by Michele Hauf
He shook his head. “Is there anything else? Some sacrifice or gift I might offer?”
“You think me cruel? I am not, only fair and abiding of the bargains made with my champion, Ooghna.”
“I am aware of that. You must stand by your champion, despite her malicious trickery.”
Malrick’s eyes glinted. No faery minded being accused of trickery.
“If we could have another child…” Creed began.
Suddenly a wolf howl echoed across the back field. He recognized the howl as Blu’s. But closely following the howl, a gunshot echoed across the snowy sky.
“No.” Creed gripped the battle sword and dashed toward the fence. “Blu!”
* * *
He found them at the edge of Saint-Pierre property, where a creek intersected it from Schmidt’s field. The old farmer knelt over a dark form. Creed smelled the blood and quickened his pace through the thick, loose snow, plunging to his wife’s side. Seeing the blood at her shoulder, he shoved away the farmer and swore at him.
Schmidt veered from the sword Creed still clutched. “Watch it!”
Tossing Wolfsbane aside, Creed bent over Blu, whose eyelids fluttered. She clutched her belly and moaned.
“I didn’t know it was her,” the farmer claimed. “I heard the howl and saw the black fur…but it was her hair and that coat!”
The persuasion he’d used on Schmidt must have worn off. That it had lasted for months was remarkable. Damn!
“You idiot! You could have killed her and my unborn children.”
“Coming…” Blu managed. A drop of blood spotted her lip. “Now!”
“What?” Creed ripped aside the coat from her shoulder to inspect the wound. For all the blood staining the snow, it looked like just an abrasion. “What’s coming?”
“The babies!” A guttural groan preceded her clenching scream. “It doesn’t feel right, Creed. It hurts so bad!”
Creed grabbed the farmer by the collar—beyond him he spied Malrick, walking the property line, the Faery king’s head down yet his glowing violet eyes on the scene. He blended with the white snow and his wings were tucked out of sight.
“Call an ambulance!” Creed commanded the farmer. “No! Wait.” An ambulance would take Blu to a human hospital. The midwife had arranged for them to deliver at a clinic dedicated to the paranormal breeds. “You’re going to drive us to town. We go to a private clinic.”
“Yes. I can do that.” The farmer dashed off. “Hurry up, Saint-Pierre!”
Creed lifted Blu into his arms, and she cried out and clutched her stomach. Her legs were wet. Her water must have broken.
“Hurry,” she gasped. “It’s piercing, the pain. I don’t think it’s right.” She gasped, then her head dropped back over his arm, and she passed out.
Chapter Ten
Blu reached for Creed’s hand. She’d never been so frightened. Yet never had she felt so reassured simply by holding her husband’s hand. Safe in his arms, no matter what the world threw her way.
After four brutal hours of labor, the midwife had performed a sonogram and announced a C-section was necessary. The doctor had arrived and was scrubbing up.
“Why the surgery?” Creed asked as they entered the OR.
The midwife handed Creed a set of teal scrubs. “The babies’ umbilical cords are wrapped around each other’s necks. They are…” She glanced to Blu, who winced and squeezed Creed’s hand hard to counteract the pain. “…literally strangling one another. The doctor is waiting. You can stay in the room, Mr. Saint-Pierre.”
“You’ll have a time getting me to leave.” He winked at Blu and gestured he was going to scrub up.
“Hurry!” she cried as the warm reassurance of his hand left hers.
The doctor explained they were giving her a spinal block. She would be conscious during the surgery, but would not feel anything. “How you holding up, Mommy?”
She smiled weakly at the motherly title. Tears spilled over her cheeks. Her babies were coming into the world, mad at one another, each trying to end the other’s life by strangulation. Was it because they somehow knew their fate?
“Still here,” she managed to say. “Where’s Creed?”
Her husband’s breath hushed near her ear. A warm kiss melted against her eyelid. “I’m back. You’re doing great, Blu. It’ll all be over soon.”
Yes. Soon enough her belly would be empty. As would her arms, when the babies were taken to Faery.
“Just—help me get through this,” she cried.
“We’re in,” the doctor announced, and Blu realized she had felt but tugs in her stomach region. “Both babies look great. Suzanne, help me here.”
“Can you see them?” she asked Creed. “Tell me. I need to know everything.” Yes, grasp the few precious details she could, before she would never again have them in her life.
“The doctor is lifting them from your stomach,” he said. “I see some toes…”
“They’re out,” the doctor said. “A boy and a girl!”
