Epilogue
EPILOGUE
CHAR
J osh’s due date came and went without the slightest indication of labor.
His water didn’t break, and there were no contractions.
I was beginning to get worried.
The obstetrician, Dr.
Melville, a middle-aged man with a jovial laugh and twinkling blue eyes, who reminded me of Santa sans the white beard, tried to be reassuring.
“With first pregnancies, especially with shifters, the due date is really just a best guesstimate. Three months is normal for a leopard, but nine months is normal for a human. We might just need to cut it in the middle and call it a day.”
“Another three months?” Josh cried out and then moaned.
He rubbed his extended abdomen.
“I can’t take another three days of this, let alone three more months!”
“Said every pregnant parent-to-be ever,” Dr.
Melville said, and chuckled.
“You’ll survive, but you’re going to need help.” He gave me a pointed look.
“I am at his disposal twenty-four seven,” I said.
“I can pull in one of my brothers to take over for me at the company.”
“Oh, hell no!” Josh cried.
“They’ll try to take over and screw everything up, then you’ll have to work double shifts to set everything right again. Not a chance, buster. I need you, but I can handle things until the babies come.”
“Speaking of babies,” Dr.
Melville cut in, “I have the results of the ultrasound and genetic testing. Would you like to know the sexes of the babies?”
“Yes!” Josh cried, while at the same time, I said, “No!”
“Well, looks like you’ll need to have a meeting of the minds. How about I give you a few minutes to hash it out? I’ll step out, see another patient, and give you a few minutes to talk it out.” Dr.
Melville smiled at them and then slipped out of the room.
As soon as the door closed, Josh started in on me.
“I want to know! I need to plan, and we need to choose names, and, and…”
“And you’re the one who’s carrying them,” I said.
I smiled and leaned in for a kiss.
“I’m not going to fight you on this, love. If you want to know, then we know. As soon as Dr. Melville comes back, we’ll find out. Now, tell me, have you thought of any names?”
Josh nodded.
“If we have a boy, I want to name him Char Coryi, Jr.”
“Oh, no! I hate my name!”
“Why? It’s a great name!”
“It’s too close to charbroiled. Charcoal. And it’s short for…Charlemagne.”
“Charlemagne?” Josh laughed so hard he had to hold his stomach.
“I didn’t know that!”
“Well, it’s true. So…maybe Neil?”
“Why Neil?”
“After Armstrong. Because you’re my moon, and these babies will be my stars.”
Josh sucked in a breath.
“Oh, that’s so beautiful! Corny, but beautiful. I love you, Charlemagne Coryi.”
“Never let that name be uttered by those beautiful lips again,” I chided.
“I’m just Char. And are we agreed? The first boy, if we have one, will be Neil.”
“Agreed. What if we have all girls?”
“Then we’re going to need a butt ton of help when they start puberty, because I know next to nothing about girls’ needs.”
Josh laughed.
“I think we have some years to worry about that yet. How about Abigail? I always liked that name.”
“I always like Rose. Abigail Rose?”
“That’s lovely. Abigail Rose it is.”
There was a knock at the door, and Dr.
Melville slipped inside the room again.
“Well, have we come up with an answer for me?”
“Yes! We’d like to know, please.”
“Okay. The first is a bit of a surprise. We knew there were two babies, but surprise! One was hiding behind the siblings.”
“Three! How will I feed three? I only have two arms!” Josh cried.
“You have my two as well. That makes four — an arm for each baby, plus an extra,” I said, and laughed.
“Triplets! That’s so freaking awesome!”
“Actually, two are identical twins, the other is a single,” Dr.
Melville said.
I grinned.
“For the million-dollar question, doctor… What are they?”
“Two leopards and one panther shifter, from the looks of things on the ultrasound,” Dr.
Melville said.
“And the sex of the babies?” Josh asked.
Dr.
Melville grinned.
“The leopards are a boy and a girl. The panther is a boy.”
“That’s so freaking awesome!” I exclaimed.
“Two princes and a princess!”
“Neil is the first boy, and Abigail Rose is the girl’s name, but what about the third baby boy?”
“How about Josh?” I asked.
I lifted Josh’s hand and placed a gentle kiss on his knuckles.
“Really? You think? Maybe Joshua?”
“Joshua, it is. Neil, Abigail Rose, and Joshua.” I rubbed Josh’s belly.
“Daddy can’t wait to meet you.”
“Neither can Papa,” Josh added.
“And Papa needs to meet you soon, because you’re keeping him up all night with all your gymnastics in there.”
“Any questions on the birth?” Dr.
Melville asked.
“I know I’ll give birth in leopard form and the babies will be born in their cat forms, right?”
“Yes. Then you’ll shift as soon as you pass the placenta, because the babies will shift into human form shortly thereafter. They’ll remain in human form until puberty, when they’ll begin to shift into their cat forms at will.”
“Those will be the fun years,” I said in a droll voice.
“There are puberty specialists who can help you when that time comes.” Dr.
Melville shook their hands.
“Congratulations, Daddy and Papa. I’m going out on a limb and saying your due date can really be any time between now and three months from now. With shifters, there’s very little way of knowing. But the pups are big enough to be born safely now, so it really could be any time. Keep an eye out for when your water breaks, if it does, and if you have contractions one every five minutes for an hour straight. Then come to the hospital.”
