Fire Born (City of Dragons Book 5)

by Val St. Crowe

  I hiccuped. “Okay.”

  He brushed tears away from my eyes. “You’re good, you’re good.”

  My breath hitched. I nodded. “I’m good.” I pointed to the hall. “I’ve been, um, walking.”

  “Good. Walking’s good.” He nodded too. “You have any heating pads?”

  “I made a rice sock.” They had told us about them in my birthing classes.

  “Where is it? I’ll put that in the microwave for you,” he said. “You keep walking. I’m going to find you good music, something soothing. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  I smiled. “Okay. I’m so glad you’re here, Connor.”

  He grinned at me. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world, Penny. You hang tight, and we’ll all be meeting my little nephew soon.”

  I laughed. It sounded a little like a sob, but I was smiling. I was hit with another contraction. I winced. “I need to walk.”

  He nodded. “Yup. Go for it.”

  A little while later, I squatted on this exercise ball that Lachlan had insisted we get while Connor held the hot rice sock on my back.

  “So, where’s Lachlan?” said Connor.

  “I don’t know,” I said, bouncing on the exercise ball. “He said he had to go out and do something, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was. I had this feeling when he left, like I should insist that he stay here, but I squelched it, because I thought I was being stupid. And now I’m starting to get worried.”

  “Well, we’ll give it a little bit, and then we’ll maybe try to activate the GPS tracker on his phone.”

  “You know how to do that?”

  “Uh… not exactly, but I’m sure I can figure it out by Googling long enough.”

  I laughed. “Connor, you’re really great with computer stuff.”

  “Nah, I’m stubborn,” he said. “I like solving puzzles. Anyway, I want you to relax. We’re going to find Lachlan, I promise. Maybe he’ll come home before we have to go hunting, though.”

  “Maybe,” I whispered. God, where was Lachlan?

  * * *

  ~Lachlan~

  “Come on, Daddy, get up,” said Hallie.

  And Lachlan realized that they weren’t out in the freezing cold at all anymore, but lying on a green meadow in the sun’s warmth. Hallie was skipping away ahead of him, twirling around and around and laughing.

  He got up and went after her.

  It was only that… He looked down at his hands. There was something wrong with his body. Something…

  “Why are you taking so long?” Hallie put her hands on her hips.

  Lachlan flexed his fingers in front of his face. “This isn’t real,” he whispered.

  Hallie cocked her head to one side. “What does that mean?”

  “It means that…” He knelt down in front of her, and he reached out and brushed her cheek with one hand. “I can’t stay.”

  “Sure, you can,” she said.

  “You’re not real,” he said.

  She wrinkled up her nose. “What is real?”

  “Cold,” said Lachlan. “The cold is real.” And he felt it, inching down his limbs, threatening to take over his torso. Aching, painful cold.

  Hallie flickered again. “Daddy?” she whispered. “I am real.”

  “No, sweetie, you’re in my head,” he said, and he was speaking aloud again, in that grating, barely-there voice.

  There was no meadow, no green grass, no Hallie. Hot, wet tears slid out of his eyes. “You’re in my head,” he ground out. “And that means you never leave me.” Whatever it was that he kept of her, he carried that with him. Some part of her lived on in him, and that meant that he had to fight to stay alive, to keep her memory alive too.

  He fought to move his limbs.

  At first nothing happened.

  But then his body responded. In tiny, jerking movements, he inched his way back from the edge of the porch. And then he pulled his arms in close, his legs inside.

  For several moments, he huddled there, trying to find warmth inside himself, trying to find strength.

  He wasn’t going to be able to drive, he realized. There was no way that would be possible.

  “Got to call Penny,” he said to himself. He forced his numb fingers into his pocket and got out his phone.

  It slipped from his grasp and fell.

  He fumbled for it, picking it up, dropping it, picking it up again.

