Chapter 36
SIMONE
Pain consumes me. It swallows me whole like a living thing with jagged teeth and sharp claws, and I'm drowning in it. My vision blurs at the edges, the bedroom tilting sickeningly around me. I try to focus on Az's heartbeat against my back, but even that feels distant now.
“Breathe,” Daniel says softly. “In through your nose, Simone. Out through your mouth.”
I don't remember how to breathe. My lungs seem to have forgotten their purpose. The baby is drawing on me, pulling my energy like a vampire, and I'm getting weaker with each passing second. I can feel the slow drain, the creeping cold.
“I can't.” The words come out as a ragged whisper. “I can't do this.”
“You can.” Az's arms tighten around me, careful of my belly. His voice in my ear is raw, desperate. “You're the strongest person I know, little fairy. You're going to do this.”
Saraqael's golden light intensifies, and I feel a strange pulling sensation low in my abdomen. It feels like invisible hands are working inside me, and I have to bite my lip to keep from screaming.
“The baby is suffocating,” Ithuriel murmurs. “I'm moving the cord away from its neck now.”
A sob tears out of me, and Az rocks me gently.
The world keeps blurring in and out.
Az's arms are the only thing that feels real. The only thing keeping me tethered to this bedroom, to this life.
Syrin's cool hands smooth my hair back from my forehead. “You're doing beautifully,” she murmurs.
I want to laugh at that. I'm bleeding through my nightgown, shaking so hard my teeth are clicking together, and somewhere inside me, my baby is fighting for oxygen. But I appreciate the lie.
Daniel and Ithuriel work in silence, their light moving beneath my skin, warm and golden.
Saraqael is on my other side. His presence is awe-inspiring, and any other day I'd be gobsmacked that I'm next to a mythical archangel.
But the drain is getting worse.
“She's fading,” I hear Ithuriel say quietly.
“I know.” Daniel's voice is tight, less calm than I'm used to from my time at Abaddon. “We need to stabilize her and deliver this baby now. Or we will lose one... or both of them.”
The words cut through the haze like a blade. My hand goes to my belly, slow and heavy, but I press it there because I need to feel my baby.
I'm not going to lose it. I refuse. I didn't survive Thomas, and the Burning Pits, and the cave, and learning the man I love is an archdemon, just to lose my baby in our bedroom while strangers stand at our bed.
I drag in a breath through my nose and hold it for a count of three. Out through my mouth.
“Good,” Daniel says instantly. “Again.”
I do it again. And again.
But I can still feel myself fading.
“Wait,” Syrin suddenly says. “The soul bargain.”
I feel Az stiffen behind me. “What?”
“If you gave her a portion of your power,” Syrin continues, “then she could maybe charge it the same way you do. Feed on you.”
“I can't feel lust right now,” Az replies, sounding completely bewildered and a little disgusted. “Not even distantly. My consort is—”
“Not lust,” Syrin says. “Love, Asmodai. Try love.”
I feel his exhale against the back of my neck. “Fuck,” he groans under his breath. “Alright.”
It only takes a few seconds before I feel a trickle of… something. It's small and tentative at first, but then warmth starts seeping into me, seemingly coming from everywhere my body touches his.
The cold recedes, inch by inch. The drain on my energy doesn't stop, but now something shores it up. It feels nourishing, invigorating. It feels like Az.
“Az,” I breathe.
“I'm here.” His voice sounds strained, and I can't tell if it's from effort or emotion. “I'm right here, little fairy.”
The angels work in silence around me. I feel pressure, but next to no pain anymore. They've numbed me to most of it, the ether moving through my body, lifting the worst of it away.
My eyelids are so heavy, I can barely keep my eyes open.
“Stay with me,” Az says, his voice low and fierce. “Simone, stay with me.”
“I'm not going anywhere,” I mumble.
“Good.” His arms tighten. “Because we have the rest of eternity together.”
The room tilts again.
I let my eyes close.
Time moves strangely. It might be minutes, or it might be hours. There's light behind my eyelids, golden and shifting, and the quiet, careful sounds of the angels working, and Az's heartbeat, and the warmth that keeps coming from him in slow waves as he feeds me, and I just… float.
Somewhere at the edge of awareness, I feel the pressure change. There's a release, a loosening, the drain on my energy suddenly stopping.
Az's arm goes rigid around my shoulders as I hold my breath, the silence horrible.
Then there's a cry, and my whole body shakes with relief.
“A boy,” Daniel says, his voice rough with relief.
The sob that tears out of me has been building since the moment I saw the blood on the sheets. Or maybe longer. Maybe since a hospital in France with a beeping heart monitor and a baby that never got to cry.
“Little fairy,” Az breathes, so much emotion in his voice.
“I know,” I manage. “I know.”
Something warm and so very light is placed in my arms, and I look down.
He's wrinkled and red and gooey and perfect. His face is scrunched tight, his fists clenched like he's ready to punch someone for taking him out of the warm place he was nestled in. He has dark hair, just a dusting of it, and barely visible at his temples are two tiny, smooth nubs.
His eyes find my face, and he stops crying.
“Leander,” I whisper.
Az leans forward, looking over my shoulder at his son. I can feel it when he stops breathing, his whole body going completely still.
“Incredible,” he says. That’s all. It’s everything.
I turn my face into his jaw, crying into his throat. He curls around us both, his arms careful and trembling.
Saraqael and Ithuriel work quietly at the foot of the bed, and I feel the bleeding stop, my body getting warm again as Az still pours all his love for us into me.
Syrin perches at the edge of the mattress, watching us with shining eyes. For some reason, I sense there's tragedy in her past too. A shared pain. Maybe births that didn't have such a happy ending. I give her a grateful smile.
Daniel sits back on his heels, exhaling slowly. His gray robes are a mess, covered in my blood.
“You did beautifully,” he says, echoing Syrin’s earlier words.
I snort. “I hardly did anything.”
Leander makes a small, indignant sound against my chest, and I look down at him.
“Bonjour,” I tell him softly. “Tu m'as fait peur, toi.”
You scared me.
Az's lips press against my temple. Then the top of my head. Then the side of my face, unhurried and reverent.
I shift Leander in my arms and tilt him toward his father.
Az goes completely still. Then his large hand moves carefully to cup the back of our baby's head, his thumb tracing the edge of one tiny horn with a reverence that makes my throat close up.
“Hello,” he says, his voice like gravel. “I'm your father.”