“Gotcha, Doctor. And thank you!” Josh said.
I shook the doctor’s hand again.
“And thanks for all the attention you’ve given Josh.”
“Nonsense. All my patients are important, but I find the shifters to be a little more special.” He gave them another smile and left the room.
It happened, as things so often do, in the middle of the night.
One minute, I was sound asleep, dreaming of a thick, rare porterhouse — I had skipped dinner that night, being too tired to eat, and now was dreaming of my favorite meal — when I was rudely shaken awake by Josh.
Shaken being a generous term.
Beaten with a hammer would be closer to the truth.
“Char! Char, get up! It’s time.”
“Time for what?”
“Time for the babies to come, why else would I be waking you up in the middle of the night?” Josh’s voice was edged with fear.
I forced myself awake.
“It’s okay, baby. I’ve got the go-bag all ready. Let me throw some clothes on and we’ll be on our way.”
“My water broke. The bed is soaked.”
“That’s the least of what you should be thinking about right now. Just concentrate on breathing, and let me get dressed.” I jumped out of bed and quickly threw on a pair of jeans, a t-shirt that may or may not have been clean, and slipped my feet into my sneakers without bothering to put on socks.
“Are you ready, love?”
“Argh.” Josh moaned.
“Oh, my god, here comes another one! Argh!”
“Breathe, love, breathe,” I said, trying to sound a lot more reassuring than I felt.
Glancing at my phone, I noted the time.
Less than five minutes later, just as he was escorting Josh into the SUV, another one hit.
Oh, that was too close.
Wasn’t it?
I tried to remember what the doctor had said.
Five minutes apart for one hour.
Had it been an hour since Josh first started feeling the contractions?
I had no idea.
I started to feel a bit panicked myself and tried to remain calm for Josh’s sake.
It was a battle I feared I was losing.
As soon as Josh was buckled in, I jumped in the driver’s seat, belted myself in, and revved the engine.
“Here we go. Just breathe.”
Josh huffed and blew out the air in a long, slow breath.
Then cried out when another one hit.
That hadn’t been five minutes since the last one!
Oh, gods…
Were the babies not going to wait until they reached the hospital?
I drove like a maniac and got them to the hospital in record time.
By then, the contractions were coming almost nonstop.
“I need to shift!” Josh cried out.
“Wait, love. Wait until we get inside. Breathe through it. Look, there’s a wheelchair for you.”
“No, I need to shift now !”
“Breathe, love! Breathe!” I jumped out of the SUV, and ran around to the passenger side, screaming for help all the way.
A nurse appeared at the car door almost as if by magic.
“You are going to wake the entire neighborhood!” she chided.
“You’d think no one ever had a baby before.”
“We haven’t had a baby before, so you’re half right,” I growled.
“Help him!”
“It’ll be alright. Is this your first, honey?” she asked Josh.
“My first three ,” Josh wheezed in between contractions.
“Oh, my! Well, let’s get you inside, shall we?” She helped Josh into the wheelchair, then turned to me.
“Go park the car and meet us on the third floor of the maternity wing. We’ll get him settled in a labor room and call the doctor. You can fill out the necessary paperwork up there.”
I was torn between doing as the nurse instructed and sticking to Josh’s side like proverbial glue.
In the end, I did as the nurse bade me and went to park the car.
Then I ran all the way back to the hospital emergency entrance and raced up three flights of stairs to the maternity wing without bothering to wait for the elevator.
I was a bit out of breath by the time I found Josh, just having been stripped down, and getting settled into bed.
“Here. I’m. Here,” I huffed.
“Just in time! The doctor will be in momentarily,” the nurse said.
“He’s in transition. Should be shifting at any moment.”
“Shouldn’t he wait for the doctor?” I felt panicky.
“Babies wait for nobody,” the nurse said.
She smiled.
“Don’t worry. The doctor is coming.”
Just then, Dr.
Melville came in.
“Okay, Josh. Let’s see how far along you are.”
He examined Josh and then straightened up.
“You can shift whenever you feel comfortable doing so,” he told Josh.
“The babies are in position and ready to come greet the world.”
Josh heaved a great sigh of relief and shifted into his leopard.
I thought Josh was beautiful in both forms — human and leopard.
His leopard was golden with stark black-and-brown splotches dotting his sleek hide.
His eyes were grass green, reflecting the excitement, hope, and pain he was probably feeling.
A low growl grew into a snarl as another pain hit.
Then suddenly, the first cub was born in a flurry of activity.
The boy panther, Joshua, was healthy, with a sleek, inky black coat.
He mewled with the injustice of losing his place inside his father’s warm body.
Little Abigail Rose was born next, a chubby little bundle of fuzzy gold, with just the slightest hint of the markings which would become more pronounced as she grew older.
Her younger brother, and twin, Neil, came next and last.
He was identical to Abigail with the exception of his gender.
They’d expected him to be born first, but as with all babies, they had a mind of their own.
All three babies were healthy and beautiful, and I wept at the sight of them.
And the funny thing was, for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why I had ever thought that hiring Josh was a colossal mistake.
It had been the best decision I’d ever made.
I climbed onto the bed with Josh, curled around my new family protectively, knowing nothing would ever be as sweet and perfect as that moment in time, and soon all five of us were asleep.
When I dreamed, it was of a bright and shining future with my beautiful leopard omega and my three glorious children.