Chapter 69
“True love stories never have endings.” – Richard Bach
Aiden's POV
The morning of Rose’s induction, I combed back her hair once she’d gotten out of the shower. I twirled a drying strand of curls around my finger listlessly.
“Do you remember how we always said we wanted a lot of kids?” Rose asked fondly, cheerily, looking at my reflection in the mirror. I looked back at her and swallowed. That had been a time when I wasn’t worried that my mate’s life was in danger because she was carrying our child.
The room was oddly silent in the face of Rose’s poignant smile.
“Bite me?” Rose asked into the desolate quietness. “It’ll make me feel better.”
“I don’t think I physically can,” I spoke in a suffocating voice. “I’m so worried about what’s going to happen today…to you.” My voice broke on the last word.
Rose turned to look at me defiantly.
“Everything is going to be alright, Aiden. We’re going to go and have a baby and then we’re going to bring little Elena home.”
“Elena?” I repeated the name.
It sounded…nice. I’d been so caught up in my worry for Rose, I’d stopped discussing possible names with her. But it seemed that Rose had found one, a really nice one.
Rose nodded happily up at me, her eyes shining brightly.
"It means light. She's our light in the darkness," Rose explained.
My heart constricted and I let my fingers skim across her jaw before lifting her face slightly as Ibent down to kiss her.
It wasn’t at all done with the intention to arouse.
It was done to seek comfort; to give solace to one another.
Because both of us were so afraid of what the future held for us.
We’d been through so much together. Would the universe throw us another heartbreak?
Or was this just another bump in the road in the journey of our life together?
That's what was so bittersweet about all of this.
Neither of us knew. And it made us savor each moment even more.
“Bite me. Please.” Rose pulled away and begged against my lips, her breath hot against my face.
Despite the fact that it took a considerable amount of effort on my part, I was able to summon the change from my wolf. Because this was what Rose wanted. And if it gave her the comfort she needed, I’d do it.
My canines elongated and I swiped my tongue over her permanent bite marks.
Rose gasped in delight when my tongue tickled her neck.
A thin reedy voice in the back of my mind said this might be the last time I was going to bite her.But I pushed it aside determinedly, enjoying the moment with my mate.
My canines broke skin, sucking at the small drop of blood that seeped out of her newly opened wound, Ilet my saliva and wolf venom seep into her neck so that she smelled like me.
After I was done, Rose kept her eyes closed and held her head there for a good while.
She was thanking me and telling me she loved me more than anything else in this entire world, except for Elena of course.
I grinned into her neck at that comment, pulling back when Rose let her hand drop from behind my head.
She kissed me on the lips which had traces of her own blood.Rose drew back with a wrinkled nose.
“That’s kind of gross,” she stated. “I didn’t know you taste my blood when you bite me.”
“I don’t mind and it’s only if I’m a little sloppy when I do it.” I said with a twitch of my lips before I kissed her fresh bite mark briefly. “Come on, Princess. Let’s do this.”
For some reason, Ifelt oddly better. More confident that everything would be OK. At that moment, I realized it was Rose. She was pumping her own optimism into me.
It wasn’t until we reached the clinic that Rose finally began to feel nervous.
She told me that she wasn’t nervous about dying.
She was pretty sure her werewolf abilities would kick in.
Dr. Danvers was just being cautious like any doctor would.
But what was really setting her on edge was the impending experience of delivery.
She asked me many times what if she couldn’t do it?
She spoke out about her fear on how muchlabor pain could hurt and how epidural injections didn’t work on werewolves.
C-sections were equally as painful, if not worse!
I was so glad I followed Tony’s advice to be there for my mate.
“You’ll do great.” The words sounded confident, the exact opposite of what I felt.
Tony had been right. Rose was going to need me the most right now. I had to give her confidence when hers wavered.
Rose held onto my hand as they set up the drip to induce her.
They were going to try for a vaginal delivery via induction.
If it failed, they’d operate. A few hours later Rose told me she felt like she was going to pass out and I was sure my hand was broken in several different places from the way Rose clutched it with every contraction.
But what was my hand in comparison to her?
“Rose, come on,” the nurse coaxed. “You can do it. You’re doing so well.”
