When he started to walk toward a different part of the hospital, he stopped and shut his eyes to concentrate. Reaching out as far as he could, he sensed as many emotions as he could. He found exhausted nurses, lustful interns, remorse, elation, grief… Finally, he hit scared. It was a bitter feeling and he could tell that it wasn’t coming from someone that was completely human. The moment he realized that it was Conner he was sensing, he heard a loud, blood curtailing scream. It was the type of scream that he hadn’t heard since he was a boy, and it almost made his heart explode.
Was he too late, he wondered? Ignoring the protests of the hospital staff, he took off down the hall in the direction of the scream. When he finally rounded the corner and skid to a stop inside the room, he wanted to roar and weep at the same time.
He couldn’t remember the last time that he felt like crying, but he wanted to then. Her hair was weighted down by sweat, her skin and lips looked almost white, and the black around her eyes showed exactly how much the labor had taken out of her. She was weak, but she was alive.
It was at that moment that he finally got it. He understood what Malachi had felt and why Gideon thought that he was in love. All this time, he thought that he didn’t believe in love, but it was just that he didn’t understand the feeling. At that moment, he would do anything to take away her pain, including give his own life. Love seamed too simple of a word for what he felt.
Even though he could tell she was suffering, when she looked over and saw him, the corners of her mouth tipped slightly upward in a haphazard grin.
He rushed over toward the side if the bed and wrapped her in his arms. The closer he brought her in, the more hope he had that he could absorb her pain.
She wrapped a tiny hand in his shirt and buried her face in his neck before she began to sob.
“Thank God you’re here. I didn’t know how much fight she had left in her. Maybe having you here will help her take a little more.”
“Everyone can’t be in here!”
He heard Conner, and he heard the doctor, but he couldn’t take his attention away from Nicole. She started to shake and was mumbling something into his neck that he couldn’t make out. Caressing her hair and moving it away from her face, he kissed the top of her head before gently saying, “You need to speak up, Babe. I can’t hear you.”
She pulled away, and a tear streaked face looked up at him. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I told you that I would be strong, but I can’t be. It’s too much. I’m so sorry,” she repeated.
Placing his forehead against hers, he looked into her eyes to make sure that she was coherent. “It’s not too late. Let me change you.”
She shut her eyes, and he could feel her emotionally pull away from him. “I can’t. I know that you want me there for the children, but you will be a great father.”
“No! Shut up and listen!” She opened her eyes in shock and he grabbed the back of her neck to make sure she couldn’t turn away. After he knew that he had her full attention, he did something that was completely new to him. He begged. “Yes, I want you there for our children, but I need you there for me. You have gotten under my skin. You keep me on my toes and call me on all my bullshit. Before I met you, I had just been coasting, but now all I can think about is coming home to you every day for the rest of my life. I’ll marry you, I’ll build you a bigger house, I’ll cook you chocolate every day, I’ll even let you name our son Sven if you want, just please let me make it so I am yours forever.”
Tears had started to flow more heavily down her face, and when she shut her eyes, he thought that she was shutting him out. “Dammit, Tink! I love you!” he snapped.
She opened her eyes at the same time that she bit her bottom lip and smiled up at him. When she nodded slightly, he reared back to make sure he didn’t mistake her answer.
“Was that a yes?” he asked as he closely examined her face.
“Yes.”
She had barely finished the word before his mouth came down on hers. He kissed her with all the passion, love, and wonder that he felt. Eventually, he reluctantly let her go. Once the change was done, they would have many lifetimes to finish that kiss.
Standing, he turned and saw that his entire team had stayed and ignored the doctor’s orders. Most were smiling in his direction with the exception of Gideon that looked as if he were bored. Zeroing in on Tori, he asked her, “Do you think that we could get a little privacy?”
She stepped forward and turned to face the remainder of the room. “Sure thing.” When she raised her hands, she smiled over her shoulder at him. “If I do this will you promise to make you mine forever?”
“Yeah, Yeah. Bite me.” His reputation was successfully ruined after everyone had heard him pour his heart out to Nicole.
Gemariah felt the shift in the atmosphere and knew that Tori had started the shield.
“Wait! What’s happening?” Conner’s panicked voice brought Gemariah’s attention back to him.
“It’s alright. You did well, Kid. Thank you.”
That was as far as he got before the air shimmered between them and he could no longer see Conner clearly.
“I can only hold it for a few minutes, so be quick about it.” Tori’s voice was strained and sounded far away. She had successfully cut Nicole and him off from the entire outside world.
It was an incredibly useful ability for Tori to have, but it took a lot out of her as well. She could create a shield to block the impact of a weapon, or an attack from a divine being’s abilities, but it always amazed him when she made a concealment shield. It was as if she could make time stand still around the proximity of the shield. It was a powerful ability to have.
The stiffening of her body and her tiny hand gripping him tightly was what brought his full attention back to Nicole. When he saw that her eyes were clamped shut, he knew that she was having another contraction. He wanted to hold her and comfort her and tell her that everything would turn out alright, but the more strain her body endured with the labor, the closer she became to death. He didn’t want her slipping away from him as he comforted her, so he gently pulled away.