  Eventually, using both hands, he had it. He braced it against one leg and began the torturous process of trying to turn it on. He couldn’t feel anything in his fingers, so he couldn’t be sure he was applying any pressure to the on button.

  It took several tries, but eventually, the screen came to life.

  Finally.

  And then he dropped the phone again.

  It was another process of picking up and dropping again before he was able to get it back up. When he did, he saw there were ten texts from Penny.

  Quickly, he read them.

  All right, he wasn’t calling Penny for help.

  But he needed to get home. He hit his microphone button. “Call a cab,” he rasped.

  Miraculously, it understood him, and a webpage popped up, a list of local cab companies with tiny phone icons next to them.

  Lachlan jammed his finger at the screen. It took him several tries to make the thing work, but the phone dialed.

  “Yellow Cab Sea City,” said a cheery voice on the other end of the phone.

  “I need someone to pick me up,” Lachlan said in his grating voice. He gave the address.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” said the person on the phone. “What was that?”

  He cleared his throat. Spoke again.

  “Sorry, sir, I’m not getting that. We must have a bad connection.”

  And then he felt a little hand on his shoulder. He turned to see Hallie standing there, grinning. “Try again, Daddy.”

  “I. Need. A. Cab,” Lachlan said deliberately.

  “Oh, gotcha now, sir. What’s that address?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  My phone was ringing. I was walking back and forth down the hallway, and the contractions were getting worse and worse, and my phone was ringing. “Connor!” I called.

  “I got it,” he said. “It’s Lachlan.”

  I ran back for the living room, a sob in my throat. “Oh, thank God!”

  Connor handed the phone to me.

  I put it to my ear. “Lachlan?”

  “Penny,” he said, and his voice sounded rough and weak.

  “Are you okay?”

  He managed something like a laugh. “Not exactly, but I wanted you to know that I’m on my way home.”

  “Where have you been?” I demanded.

  “It’s a long story,” he said in his ravaged voice. “I’ll tell you, but not now. Are you there alone?”

  “No, Connor’s here,” I said.

  “Good,” he sighed. “Tell Connor to have blood waiting for me.” His voice trailed off, as if talking had been too much effort. “See you soon,” he whispered, and then he hung up.

  I took the phone away from my ear. “Something happened to him. He said he needs blood, and I could barely hear him, and he said he wasn’t okay—”

  “All right,” said Connor, taking the phone from me. “I’ll worry about that, okay? You have one thing to worry about, and one thing only, and that’s dealing with your contractions.”

  “Okay,” I said in a tiny voice.

  “You want to bounce on the ball again?”

  I shook my head. At that moment, another contraction hit me, and it hurt. I moaned.

  “Breathe,” said Connor, catching me under the chin and forcing me to look at him. “Even breaths. Come on, Penny, think about breathing.”

  Right, okay. I remembered this. I forced myself to think about breathing, not about the pain. It didn’t make the pain less, not exactly, but it made it… manageable. I waited for the contraction to pass, and then I went to the couch and sat down. I’d had a revelat
ion that I didn’t have to walk through the contractions. If I did the breathing, then I could get through them fine without moving. And I was tired. I’d been up all day doing stuff for the nursery, and I hadn’t gotten any sleep.

  “You want me to run you another bath?” said Connor.

  I shook my head. “I’m good here. Thanks. I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t here.”

  “You’d be fine,” he said, grinning. “Women have been having babies since the dawn of time. You got this. You don’t need me.”

  “I do,” I said. “I’d be a mess without you.”

  He shook his head. “You, Penny, are never a mess.”

  My phone rang again.

  Connor still had it. He looked down at the screen. “It’s Felicity.”

  I held out my hand for the phone.

  “Felicity?” I said. “Where the hell are you?”

  “Are you okay, Penny?” she said. “What’s going on?”

  “Where are you?” I demanded. Then I had another contraction. I took a deep breath, forcing myself to relax into it, to allow the contraction to have its way with me. It was as if I found the center of it, and then everything was fine. “Are you with Scott?”

