Chapter 1 His Perfect Little Heirs #6
Awareness circles me in that moment; my toes, my body, all the parts of me hum to life, and I immediately sit up. Something feels different. I feel lighter—Yet, heavier at the same time. Heavier… lower…
Searching the room, I find the wall lights casting a dim glow below them and Clay's eyes locked on me as though viscerally fixed. Watching. Wait.
For what, Sir?
He’s naked but for a pair of jeans sitting around his toned hips. “Little deer.” His blue gaze softens on me, his concern smoothing to trained control.
Peering wide-eyed down at the sheets, I feel my heart contract. I clutch at it. Rub it. Without even seeing the mess, I know my lower half is wet.
“It’s okay, sweet girl.”
I barely hear him. A whimper thrashing from inside me because I've lost them—again. Panicked, I touch the damp blanket around my waist, gasping for air through my rising pulse. I'm hollow. I feel hollow.
Where are they?
Where are my babies?
I can't do this again.
What is wrong with my body!
Clay is upon me, cupping my cheeks before I have time to lift the sheets and assess the bloody damage that will—
"Calm down, sweet girl.” His lips hover over mine. “Your water broke. The babies are fine."
"What?"
"You're in labour, little deer." He strokes my cheeks with his thumbs, gazing into my eyes dotingly. "Your water broke, Fawn. You’re fine.”
"They’re,"—I clutch at our unborn children, covered in my skin and heavy against my uterus—"They’re okay?"
Clay forces a smooth signature grin but is unable to mask his concerns.
They are rooted in the love he has for me and his babies.
Today is the day he loses control of the situation.
Not only loses it, nope, but relinquishes it to another.
To a doctor. And that is Clay Butcher's worst nightmare.
If he could deliver the baby himself, I swear he would.
His tone is a deep, gravelly timbre as he says, "They are perfect. Are you able to stand, or shall I carry you?"
My eyes sweep the room. It's strangely still and uncomfortably quiet, absent of the shambling of feet I had expected come L-Day.
It's time to leave, I suppose. To push. And meet our babies… I feel tears cling to the backs of my eyes. My throat clogs up with fear of the impending pain, fear I'll do something wrong—that my body will do something wrong…
And everyone will see.
A room full of strangers.
A hospital. Hating the idea of leaving the house yet, I consider stalling. If I stall, maybe they’ll just shoot out like a bar of soap from a tight fist. The doctor could give Clay a cricket mitt, so he can catch them as they fly from inside me. I've heard stories—
Shaking my head, I draw myself out of my delusions. I'm just not ready to be a number on a chart; I've been a number on a chart my entire life. In foster care… that is all you are.
I don't want that right now. "Are we going to the hospital soon? Or can we wait a bit?"
"Not exactly."
My breath catches. "What?"
"Can you stand, or shall I carry you?" he repeats, dipping to kiss my nose, followed by my lips. It’s soft. I have a different Clay Butcher today. Leaning back, he pins me with a honed focus. "I'd very much like to carry you."
The weight of our babies seems to push harder on my pelvis, so I nod. "But I'm wet. I don't want—"
My words are cut off when he threads his arm under my legs and braces my back and neck with his other. Lifting me with ease, he walks through the empty house.
Each corridor is bathed in a soft orange hue. The sound of Clay's confident rap along the floor is even and loud in the absence of other noise.
Where is everyone?
Henchman Jeeves.
Jasmine.
When I pictured L-Day, it was a calamity.
The mansion hectic with activity, orders and formalities soaring through the corridors.
Royals are born! Alert the corgis. Ring the bells.
A soldier at every exit. Fireworks. A helicopter.
All the X-Men— I'm not sure what they are doing; maybe protecting me or carrying me, which seems a little strange—
My wild thoughts end when a mild pain rolls along my pelvis. I bury my face in Clay's chest, the beating of his heart against my ear is like a drum counting down with his footsteps. While outwardly he's… Clay. Sir. My rock of smooth, delicious control.
We approach the double French doors, and they open before us, so I lift my head to see two women, one whom I recognise as Justine—the midwife who I met before Clay chose an obstetrician.
But the doctor isn’t here…
Not that I can see.
Just two nurses.
On the alfresco, near the spot I first sat and looked out over the gardens, they prepare towels and equipment beside a small ceramic wading pool.
My breath hitches.
He… didn’t.
He said no.
The tears still hanging to the back of my eyes force their way out, rushing my face.
God, what is this?
The entire alfresco is glowing beneath the moon. A cloudless sky gifts us a black dome shimmering in stars.
"It goes against everything I am to take unnecessary risks," he states, lowering me to the ground and holding me until I'm steady on my feet, the pressure inside me dropping even lower.
"And to risk you, to risk them, the premise was damn unacceptable.
The decision was a simple one." He releases a rough sigh, and I arch my neck to better gaze into his glistening blue eyes.
Like the stars. Like my everything. "But you used your voice, sweet girl.
" He smiles softly. "You told me what you wanted, and I refused you.
It has pained me for some time. When I saw your water had broken, I started organising the night meticulously.
I called the doctor. The hospital. Organised our driver.
"It was all very practical. I felt myself separating from the moment. Then you shuffled and caught my eye. In that second, my chest, little deer, it hurt so immensely to see you. Not from sadness, of course. And I found myself staring at you still sleeping, unaware. Peaceful. Your dreamcatcher hanging above your head." His voice tightens, his throat rolling over a lump. He’s emotional. He’s showing me…
he’s letting me see him. God, it’s perfect.
"Not everything is practical,” he states.
“Love, quite frankly, is exceedingly impractical.
" He smiles smoothly, a real one, one that makes him look half his age.