“Oh, Creed.” After the adrenaline coursing like mad over the past hours, the announcement of their sexes worked like a soothing hot towel placed over Blu’s body. Her muscles relaxed and she looked up into her husband’s eyes. “Go look at them. Tell me what they look like.” When he squeezed her hand, she gave him a nudge and he moved down beside the doctor.
“They’re purple,” he said in amazement.
“Lack of oxygen,” the doctor explained. “We’ll need to put them under lights for a few minutes to get their body temperatures where we need them. Would you like to cut the cords, Mr. Saint-Pierre?”
“Of course.” He cast a beaming smile over his shoulder at Blu.
Lips trembling, she returned his smile, then closed her eyes. She couldn’t watch his joy, knowing it would soon be extinguished by the most selfish wishes they had ever made.
“That’s a lot of blood,” she heard him say as the first cord was cut.
“Control yourself, vampire,” she murmured.
“Don’t worry, love. Oh, Blu, they’re gorgeous,” he said. “Both have dark hair. And they have all ten toes, and look at those tiny fingers! Can I hold them?”
“In a few minutes, Mr. Saint-Pierre. Be patient.”
The warmth of her husband’s hand returned to Blu’s and she gave him a drowsy look. His kiss lingered on her mouth, and he closed his eyes. Together they said silent prayers that would never be answered.
“You did good, my werewolf princess,” he whispered. “They are bright and beautiful.”
“And purple?”
“Yes, purple, your favorite color. It’s from the cords about their necks. The doctor said they’ll be fine. The midwife is rubbing our son’s chest right now, bringing his color back.”
“Which was born first?”
Blu lifted her head at the question spoken by a woman standing in the doorway.
“And which second?” the warrior Ooghna said as she entered the OR. The room’s temperature iced instantly. The crystal scimitar at her hip glistened under the bright lighting. “Not that it matters. I’ll take them both.”
Blu’s fingernails dug into Creed’s palm. “No,” she gasped. “Not so soon. Stop her. Don’t let her—”
“Neither was born first or second,” the doctor replied firmly. She held a swaddled infant and walked over to Creed, who stood at Blu’s side. “Here’s your daughter, Mr. Saint-Pierre.”
Cree
d took the babe, while his attention was fierce on the faery. “Can’t you wait?”
“What do you mean?” Ooghna observed intently as the doctor received the second baby wrapped in a blue blanket. “Neither was first or second?”
The doctor helped Blu to cradle her son in her arms. Blu wanted to cry and bawl and scream for the faery to leave her with her children for a few moments, but what the doctor had said… “Yes, Doctor, what do you mean by that?”
The doctor stood between Creed and the faery and said, “I lifted both babies from Blu’s womb at the same time. Had to. The cords wrapped so tightly about their necks made it necessary. So one is not older than the other. They were both born at the exact same time, and I’ll mark it so in the records.”
“Impossible!” the faery hissed. She clutched the crystal blade.
It was then Blu noted the man who appeared in the doorway. Another freakin’ faery, to judge his sparkle.
“Those babies are mine!” the warrior howled.
“Ooghna.” The male faery held her back, blade slashing and teeth gritted, from rushing Creed.
“Amazing,” Creed said, and he sat on the bed beside Blu. “That’s Malrick, the Unseelie king,” he explained to her. “Born at the same time? It is our children’s gift to us.” The faeries struggled. “They belong to us. The bargain is forfeit.”
“No!”
Malrick silenced the faery champion with a swipe of his hand before her mouth. “Born simultaneously? A clever means—”
“But an honest means,” Creed interrupted. “It was not a trick by either my wife or me. The babies did this.”
“Yes.” Malrick tilted his head. “Most clever, indeed. The bargain is forfeit. We will leave you to celebrate your new family.”
And like that, the faeries dematerialized, leaving the doctor and midwife bustling at the end of the operating table, and Creed standing with his mouth open, staring at the empty doorway. Warmth swept over the bed and swirled through Blu’s hair like a summer breeze.
And Blu cried tears of joy that no one could stop, nor did they try.
* * *
An hour later, the happy family was snuggled in a private room. Blu breastfed her son while Creed held his daughter. Moonlight spilled over Creed’s blue-black hair, his eyes on Kambriel’s tiny fingers wrapped about his littlest finger.
“You can’t stop looking at her,” she said.
He shrugged. “I don’t ever want to stop looking at them. They’re so perfect. And they’re ours.” Now he did look up to meet her eyes, and his were watery with tears. “Forever.”
