Epilogue #2
I am due any day. My belly is huge and I can feel our baby inside me, kicking and nudging; this baby is active and full of life.
All in all, after a brief and early bout of morning sickness, I’ve had an easy, uneventful pregnancy.
Kade and Clementine make sure I have only the most wholesome foods to eat, and my husband has, of late, forbidden me to work.
I obey him without too much complaint; I feel wondrously alive, but I silently admit that the child does absorb much of my energy, and I am content to please my husband by taking care to relax and allow the baby to thrive and grow.
My complexion is glowing and my hair is thick and glossy.
My body feels healthily rounded and feminine.
My husband finds my fertility something akin to a miracle.
He is fascinated by the way I look, the way I feel and, it must be said, the way I taste.
He cannot get enough of me, he says, and I believe him.
He proves it to be so, and I have never felt the inclination to deny him whatever he wants of me.
I wake to his touch. He’s nibbling on the lobe of my ear, playing with my fingers, whispering sweet words. “I love my wife,” he’s murmuring. “You’re so warm, so sweet.”
His mouth is kissing a line down my neck across my breast, and his hands are on my body.
My eyes are still closed and I make a small sound of protest when he draws away.
There’s a stillness to him that gets my attention, and I open my eyes to the glittering brilliance of his blue contemplation.
He’s aghast at something, and I glance down to see what has given him pause.
My breasts are leaking. Milk spills from me in glistening droplets.
I’m shocked by this—although I shouldn’t be, of course.
The sight of the pale liquid seems so simultaneously lusty and life-giving, I am filled with heavy awe.
Kade, holding my gaze with his own, leans over me.
Instead of covering me or wiping me clean from an awkward distance, as I might have expected him to, he seems mesmerized.
He teases me with his tongue, circling, licking the moisture, fastening his lips around the taut bud.
I feel mortified by this, and I gasp aloud and try to push him away.
“Kade, you mustn’t.”
“Aye, wife. I must,” he murmurs against my breast. He seems overcome.
“I love you,” he says. “I love everything about you. Everything, everything. You. Your face. Your hair. I love you. Your body. Your breasts. And this, most of all.” He’s holding me down with his hands, suckling me, pulling tenderly with his mouth.
The sensation is indescribable. Needy and demanding.
Potent and sublime. But then, without warning, a low pulse of pain blooms deep within my body, swelling uncontrollably.
I cry out, my entire body clenching with this deep-rooted burn.
I push at him. I sit up, moving to the side of the bed, and my husband stays with me, helping me stand.
I don’t know why, but I feel a restless need to stand, to walk, to get away from this discomfort.
But as soon as I do, there’s a momentous fluid shift inside me, and a torrent of liquid streams down my legs, wetting the stone floor. We both stare at it for a moment.
“’Tis time,” I say, surprised at the calmness in my own voice. “The baby is coming.”
Kade, for all his bravado, is frozen, his eyes affixed on the growing puddle on the floor. His face registers fear—it’s an expression that rarely surfaces in him and looks strange and unnerving, wrong somehow. It clashes with him, but there it is.
And he is still frozen. He stands like that for a minute or more. I, meanwhile, am coming to terms with my own situation. I’m holding my swollen stomach and drawing in long lungfuls of air, exhaling, and again. Another deep-aching wave comes over me.
“Kade,” I cry, and he instantly comes to life. He seems torn, hesitant to let go of me. But then he disengages, running for the door.
“I’ll summon the healers.”
“Wait,” I say. “Kade.”
“What, lass?”
I smile at him, despite the deep, lingering pain. “You’re not clothed, husband.”
He looks down at himself. Then he grabs his kilt and wraps it around his waist, not bothering with the sash or a shirt. Nor his weapons. It is the first time I have ever seen him willingly go anywhere without them. “I’ll not be long, Stella. All right?”
I nod at him. Kade’s eyes are full of worry, and he bolts from the room.
I wrap a sheet around myself, and I half sit on the bed, waiting for the next contraction. Already, the waves seem close together.
And one does come, an unfathomably agonizing ache that rolls through my body with a force that stuns me.
I can’t suppress the moan, but I don’t fight the pain.
Behind it, there is life and promise. An instinctual impulse tells me to go with it, to ride the wave, that fighting against it will only prolong it and endanger my baby. And me.
My awareness shifts, as though veiling me in a protective trance, which gives me an odd comfort. Time takes on a dreamlike, elongated quality.
I am vaguely aware that Kade is with me again, and many others besides. Roses. Ismay. My own midwife named Bea. My husband is shouting orders at people as he lifts me and places me carefully on the bed. Another wave. And another.
There’s arguing, and I’m covered with furs momentarily while Kade’s brothers enter the chambers to gently but insistently guide my husband out of the room.
I know he’s not far, though; I know with certainty that he’s outside the door, pacing and anxious and ranting. And probably being given a whiskey.
Roses is holding my hand, telling me to push the baby out. “’Tis time,” she says. “This baby is ready to be born.”
I focus on the white glow of her hair and the green light of her eyes, and I do it.
I push. I have never known any pain equal to this; it is extreme and all-encompassing, but I let it come.
After what feels like a very long time, finally, I feel the beautiful, slithery relief as my baby slides from my body.
The relief of it is unspeakable but, inexplicably, short-lived.
“A boy,” Ismay says, handing the baby to Bea, and I am overcome for two reasons.
A boy. A son. I want him. I want to hold him.
But there is more pain—so much more—and I can’t understand it.
Why? Is something wrong? Am I dying, as my mother died, and Kade’s mother, and Knox’s wife?
Is this the tragic tradition of our lives and our deaths and our families?
I want to call to Kade. I want to see him one more time.
I moan, but the sound is primal and inarticulate.
I want him, I try to say. I need my husband. I want Kade.
“Push again, Stella,” Roses tells me, squeezing my hand. Her eyes don’t look sad or frightened. “You’re not finished yet. Push again.”
I’m having trouble understanding how or why or what it means. My coherence seems swathed and clouded by a thick layer of pain. Where’s my baby? But the urge to push overwhelms me, and I do as Roses says. I push again. And again.
This time the relief is more profound, more final. The pain is, quite suddenly, gone. It takes me a moment to adjust to its absence and to realize that a second child has been born. Two babies. Twins.
“A girl,” Ismay says, beaming.
I am cleaned and covered, and the tiny wrapped babies are brought to me.
The door opens. My husband’s vivid blue eyes are only on me, riveted and concerned. He looks at the tiny babies nestled against me. He comes to me, brushing my hair back from my face.
His face is close to mine, our gaze connective and real. He kisses me lightly and his touch returns me to myself. Even our words are joined. We say them together.
I love you.
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