“I don’t think I can do this anymore,” Rose stated weakly. “I have been up all night…couldn’t sleep.” Her voice was breathless from pain. “I’m so tired now! AHHHHHHH!” She screamed when another contraction hit.
I grit my teeth as she squeezed down on my hand.
When the contraction passed, she murmured faintly, “I want to sleep.”
“You can sleep soon,” soothed the nurse.
Rose screamed again. I heard a few cracks in my hand. For a girl whose werewolf was repressed, she had a lot of strength in her.
“They're getting longer and closer together.” The nurse looked around gleefully. She shot a look up at me. “She’s doing wonderful! No complications so far! We’re almost ready!”
The nurse mind-linked Dr. Danvers who strode in about ten minutes later.
“This is great! Rose, no excessive bleeding during labor, it means your body just may have healed itself.”
I noticed the way her eyes flitted to me momentarily before another contraction hit her and she screamed. This one was much longer.
“We’re not out of the danger zone yet. Let’s hope it’s all smooth sailing after delivery too.” Dr. Danvers words held a tone of wary optimism. The elderly doctor looked up at me expectantly. “Would you like to catch the baby?”
Just as I was tempted to step forward, Rose suddenly gripped my hand tighter and another scream tore through her. I felt my fingers fracture. This super-human strength was definitely her wolf.
“I think I’ll stay where I am,” Ireplied quickly, hoarsely, while trying to ride the pain of my hand breaking.
I could sense that Rose needed me here, by her side, because she probably needed to keep murdering my hand. To be fair, the pain she was probably feeling was a thousand times worse.
“OK, Rose...” Dr. Danvers began, “when the next contraction comes in, I need you to push as hard as you can. If we do this right, she’ll be out soon.”
“I’m tired,” Rose murmured weakly.
No sooner had the words left her mouth than another contraction hit, and she bore down, gripping my hand as hard as she could. I smoothed back her hair.
“You’re doing great. I love you so much.”
“This pain is blacking out my vision.” Rose grunted.
Then she screamed again and pushed harder. “I have decided that if it doesn't work, I am going to call it quits and just go home. The baby can tunnel herself out because I am just done. Babies never stay stuck in the birth canal forever, right?” Rose panted, between contractions.
“Come on, Rose…push!” Dr. Danver cajoled.
She screamed, pushing and squeezing my hand with all her might as her contraction hit. I felt like my hand was being squeezed into mush.
And then the pain in my hand subsided as Rose’s grip grew weak.
The delivery room erupted in the loud cries of an infant.
An infant that was immediately whisked away as Dr. Danvers tried to handle the expulsion of placenta post-delivery.
I knew he had to make sure there was none still attached inside her uterus.
“Elena!” Rose cried weakly. She looked at me. “Go see her. She’s alone!”
I didn’t want to go and leave her alone. I was still afraid, what if something happened to her while I was gone?
“It’s necessary, Rose, to take her out of the room. We need to make sure your situation is under control first. This might hurt…”
Rose let out a cry of pain and then shouted, “I feel like something is scraping away at my insides.”
“…seems to have regressed…not as bad as before...” Dr. Danvers ignored Rose's words and grunted as he continued with his procedure.
“What are you doing?” I bit out as I watched Rose scream out in pain again. “You’re hurting her!”
“It’s necessary. We need to get all the placenta out. And I need to make sure she didn’t end up with tears inside her uterus,” Dr. Danvers patiently explained to me. “Alpha, she’ll be fine. She’s already healing,” Dr. Danvers assured.
“Go see our baby!” Rose pleaded, and I knew she was more concerned for the tiny life we’d created. “My baby is alone with strangers,” she ended in a weak voice.
I left, sensing that this was important to Rose. In my opinion, we were probably all strangers considering Elena had only been in this world for not even an hour. But I wasn’t about to argue with the woman that just went through hell and back to bring my child into the world.
When I ended up in the vicinity of the nursery, a nurse guided me over to the glass window. There were about five other babies in small cots. Even before the nurse pointed my daughter out, my eyes zoned in on the head of black curly hair and a pudgy fist that kept sucking her hand and crying.
“She’s the biggest one here,” I couldn’t help but say it a little proudly.