"But every damn thing that people say about being in love is true.
It is the only reason we are here." He strokes my face.
"You are the only reason I am here. I was wrong to deny you this, little deer. "
Tears burst from me under his attentive gaze. "We're having a home birth, Sir?"
"Under the moon, sweet girl."
"But," I fumble for the words, thrown a little due to his adamance before that 'safety comes first, little deer. Share your magic with them later.’
He goes on, "I may not believe in all the things you do, but I believe in you. And you're going to prove to me that magic exists when you show me what you made for me."
More tears wet my face, so I tease him, "And you have a convoy of cars ready, don't you, Sir? And a doctor on standby? The X-Men, too?"
He actually laughs, deep and real and rumbles with the choke of his emotions. It is everything. His deep tone, the moment, the way his eyes are filling further with the glisten of tears. It's everything a girl like me dreams about and everything a girl like me deserves.
"I'm prepared," he states emphatically, amusement still circling his tone. "Let us leave it at that."
The birth begins with me wading and moving in the small paddling pool, breathing through the long, dull throbs.
The night has given us utter peace. A perfect stage. No machines beeping. No strangers hovering. A silent moment at our house, with Clay and I under the moonlight.
The overhead fairy lights reflect in the water, creating the illusion of my body moving through the stars. It’s so pretty. So magical.
Clay sits beside me, watching with his hands clasped below his chin. If he could take the pain away, I know he would. He’d trade it. Burden someone else, anyone else, but it’s not so bad, really. It’s sweet agony, in a way.
Primal.
When the surges begin to consume me, I lay my forehead and arms over the edge of the pool so Clay’s fingers can stroke through my hair. A fan of blonde floats around me.
“That’s my sweet girl,” Clay coos, his voice strained, hiding concern. “You’re so brave. You’re so strong.”
I bury my sweaty face in my arms. Tensing, my body contracts—God.
Breathe…
I inhale and exhale through the pain.
“You remember, Fawn,” Justine says as she steps into the pool to check how dilated I am. I spread my legs for her. “Focus on your toes. When you feel the contractions, think, ‘What are my toes doing?’ Touch them to the bottom of the pool. You’re safe. Grounded.”
I nod, exhaustion already clinging to my muscles.
She smiles. “It’s time to help them. When you next feel one, I want you to push.”
Clay steps into the water in his jeans, and I shuffle around until I am leaning against his firm bare chest. Feeling his steady breaths, I sigh into him.
Better than the ground.
I lock my jaw as a spasm twists along my lower half.
Groaning, I push as hard as I can, but I don’t focus on the ground or my toes.
Don’t focus on the moon or my breath. I concentrate on Clay Butcher’s heart beating through my spine.
The strongest, most powerful tempo in the world.
The beat that holds me. That keeps me safe. That helps me push.
The pain is immense, everywhere and isolated at the same time. I push through it all.
My body loosens as baby number one leaves me; relief mixed with dread suddenly trails my groans to whimpers. Fatigued but feverish, I open my arms, waving them, needing her or him straight away. The baby’s crying is lovely, high-pitched, delicate and ours.
Our baby.
I want…
The tiny human is pink and bloody and has so much damn hair. Dark hair, like Daddy. The baby is placed in my arms, against my chest, pulling the cord up from between my legs; we are still joined there.
Clay’s hands circle me to cover mine… His hands on mine. Mine on our baby. On our boy.
Him…
A boy…
Luca.
“Time to push again,” Justine says, but I’m not ready. I want to stare longer, map every little wrinkle, each strand of hair. Luca and I need time. She must read my expression, as she insists. “I can feel another little head.”
The nursing assistant gently takes Luca from me, and I bear down on my teeth and push again. Tears spit from my eyes, but not really from the pain, from something entirely ineffable. A feeling so great and consuming and scary, it’s simply ineffable.
I anchor myself on Clay.
He is my ground.
I cry as I push and push, though I want to slow down, but baby number two is being pulled from me, the feel of his legs leaving my body strange and… and…
It’s over.
Now, Luca is placed with care on my left side and another… boy… on my right, tucked against my breasts, and they are both perfectly shaped little boys—little Butcher brothers with pouty lips and full heads of dark hair.
Two hands.
Five fingers each.
Moments pass as I catch my breath. Justine checks me over; my heart rate; my blood pressure are all fine.
Two feet.
Five toes each.
Thankfully, Justine moves ahead of time and the earth slows its spinning for me.
Two open eyes.
One button-shaped nose.
When I turn to lay sideways with my legs making a pyramid over Clay’s thigh and my back held by his arm, it’s just the four of us in the slow-motion world.
Under the moonlight, it’s so still now. Everything else melts away.
Clay’s blue gaze drops to take in his keening little boys, and perhaps for the first time since I met him, he has nothing to say.
No praises. Or encouragement. No words of wisdom.
The sweet sight of his sons has rendered him speechless.
“They did so good, Sir,” I say softly, while both boys quieten down, nuzzling into my sides. Barely feeling the aches through the endorphins and euphoria, I turn to face Clay so I can properly present him with his sons.
He accepts both boys, holding their heads in his palms, with their backs cradled along his tattooed forearms.
And just like that, he’s a dad.
Not the Don of the Cosa Nostra. Not my Sir or the mayor or the most powerful man in the city, but something far more important and infinitely simpler.
Just a man.
A man holding his twin boys for the first time. A man with tears rushing over his chiselled jaw. With a smile—a genuine smile—the kind that lights up every inch of his face, that glows along each line. The kind that only comes around once in a while from a man like Clay Butcher.
“Madonna mia,” he finally says, his voice overcome as his gaze sweeps over his perfect little heirs. “Look what your magic made for me, little deer.”