  “How did you know that?”

  “Because I called Jensen looking for you, and he told me that you’d lied to him about being here.”

  “What?” There was panic in her voice.

  “Don’t worry, I covered for you. But I didn’t feel good doing it. You can’t do this to him, Felicity. If you want out of that relationship, you have to get out.”

  “Nothing happened,” said Felicity. “It was only drinks. I never touched Scott. And now I’m on my way home, back to Jensen.”

  “So, if it was all kosher, why’d you lie to him?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Listen,” I said, “I’m in labor, so maybe we can talk about this later?”

  “What? Jesus, Penny, way to bury the lead. Are you at the hospital?”

  “No, I’m home,” I said.

  “I’m on my way,” she said.

  I hung up the phone and laid my head on the back of the couch. More contractions came, but now I found I could burrow into them, unravel them and let them wash over me. They still hurt, but I accepted the pain, I let it happen, and it was all somehow easier to take. I tried to explain this to Connor, who was taking half-empty containers of blood out of the refrigerator.

  “Geez, Penny, you guys ever finish blood before you get more? Some of this might even have gone bad.” He smelled one of them. Made a face. “How do you know if it’s spoiled?”

  “Give him the one that’s full,” I said. Another contraction. I took a deep breath. “It’s like, the contractions are happening, and they’re the wind, and I’m a stray leaf, and I let the contractions blow me where they want to go.”

  Connor laughed. “I hope Lachlan gets here soon. You’re at the stage where you start sounding like you’re on drugs, which means it won’t be long now.”

  “What? This is a stage?”

  “You’re doing great. Don’t worry about it.”

  I shut my eyes. It was easier to relax without the stimuli.

  My phone rang.

  “Answer that, Connor,” I ordered.

  He picked up the phone. “Hello?… Oh, wow. You really can’t?… Yeah, I guess I can do that. I’ll be there in a minute… I’ll bring blood.” He hung up the phone.

  “What?” I said.

  “Lachlan’s here, but he doesn’t have the strength to walk up the steps.”

  “Oh, no,” I said, worry spiking through me. “What happened to him?”

  “He’s going to be fine, Penny,” said Connor. “He’s a vampire, and he heals. I’m going to go get him, okay? You be okay while I’m gone?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I’m all right.”

  Connor left.

  I closed my eyes. I tried to count between the contractions. Were they coming more frequently? I really couldn’t tell. They definitely hurt worse than they had before.

  I was wrapped in dark silence for a little bit, and I began to drift. Between contractions, I started to fall asleep, and then the next would hit me, and I would startle awake.

  Then the door burst open, and in came Connor, Lachlan, and Felicity.

  Lachlan and Felicity both rushed over to me. Lachlan was guzzling blood out of a bottle, and his skin looked bluish, as if he’d been frozen or something.

  He knelt next to me, draining the rest of the bottle. He took my hand. His fingers were like ice. “How are you?”

  “I’m good,” I said.

  “I’m sorry I left you,” he said.

  “Where did you go?”

  “Don’t worry about it now,” he said.

  “But—”

  He kissed my forehead.

  “Penny, what can I do?” said Felicity, standing over me. “You want me to get you anything, do anything?”

  I smiled up at her. “No,” I said. “I’m glad you guys are here. All of you.” I beamed at all of them.

  For a while, everything was good. Lachlan drank all the blood in the house, even the stuff that Connor thought was iffy in terms of being spoiled. Lachlan smelled it, pronounced it fine, and drank it. He reasoned that spoiled blood probably couldn’t actually get him sick anyway.

  I figured he must be pretty desperate for blood, because… eew.

  Felicity bustled around, trying to do whatever she could to make me comfortable, even though there wasn’t much she could do. Honestly, I was glad she was there, and that was all I needed. I didn’t bring up whatever was going on with her and Scott and Jensen. I knew that eventually, I’d want to know what was going on in her head, but not now. It wasn’t the time or the place.

