Chapter Sixteen
Damon
Hemlock Mountain
The sun had just set and I had just polished off a double-chocolate chip cookie cake that Grina had dropped off earlier that day.
My sisters sat silently in the hallway to stay close by in case I needed them but the sounds of their breathing and the ruffling of their dresses ground against my teeth and made me want to stick my claws in my ears and scoop out the little drums inside there.
The only person who wasn’t on my nerves was Treg. They stayed by my side, helping me in and out of bed when I needed to pee, and cuddling me around the clock. They answered the door for food and sent everyone away too before they could come in.
My back was killing me and so were my legs.
My stomach and my head too. It was starting to feel as if it would be a shorter list to name off the things that didn’t hurt than those that did.
Maybe the bridge of my nose and the little spaces between my fingers.
It was as if I was dying instead of preparing to bring a life into the world.
Eventually, I apologized to Treg and almost cried but the window had to be opened.
Yes, the snow would come in but it was too hot.
Even my nipples were covered in little drops of sweat.
Back home at the caves, I’d have dragged myself out into the snow to die there in its icy embrace but there was no way I was making it down the stairs and I’d eat anyone who tried to lift me up.
“You don’t have to apologize. We’ll just…
We’ll figure out a way to catch the snow or something.
I’ll put a towel down,” they said and a second later the window was open.
Treg gathered up handfuls of snow and I reached out eagerly for them.
Only they didn’t hand them over to me. They set the snow on my belly and watched as the little crystals melted away.
The fire roaring inside me finally shut up for a minute and I let my eyes drift closed.
They pulled more snow in from the little overhang part of the roof and kept piling it on top of me.
I was cozy. I was comfy. I wasn’t boiling in a pot anymore.
I dozed off and as soon as my consciousness slipped free of this world my water broke.
“I’m melting!” I muttered, thinking that I’d finally started melting away after too many days of being inside the warm house. Treg swallowed down a laugh and I fought off the urge to pinch them.
“Huh?” Loop whispered in the hallway.
She tried the door but it was locked. She started to demand that we open the door but the pain exploding inside me swallowed up her voice and I called everyone some choice words as I flipped myself over onto all fours and roared like a bear. Someone said something about calling Kirk.
“Yeah, call him! I’ll eat him! He’ll be dinner and I won’t have to worry about him asking any more questions! Then I’ll feed you to the baby! Both of you!”
Treg rubbed small circles on my back unphased by all my threats.
Threats that I meant very much in the moment.
Somewhere along the way, I’d stripped off my clothes since they were torturously hot in this form.
I roared again as the pain squeezed me tight and threatened to rip up every tree on the block and beat anyone dumb enough to come in over the head with them.
Kirk came in anyway but stayed by the door. Eventually my sisters were brave enough to come in too but Treg chased them away from the bed.
“Give him some room,” they said gently, still rubbing circles on my back.
Something shifted inside me. The baby! It had to be the baby starting to move.
Treg was there, inside my head, with me.
They told me to breathe and so I did. Breathing seemed an unnatural thing to do while my child attempted to escape my body that had spent weeks nurturing it.
I breathed anyway because what else could I do?
Eventually something else shifted and I pushed.
I had to push. Baby Festival would be forever trapped inside me if I didn’t.
I pushed for years and decades and centuries and eons.
Time stopped and fell apart, and I was pretty sure the universe itself collapsed on itself – I pushed for so long.
“You’re so strong. You’re doing so well,” Treg whispered to me.
Damn right I was strong. I’d broken the universe itself because time wasn’t moving right.
I pushed until I thought I might pass out from exhaustion.
Once or twice one of my sisters dumped a bucket of snow on my back.
I couldn’t even muster up the civility to mutter a thank you.
That was the day I learned giving birth was primal and the only way to survive it with your sanity intact was to give in to your baser instincts.
I was a wolf wearing a yeti’s skin. I growled and snarled and bared my teeth as Baby Festival freed herself from my body.
Kirk moved toward the baby but I growled and Treg snapped their very human mouth at him.
Sawe pulled him away right before Treg’s teeth found flesh and I didn’t even have the manners to tell them not to bite the doctor.
For all I cared they could eat everyone in the room except for me and the baby. That was their job after all.
Treg cleaned the baby with supplies passed off from my sisters and Kirk observed from afar. I wondered if he was telling Chasten how mean we were being.
“We’re not being mean,” Treg said. “He’s had worse. A three-year-old tried to bite his pinky off last year over a vaccination.”
“Good for them,” I muttered, staring at the cord that connected my baby to her life source – me.
It wasn’t white yet. It was a deep blue like way down in the water or the sky on a cloudless night.
We had to wait until it was white. That way all the good stuff went to the baby, and she wasn’t cheated out of anything my body and magic already processed for her.
She let out her first little wail and my nipples started dripping as I looked down the bed at her. She looked more like Treg than me. She was definitely in a ‘human form’ but had thick white hair on her head but also little patches of white hair here and there all over her body.
Treg dabbed snow on her head and then on her little hands and feet, keeping her cool while we waited.
I grabbed a handful of snow from one of the buckets and ate it.
She’d need vaccinations to live in civilization.
She might even need vitamin shots. I’d read all about it so many times.
Sooner or later, I’d have to let Kirk close to her but not until the cord was clamped and I was able to sit upright and watch what he was doing.
I trusted him but Baby Festival was so small and so needy and fragile and…
Tears finally streamed down my cheeks. She was beautiful.
She was the beautiful little girl who grew inside my body and now she was here in a world who might not always love and understand her like we would.
Loop rubbed small circles on my back, and I ate another handful of snow as the last of the blue drained from the life-sustaining cord.
When it was time, Treg clamped it with supplies provided by Kirk.
We’d watched a lot of medical tutorials on this part, but Kirk still loomed over the bed like a giant wolf ready to eat our baby.
I didn’t kick him in the face but that’s only because Chasten would never have let me hear the end of it.
“Eat some more snow,” Sawe whispered in my ear and squeezed my shoulder.
I managed to swallow some more down while watching Treg cut the cord.
Baby Festival sniffed and kicked a leg up as if she felt the link between our bodies sever.
Then the world went into motion again and the clock resumed its normal working hours.
My sisters helped me clean up and Treg held our precious little baby while Kirk looked her over – quickly and swiftly because he knew to finish by the time I was upright and reaching out for her.
She cried against me, protesting the little sticks – her first pain from the world outside my body.
I held her close and murmured to her that I’d eat her Uncle Kirk later for being such a jerk.
Treg slid into bed behind me and held onto us both as my heart rate returned to normal.
I was tired and ravenous but couldn’t let go of our precious little baby.
I didn’t want to miss a moment of her sweet little face, staring up at me with big trusting eyes and a little nose that sniffed every few seconds.
She was all mine and Treg’s and she was perfect as every baby was but also as no baby had ever been before.
She was the only gift I needed this Yule or even for the rest of the Yules.
For any holidays. She was here and safe and healthy and…
Sleep swallowed me whole as I cuddled her to my chest. Treg whispered something to my sisters and they took off downstairs.
Probably to get more food. I’d eat later.
For now, I was going to share in my little baby’s first naptime.