“She’s a little chunky baby,” the nurse agreed with a laugh. “Hungry too. The lactation consultant just went to pump milk with Luna Rose right now, so she’ll get something in her tummy pretty soon.”
As if on cue, little Elena wailed louder.
“Got a strong set of alpha lungs, too,” the nurse commented as I heard my daughter cry through the glass.
She was so cute with plump red cheeks that made her eyes look smaller than they actually were. Her tiny little forehead was creased with lines as her cries reached a mighty crescendo. Finally, another nurse appeared in the nursery holding a syringe, without the needle, full of milk for Elena.
“We don’t do bottles because we like to encourage breastfeeding,” the nurse explained to me. “Once they take the bottle, it increases the chance of nipple refusal. Of course, fed is best and we might have to switch to formula…”
I was barely listening to the nurse drone on. I kept my eyes trained on Elena. My daughter. Our daughter. A beautiful product of the love I and Rose shared. Tears stung my eyes. I almost lost this. In another reality, one where I let my ego get in the way, Imight have never had this.
“Would you like to try feeding her?”
The question threw me for a loop, and I said the first thing that came to mind.
“What if I drop her?”
That got me a resounding tittering of laughter from everyone nearby.
Suddenly,I was being pulled towards a room beside the nursery, packed into personal protective gear to maintain sanitation.
Elena was gently placed into my gloved hands.
I breathed out in complete wonder. This was my daughter.
The fierce protectivenessI’d always felt for Rose began to blossom and unfurl.
It had suddenly increased ten-fold to encompass Elena in its tight hold. This was my family.
The infant peeped an eye open as I tried to get her to drink some milk.
As I stared at her green eyes that were almost identical to her mother's, I realized Rose had been right. The word “everything” resounded across my brain. Every single thing that had happened had led up to this moment. This wonderful life I and Rose created together. I could never bring myself to change anything. Because if Idid, there was a chance we wouldn’t have this adorable baby.
This amazingly smart daughter, who was clever enough to latch onto the bottom of the syringe and start taking in her mother’s pumped milk in small gulps.
Maybe I was just biased, but I’d be willing to fight with anyone over the fact that my daughter was undoubtedly a whiz kid. Cute too. And strong, like her dad.
It wasn’t until a few hours later that Rose was finally given little Elena to hold.
She had the cutest tuft of curly black hair and the deepest greeneyes anyone had ever seen.
The baby wolf already had me wrapped around her little finger.
I was in complete awe of the tiny life we had created together.
Rose was looking at her like she had fallen in love all over again.
But this was a totally different type of love.
It was the unconditional and purest love a mother had for her child.
Dr. Danvers made Rose shift into her wolf form and then shift back into her human form. As if delivery hadn’t been tough enough. She’d had to go through shifting after so long as well. But the doctor was adamant that it was necessary to make sure her wolf’s regenerative abilities were back.
“That's why you asked me to bite you, isn’t it?” I queried once we sat together that night in the hospital room while Rose nursed our baby. “You knew it would help reverse the effects of your condition.”
“I had a feeling,” Rose said hastily. Her eyes flicked down to Elena who moved back from her mother’s breast.
Rose lifted the baby against her shoulder to burp her.She was learning how to breastfeed and it was proving to be a difficult experience.One where Rose had almost quit multiple times but the lactation consultant along with Mom, who’d stopped by earlier to gush over her grandchild, had been fiercely adamant that Rose keep trying.
“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to get your hopes up for nothing.
” Rose looked at me apologetically. “Lately, I always felt re-energized after your bites. But after a while, the effect wore off. I thought maybe it was your bite that gave me that little pick me up. I hypothesized that maybe it could help with my condition? Of course, it had to be done right before delivery, when the effects were the strongest. If you did it the night before, I was afraid it would wear off and I’d be back at square one again.
I stayed up all night, going over my theory, trying to look for anything that could go wrong with it.
” Rose shrugged, giving me a half-smile. “I’m glad I was right.”
“You’re a fucking genius,” I said with admiration tinging my words. “You only need one piece of the puzzle to be able to fit it all together.”
Rose glowed from the pride evident in my voice. Elena let out a small burp as if to agree with her father.We laughed. Relieved and glad that we had made it out of the woods again.