  I might not approve of what she was doing, lying to Jensen like that, but she was my best friend, and I would always be there for her. I would never abandon her. That was the way things were between us. She had forgiven me after the stuff with the blood bond, and lying to Jensen didn’t even compare to that. Something like this was never going to come between us.

  It went on that way for some time. I was able to breathe through the contractions, and time passed.

  And then I got hit with another contraction. I tried to let it wash over me the way I’d let the others, but it was eighty times more painful. It reached inside me and twisted, and the agony was so intense that I screamed and twisted my pelvis.

  Lachlan squeezed my hand. “Penny?”

  The contraction passed. I panted. “The contractions turned on me! They were like the wind and now—”

  “We gotta go,” said Connor.

  “What?” I said. “Get in a car now? No, I can’t. I need to walk.” I pushed up and started to head back the hallway. Another contraction ripped through me. Walking helped. Moving helped.

  “Penny, if you don’t get in the car, you are going to have this baby right there on the carpet.”

  I peered down at the carpet, imagining it stained. But I turned to Connor. “No. No, I can’t get in a car. It’ll hurt too bad. I can’t do it.”

  “Sweetheart,” said Lachlan, “if we need to go—”

  “No!” I said. I needed to make them understand. That was a literal impossibility at this point. I couldn’t do it. No, no, no. “I can’t.” I was still walking.

  Connor came down the hall after me. He grabbed me by the shoulders and stopped me. “Look at me, Penny.”

  “Let go!” I said. I was going to start crying any second. I tried to push Connor away, but he was too strong.

  “Penny,” said Connor, his voice serious.

  “I can’t do it, Connor,” I said, tears coming out of my eyes. “I can’t do any of this.”

  “You can,” he insisted. “You will.”

  * * *

  And it turned out that I could. Do it all.

  Wyatt Carter Flint was born at 2:43 AM that morning, and he was beautiful.

  I spent the ride to the hospital yelling
through the contractions and twisting against the car seat, while Lachlan and Felicity yelled questions at Connor about what was wrong with me. Connor, who was the only calm person in the car, kept saying everything was fine and telling me, “You got this, Penny. You got this,” over and over.

  When we got to the hospital, they checked me, and I was apparently eight centimeters dilated, so I was practically there. It was a relief to know that I wasn’t a big wimp, that the pain I was feeling was because my labor was seriously underway.

  Everything at the hospital seemed like a struggle. They wanted to check me in and monitor me and stick things in my vein in case I wanted an epidural and all I wanted to do was walk.

  I felt like all I did was beg to walk. “Can I get up now? Can I get up now?”

  And then eventually, they’d let me walk around for a while. Lachlan would come with me, or Felicity. But I wouldn’t really talk to them. I was kind of zoned into whatever it was that my body was doing, which hurt like hell.

  But the doctor would always stop me, and tell me I needed to come lie down again, and get monitor stuff strapped around my belly, and during those times, I had to lie still. If I didn’t, then she would keep me stuck there longer.

  So, I had to figure out some way to fall into the contractions like I’d been doing before. And I did. I could lie there and let them wash over me without reacting, without crying out, without moving. But they were so painful that doing so didn’t make me feel as if I could handle them any better. It simply felt as if I was drowning in agony, as if the whole world was pain.

  It was very, very bad.

  During one of these sessions of lying down and being monitored, I was beginning to make up my mind to ask for an epidural. This was ridiculous, I had decided. It hurt a lot, and I could hardly even think straight, and I wanted it to stop hurting and why was I putting myself through this torture?

  But then the nurse came by and said I could walk again if I wanted.

  And I got up to walk, but my water broke all over the floor.

  And then everything hurt really bad, and the contractions were even worse than I possibly could have imagined, but I didn’t feel as if I could ask for an epidural when everyone was so busy cleaning up the fact that my water had broken all over the floor.