24. Ruadan
Ruadan
As far as what I remembered of the experience?
In the moment, it had felt like a lifetime of pain and horror, where I was forced to relive my worst memories.
After I woke up, though, everything got kind of blurry, hard to grasp on to.
It was almost like a nightmare that had plagued me all night, leaving behind vague flashes of images that would pop up randomly when I was in the middle of some everyday task.
Like while I was making Uly a sandwich. One minute I was spreading peanut butter, the next I was suddenly besieged by a slash of remembered pain, a warped memory of being stabbed by the blacksmith over and over, my mother’s keening over the loss of her son still ringing in my ears.
Or there I was painting the nursery that very specific color of green that Uly had insisted was perfect, and the next moment, I had dropped the paint roller, splattering green paint across the floor.
“Uly!” I had cried out, in very real anguish.
He’d come waddling in as quickly as he could, his belly swaying ahead of him, scanning me frantically for injury.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” The mere sight of him had stolen the breath from my lungs.
He’d taken my face between his warm palms, but it wasn’t until he was wiping tears from my cheeks that I even realized I was crying.
“You… You were gone,” I gasped.
“I’m right here,” he’d promised me. “I’ll always be right here.” He never made me feel bad about my relapses. He simply held me steady, his unwavering love reminding me that any price was worth paying when it came to protecting my family.
Today, though, my trauma was nowhere to be found. Today was about us. I refused to take life for granted—especially when our life together as a family was just getting started.
“Fuuuuuuuuck!” Uly groaned, his voice pitched low and guttural as he bore down, working hard to push out our baby.
I shifted my hands to be like cold gel packs, rubbing his lower back in circles to help ease the pain.
Eventually, the contraction ebbed, leaving him gasping for breath.
“Next time, it’s your turn. You can carry the baby for nine months. You can push them out.”
I chuckled. “I don’t think that’s how it works.”
“Like hell,” he cussed, leaning back against my chest. “You’re a shapeshifter, you told me you can shift into anything. So make yourself an omega.”
I blinked a few times as I thought it over.
That was an interesting theory. “Huh. I’ve never considered that one before.
Although, unless you’re suddenly able to shift into an alpha to impregnate me, then—” That thought was interrupted by Uly crushing my hand as he was hit by another contraction.
I helped him sit forward, bracing as he pushed.
“Hooooooooly shiiiiiiit,” he moaned in the back of his throat. “You and your big stupid genes, this is all your fault.”
“Yes, love, this is all my fault, and I will spend the rest of our lives making it up to you,” I agreed, because what else could I say right now? My beautiful, brave, powerful mate was bringing our child into this world. He could have whatever he wanted, now and forever.
A knobby head popped up from between his splayed knees, the jaundiced lower-level demon offering what I imagined was supposed to be an encouraging smile but actually looked more like a Halloween mask designed to scare children. “One more push,” Zeek said.
I still didn’t quite understand Uly’s decision to have Zeek as our midwife, but apparently, besides running his own very successful baby food brand, he had a fair amount of experience with midwifery.
He would be delivering Cameron and Deimos’s baby next, I was sure.
Cam was due next month. And in the end, Uly trusted him, and that was all that mattered to me.
“Did you hear that, love? Just one more push,” I repeated.
Uly’s head turned nearly 180 degrees as he glared at me, eyes burning, like a scene out of The Exorcist. “Of course I heard him, I’m not fucking deaf!
” His anger immediately dissolved into tears.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know why I said that.
I didn’t mean it. I love you.” Of course, five seconds later, as another contraction hit, he was screaming how much he blamed me again.
It was fine, I could take a little verbal abuse in the name of love.
And true to what Zeek had said, one push was all it took.
With a mighty roar and a rush of fluid, our daughter was born.
“It is a girl,” Zeek declared, offering us a macabre grin of sharp yellow teeth.
He offered me scissors to cut the cord and then cleaned off our daughter and laid her on Uly’s chest.
“Aurora,” Uly whispered, tracing the tip of his finger over her delicate features, before looking up to meet my gaze in question.
I nodded, tears swimming in my eyes. “It’s perfect, just like you,” I told him, pushing back his sweat-damp hair to press a kiss to his forehead. “I am so proud of you. See? You are capable of more than mere party tricks.”
He chuckled sleepily. “So I am.”
Danu’s presence was warm inside my chest as I gazed down at my little family, and I knew she was proud. Just as my service to the gods had balanced my rebirth as a god, I felt like I had earned her blessing for peace at last.