He had only seen it done once before, but he understood the basics. Pulling out the small knife that he always carried with him, he grabbed her hand and placed the tip of the blade against her palm.
Pausing in what he was doing, he softly caressed her face and she opened her eyes to look at him. “Are you sure?” he asked.
Nodding her head, she breathed out a, “yes,” before quickly squeezing her eyes shut once more. Her body arched, and she screamed so loud that he cringed away. Wasting no more time, he brought his concentration back to what he was doing, but before breaking her skin, he paused once again when a small voice inside his head spoke to him.
She’s sure, but are you?
It was an odd thought to have, and he shook it off. Of course he was sure. He wanted it more than anything.
Returning his attention to her hand, he dragged the blade down, successfully creating a slash in her palm. She never flinched from the cut, and he wondered how badly she was hurting to not notice what he was doing. The blood started to pool in her hand, and he quickly did the same to his.
Clasping their hands together, he got a rush of memories that were not his own. Her childhood, Trinity and her growing up together, different places she had been and people she had met… it was all there. Self-consciously, he found himself wondering what she had seen and what she had thought about his former life.
A sense of elation spread through him. He had already known that she was his soul mate, but the fact that the change had even worked proved that he was right.
There was something that he was missing though. He could tell that the change had not fully worked. There was still a void. What was he forgetting?
He thought back to Malachi and Trinity in the clearing and only remembered their blood exchange. Then he remembered. She had died, but was still able to come back because she was partially connected to Malachi
already. What connected them to begin with was what he couldn’t remember.
Thinking back, he remembered her attack and hospital visit, but that was when they found out she was connected to him. Pushing back farther, he remembered the river and the collapsed bridge. Malachi had healed Trinity on the river bank while he had to haul her very angry friend away so he could work. Smiling, he remembered how feisty Nicole was, even then.
That’s when it hit him. Malachi’s first contact with Trinity was to save her life. He transferred some of his essence to her for the specific purpose of saving her life.
Nicole threw her head back to scream, and he covered her mouth with his own. He breathed into her, filling her lugs with every bit of himself that he could give. The whole time, he was reciting in his head, “Live, live, live.”
Almost immediately, his world shifted. A rush of emotions swarmed him unlike anything he had experienced before. It didn’t take him but a second to realize that they were coming from her, and mixing with his own. He felt a mixture of relief and worry, joy and sadness, lust and love.
Slowly removing his mouth from hers, he looked down at her in time to see her smile. She was still panting and recovering from the last contraction, but it was still a wonderful sight to see after everything that she had been through. Unable to stop himself, he reached up with both hands and cupped her cheeks before kissing her once more.
It was only for a moment before he started to hear the beeping of machines and the sound of people arguing. Their own little bubble that blocked them from the rest of the world was slowly diminishing. He pulled away smiling in time to see all the people in the room come back into focus.
“I told you that all of you needed to leave.” The doctor was yelling.
“And I told you that we’re not going anywhere,” Malachi yelled right back.
Deciding to defuse what could be a potentially ugly situation, Gemariah nodded towards Malachi, “You stay.” Then he regrettably looked toward everyone else. “It’s alright guys. Just wait outside,” he said.
“Is that blood?” he heard the doctor ask.
Sure enough, Nicole’s cheek was smeared with their combined blood from when he had kissed her. “Sorry Doc. That was me, I cut my hand.” He didn’t want the doctor searching Nicole for an injury that was no longer there.
Everyone but Malachi nodded in his direction and started to shuffle out the door when a very hyper Trinity burst through the doorway.
“I’m here! I’m here! What did I miss? What can I do?” she sprouted off questions as she bounced around the room. All Gemariah could do was stay out of her way so he didn’t get pummeled while Malachi stood next to him and chuckled.
“She’s was working late and probably doubled up on energy drinks,” he leaned over and mumbled.
The doctor looked as if he had had enough. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” he tried to tell Trinity. In response, she glared in his direction, and he amended his request. “If you stay, you have to pick a spot and stay still. I have babies to deliver and all of you are disrupting the labor process.”
Gemariah saw how she didn’t like that answer, and when she took a step in the doctor’s direction, he intercepted her.
“I’ll be right back,” he vaguely heard the doctor say before he left the room.
Gemariah wasn’t paying attention though because he was too focused on Trinity. Placing a hand on her arm, he whispered, “calm down,” at the same time he physically altered her mood.
“She jerked her arm away and hissed, “You’re not supposed to do that without my permission.”
“That doesn’t apply when you are so strung out that you are jeopardizing my woman and my children. I love you, Lil-Sis, but you need to chill.”
She looked at him in surprise. “You just said that you loved me…”
“I know. It’s a new concept for me too,” he said with a smile.
“Gemariah…” he heard gasped from the hospital bed before a scream broke free.
He rushed over to find that Nicole was in the throes of another contraction. Grabbing onto her hand, he tried to take her pain from her, and started to panic when he was unsuccessful.
“What’s wrong? Why is she still in pain?” he looked up to ask Malachi.
