click off.
“Zane,” Casimir said, dead evenly. “Towels. Emergency kit. Now.”
“Don’t mind them, Seri. Just breathe into me.” Koa’s hand was warm and steady as it gripped mine.
Another contraction gripped me, stronger than before, and I cried out at the pain.
“What can we do, beloved?”
“Just be here,” I managed. “That’s all I need.”
Zane reappeared clutching an armload of towels, his freckles like tiny bruises against his ashen skin as his eyes fixed on the small puddle on the floor.
“That came out of you,” he said, sounding both horrified and impressed. “And now a baby is coming out of you. A whole baby. Our baby.”
Despite the pain radiating through my lower body, I laughed.
“That’s generally how it works, Zoodle.” Another wave crashed through me, more intense than any that had come before. “And I think it’s happening right now!”
“No.” Casimir shook his head. “No, it can’t be. First labors take hours, sometimes days. It’s not right now.”
“Tell that to your child,” I gritted out.
“So, uh, how much blood is normal, exactly?” Zane’s voice went up two octaves. “Because those documentaries made it look kinda mass murdery.”
I gave up trying to talk to either of them.
The day I’d discovered I was pregnant, Brummy had excitedly circled my legs as if he somehow already knew.
After I told my husbands, Casimir researched everything, Koa put together the crib with a patience none of the rest of us had, and Zane painted a ceiling mural of the night sky in the nursery, complete with a moon that glowed in the dark.
And now, after months of waiting, of watching my body change and feeling our little one grow, I was finally going to meet our baby!
On the floor of my bathroom surrounded by three panicking husbands.
Well, whatever happened next was going to happen, with or without any plans. And if I was looking forward to regaining control of my bladder? Well, that would just be my little secret.
#
Casimir
Finding your beloved in labor on the bathroom floor does things to a man.
I stood frozen for precisely three seconds, registering every detail of the scene—Seri’s face twisted in pain, a puddle of amniotic fluid, the faint pink tinge to the liquid that indicated some blood, but not enough to be immediately concerning—before primitive, protective instincts crashed through me like a tsunami, drowning rational thought in their wake.
“Securing the perimeter,” I snapped, already turning toward the bedroom.
“What?” Koa’s voice followed me. “Cas, she needs—”
“I know what she needs!” I snarled, striding to the far wall of our bedroom where I’d installed the security panel disguised as a thermostat. “She needs to be safe.”
My fingers flew over the hidden keypad that controlled the protection wards I’d been meticulously laying throughout our wing of Evermere for the past seven months.
They were etched onto small discs of the purest gold and hidden in strategic locations beneath floorboards, inside lighting fixtures, behind wall panels.
I’d designed the system for use after the baby arrived, knowing I’d never sleep at night otherwise, and now my foresight was going to serve us well.
“What are you doing, Cas?” Ko called from the bathroom.
“Protecting them.”
I activated the wards with a drop of my blood, feeling the surge of power as they flared to life and rippled outward like concentric circles in water.
Three layers of supernatural protection descended around our wing of the house: The first to detect any approach, the second to incapacitate, and the third to destroy if necessary.
Nothing short of the Devil himself could breach these defenses, and even he would find it a challenge.
“Cas!” Ko squalled. “You’ve locked everything down so tight, not even Brummy can get in! Or a paramedic, for that matter!”
“Hostiles exploit vulnerability windows during—”
“The only hostile here is your paranoia!” His roar shook the glass shower doors.
I ignored him. The hospital was nearly an hour away. Too far for an ambulance to arrive in time, judging by Seri’s rapid progression. We were on our own, and that meant I needed to be prepared for anything. Every threat. Every possibility.
No one and nothing gets near her until this is over, I thought. Not even Brumous.
Returning to the bathroom, I found Zane gone and Koa kneeling next to Seri, her golden curls splayed on the floor around her like a halo, her gray eyes wide with a mixture of pain and determination.
“Simmy,” she said between pants, “it’s happening too fast.”
“Negative. Babies come as fast as they come.” Every battlefield loss flashed behind my eyes, and my voice emerged steel-clad. “Breathe two-four rhythm.”
“Casimir.” Koa’s voice cut through my threat assessment, steady as a sniper’s heartbeat. “You need to breathe. You know what to do. You’ve prepared for this.”
He was right. I had prepared. Obsessively.
Compulsively. Ever since the day Seri had announced her pregnancy, I’d dedicated myself to learning everything possible about human childbirth.
I’d read medical textbooks, watched instructional videos, reviewed birthing manuals, studied complications and solutions, and memorized the ideal timeline for labor progression.
I’d created detailed contingency plans for every scenario I could imagine.
I could do this.
I had to do this. There was no other option now.
My child and my beloved were depending on me.
Kneeling, I pressed my palm flat against Seri’s belly, counting the steel-cable tension of muscles seizing beneath sweat-slicked skin.