The baby at her breast had fallen asleep and Blu tucked his tiny head against her chest. “Forever. That sounds so good. I can’t believe it happened that way, but I’m not going to question it too much.”
“They did it,” Creed said. “You naughty things,” he said to the babies, “trying to strangle one another. But you saved one another’s lives in the process. I love you, Kambriel.” He kissed the baby’s head.
“And Malakai, too. Come here, lover. Snuggle up next to me, and let’s have a family hug.”
Creed slid onto the bed, careful with Kambriel. It amazed Blu how at ease he was with them both, when she felt as if she were handling delicate china. She moved slowly. Creed leaned in to kiss Malakai’s soft tuft of black hair. “I think he looks like me.”
“Kinda squishy and round? Yeah, I don’t know about that. They look like gnomes. Put a pointy red hat on them, and—”
“Gnomes are related to the sidhe, dearest.”
“Oh. Nix that. They are little pups, that’s what they are.”
Someone cleared their throat, and entered the room. Blu’s heart stuttered, and she felt Creed’s arm move across the babies in protection.
The Unseelie king remained by the door, presenting an unthreatening stance with his arms open and palms facing forward. “I hope you don’t mind, but I wished to return to offer my regrets over the scene caused following their births. It was uncalled for.”
“No apologies needed,” Creed said. “We just hope to never see that faery again.”
“I’ll see to it. Though Ooghna must be granted the right to her anger.”
“Of course.”
Malrick opened his palms in offering. “May I have permission to bless the children?”
Blu met Creed’s gaze and nodded. A faery blessing could harm nothing.
Creed nodded and sat up next to Blu. Malakai and Kambriel snuggled next to one another on her stomach, bellies up and faces tilted toward one another. Kambriel’s lips moved in sucking motion and Malakai burped.
“Precious,” Malrick offered with an unconvincing smirk. He moved a hand over the babies and faery dust twinkled down upon them. “I bless you with the goodness and charm of Faery. May you grow strong and hale, wise and calm, exuberant and bright.” The faery king touched each on the forehead, leaving behind a thumbprint glitter of dust.
“Thank you,” Creed started, but with a gesture of Malrick’s hand that he was not yet finished, the vampire waited.
“You have won your freedom, clever ones,” Malrick cited, “yet should you ever dabble in Faery business, bring harm to the sidhe, or otherwise win the heart of any of my kind, you, the both of you, will suffer and Faery shall have its recompense as you must then ransom your very heart to Ooghna.”
And the Faery king dematerialized in a wisp of shimmery dust, leaving Blu and Creed looking at one another, breaths heavy and eyes worried.
Finally, Creed spread his hand over Kambriel’s head. “Don’t worry. We’ll keep them safe.”
Blu nodded, and tentatively stroked Malakai’s hair. “Yes.”
She exhaled, and felt a clench in her belly that told her nothing would ever again be the same for the family Saint-Pierre.
* * * * *
Wonder how Blu and Creed first met? Look for HER VAMPIRE HUSBAND to read about their sexy yet tumultuous beginnings.
Read how Blu and Creed’s story began in Her Vampire Husband by Michele Hauf,
available wherever ebooks are sold from HQN Books…
She may resist his bite, but she can’t resist his charms...
Werewolf princess Blu Masterson won’t allow her seductive vampire husband to consummate their marriage with his bite, marking her forever. Alone in a secluded estate with her sworn enemy, Blu curses the marriage arranged to bring their rival nations together, especially since Creed Saint-Pierre calls out to her most feral desires.
When Blu uncovers her pack’s secret plot to destroy the vampire nation—and Creed—she is forced to confront her growing feelings for her sexy undead husband. Will she choose the only life she’s ever known or accept his vampire bite?
Don’t miss the other sensual, paranormal reads from Harlequin Nocturne Cravings, available at
www.ebooks.eharlequin.com and wherever ebooks are sold. Titles include:
Dark Hunter’s Touch by Jessa Slade
Forbidden by Fate by Kristin Miller
The Darkling’s Surrender by Lauren Hawkeye
Night of the Cougar by Caridad Piñeiro
Seduced by the Vampire King by Laura Kaye
Claimed by Desire by Kristin Miller
Hot Demon Nights by Elle James
The Vampire’s Consort by Caridad Piñeiro
Looking for more paranormal romance? The sizzling and spine-chilling books of Harlequin Nocturne are available at www.Harlequin.com o
r your local bookstore.
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ISBN: 978-14592-3563-2
Moonspun
Copyright © 2012 by Michele Hauf
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