The piece of shit actually chuckled. “You became connected, you didn’t stop her labor. You did make it so she was going to be okay though, so you need to relax. The more you stress, the more she feels it.”
“Remind me to tell you to calm down when Trinity’s going through this and screaming her head off,” Gemariah snapped, but he did take a deep breath to try and calm down.
Malachi and Trinity looked towards each other and there was a flash of emotion there, but it was gone too quickly for him to know what it was. Maybe on another day, he would have probed deeper, but his mind was occupied somewhere else at the moment.
When the contraction had subsided, Gemariah brought Nicole’s hand up to his mouth and he kissed the back of it before reaching up to smooth the hair out of her face. “How are you doing?”
She smiled and shrugged. “Oh you know… Just another day,” she said panting and in between breaths.
He smiled and let out a breath he had been holding. As he felt some of the tension leave his shoulders, he saw her body physically start to relax as well. It was then he knew that Malachi was right, and the only way to help her would be to control his own reactions. “Seriously, how are you feeling?”
“It still hurts, but I feel stronger than before.”
“Can’t you feel it?” Malachi’s question interrupted their conversation, and he looked at him for clarification. “I mean. If our blocks aren’t up, I can feel when she gets a paper cut. It’s too soon for either of you to know how to put up your walls, so you should be able to feel everything she is.”
He was about to panic, until Trinity spoke up. “Not necessarily. If your arm hurts, my arm hurts. If your leg hurts, my leg hurts. When I have my time of the month and have cramps like nobody’s business, you feel nothing.”
“Wow. That was something I really didn’t need to know. Keep the pillow talk to yourselves, why don’t you?”
Trinity rolled her eyes, but went on. “My point is that apparently God gave women that cross to bear alone. Men don’t have a uterus or vaginal canal, so how would you be able to feel what she does?”
Both men were silent because she had made a really good point.
Nicole started breathing heavily once more and Gemariah knew that another contraction was building. Once again, he tried to take her pain and it wouldn’t work, but he still stayed as calm as he could and stood by her for whatever she needed.
Once the contraction started to wind down, she started to shake her head back and forth. “It’s time. Oh God it hurts…” she paused and arched her back slightly off the bed before continuing, “…to bad not to be time.”
“It’s okay. I’m right here,” he said soothingly.
“No.” She started to shake her head. “You don’t understand. It too… early. Our babies!” she finished on a sob.
“You don’t worry about that. That’s why Malachi and Trinity are here. Do you think that they would let anything happen to them?”
She looked over to them and Malachi smiled down at her. Trinity was the one that spoke up first. “The answer is over my dead body.”
Nicole smiled and held out her hand to Trinity and in response Trinity grabbed it and gave a light squeeze.
As if on cue, one of the nurses came in to talk to Nicole. “How is our mamma feeling?” she asked as she lightly rubbed one of her legs in a comforting gesture.
“It hurts,” Nicole gasped. “Everywhere!”
“Okay, I’m just going to check you.” The nurse reached under the covers and smiled. “Well, it looks like we have a couple babies that are ready to come out.” She then strapped a contraction monitor around her belly before leaving to go get the doctor.
Gemariah leaned over to kiss
Nicole on the head. “You’re doing great. Just a little bit more, and then it will be all over,” he murmured with his lips still on her forehead.
The doctor came strolling in with the smiling nurse that had just left, and a few others following her. They all went over to a cabinet on the wall and put on their latex gloves before turning around to watch. The doctor and Nurse Smiley were the only two to approach. Once the doctor sat at the end of the table, he explained why the others were there. “Now, you are delivering early, so while I’m here for you, these other doctors and nurses are for your babies. They will do their best to make sure both are happy and healthy. Okay.” He placed both her heels in the side stirrups before saying, “Let’s get started.”
Nurse Smiley looked up from behind the doctor. “Okay, so on your next contraction, you are going to push as hard as you can.”
Nicole’s breathing became faster and her grip started to tighten. A look at the monitor showed the build-up of a contraction.
“Ok, you and you,” the nurse said as she pointed to Trinity and him, “Help her keep her legs open and bent up to her chest.” She then brought her focus back to Nicole. “Ready? On the count of three. One… Two… Three.”
Nicole gritted her teeth and her whole body tightened when she pushed. It didn’t take long for her silence to break and she yelled out.
Gemariah was helping hold one leg to her chest and his other hand was being crushed. The strength didn’t take long to take hold in her and he could have sworn that he felt a bone snap. When Malachi started to massage his own hand, he knew that Trinity wasn’t fairing any better.
“And… relax,” the nurse said before everything stopped; the grip of her hand, the tension in her body, it all took a break.
Nicole got less than a minute to breathe before another contraction started. She let out a whimper, but did as she was told. On the count of three, she pushed with all her might once again.
“Holy Fucking Shit!” she yelled, successfully shocking them all.
“Wow. Who’s got the dirty mouth now?” he joked.
The significant increase of pressure on his hand told him that she didn’t appreciate his remark.
The Divine Whisper Page 31
