by Eva Chase
Fire was one of the few things that could kill a vamp.
Before I had to say anything, he pushed himself forward, toward Ren and toward the bonfire. My kin had drawn back in the wake of the car, leaving him a clear path. I walked just behind him, scanning their faces, offering a show of confidence to reassure them.
“We should toss him into the fire and be done with him!” someone called out, and someone else laughed.
My head snapped toward those voices. “Insult my guest and you also insult me,” I said with a growl.
There was only silence after that.
The fire crackled and snapped as Edwin approached my mate. Sparks drifted in the air near him. He winced, only a few feet away from those flames now. After another step, he sank down onto one knee with his head bowed before our dragon shifter. Aaron, Nate, and Marco stayed at her flanks, poised to protect her if need be.
But there was no need. “Dragon shifter,” the vampire said in a strained voice, “I’ve come here tonight because I want to show how committed my people are to ensuring the peace between our kinds continues—and strengthens. We’ve kept our distance out of shame and reluctance for far too long. We should be the ones to come out and meet you on your ground, to prove your forgiveness matters enough that we will lay our lives in your hands for the opportunity to receive it. Knowing what I do about what happened here and elsewhere at my people’s hands, I wouldn’t have blamed you if you had ordered me tossed into that fire. I thank you for your mercy.”
Ren stared at him, looking momentarily speechless. Then she drew up her chin. “Did you come all the way out here just to say that?”
It was haughty, but that was the attitude my kin needed to see. They needed to know she wasn’t immediately softened by his words. Pride swelled in my chest. This woman had grown into her role so well, so quickly. With the firelight washing over her, she looked every inch a queen.
“No,” Edwin said quietly. “I am merely an envoy. My king wishes to express that if you would have him, he would attend to you to make apologies in person and to discuss how we might proceed in greater harmony, in the place and at the time of your choosing.”
Ren’s eyes widened. Even I was a bit flabbergasted at that offer. The king of the vampires was lowering himself to being at the dragon shifter’s beck and call? I couldn’t think of when that had ever happened in any history I’d been taught.
But then, they’d never before had such a horrifying crime to atone for.
Ren’s voice softened in turn as she gave her reply. “I thank you and him for that offer. I’ll need some time to decide what would suit me best, but I will take him up on it. And thank you for coming to show there can be trust between us.”
Edwin eased himself to his feet. “I’ll take my leave of you, then,” he said, “and convey your thanks to my king. I have no wish to disrupt your kin’s celebration any more than I already have.”
He slipped back to the car, and I nodded to Felix. Enough tension had left me that I could watch the fox shifter drive the vampire back to his sedan without any emotion other than relief.
When the gate had closed behind them, voices rose up again, most of them falling back into the same sort of chatter as before.
“Hey!” Marco called out. “Didn’t I hear something about some glorious singing we were going to get to hear?”
A few nearby shifters laughed, and several carolers assembled by the fire. They launched into a rendition of “Silent Night,” punctuated by howls from a couple of wolves who’d shifted. Ren sidled over to me and leaned against my chest when I tucked her into my embrace.
“Well, that was definitely an unexpected present,” she said.
“But a good one, I hope?” I said.
“Yes. Very good. That is—” She looked up at me. “Do you think he really means it? The king?”
I thought about the way Edwin had talked in the car. The fact that he’d shown up here at all. “Yeah,” I said. “I do.”
A smile crossed her lips, so sweet and delicate I wished I could hold it and this moment close forever. Her hand dropped to her belly. For a minute, we just rocked gently from side to side in time with the singing. Then my mate’s shoulder tensed against me.
“What?” I said, tensing in turn.
She gazed down at herself, her hand completely still. Her fingers twitched. Her eyes shot back to me.
“She’s coming soon,” she said with a faint tremble in her voice. “I can—I can feel it. We need to leave for the dragon estate now.”
Chapter 10
Ren
West’s healers checked my pulse and my belly and down below, despite my faint protests. “I’m not having contractions yet,” I said. “It’s not happening right now. I can just tell it’ll start soon. If we leave now, we should be fine.”
But I understood why they wanted to check first. It wasn’t as if I had any desire to give birth on a plane in flight, as appropriate as that might have been in a metaphorical way. I really wasn’t in labor, though. What I felt from my daughter was a sort of hum of energy, slowly heightening, that I recognized even if I hadn’t known to expect it and didn’t know how to put it into words. As if she were gearing up for her main appearance.
“Are you sure we should risk it?” Nate asked. All four of the alphas had gathered around me in the healers’ room.
“It’s only a two-hour flight,” I said. “A couple of the healers can come along if you’re worried.” I glanced around into my mates’ nervously excited faces. I couldn’t keep a quaver from coming into my next words. “I want to be home when she comes.”
I didn’t know if it would sound silly to them. The dragon shifter estate had only been my home until I’d been five years old, and then for the last year and a half since I’d returned. And in that year and a half I’d spent more time traveling between my alphas’ estates and to other shifter settlements than actually there. But it sounded less silly than the desire that was really ringing through me, which was, I want my mother.
I couldn’t have her. I’d lost Mom years ago. But the dragon shifter estate was the only place we’d been together while we were really ourselves, no secrets, no suppressed memories. Fragments of her presence lingered in the halls and the rooms.
More than anything, I wanted that presence with me as I took this final step to becoming a mother myself.
My mates gazed back at me, their expressions softening. West looked at the others. “The jet here can leave almost immediately. The healers confirmed that she isn’t in labor yet. If this is what she needs…”
Aaron nodded. Marco brushed his hand over my hair. “Then she should have it,” he said.
Nate still looked worried, but he tipped his head in acceptance.
So a few minutes later, we hustled through the night to the landing strip. “Sleep on the plane, as much as you can,” the healer who came with us told me. “Once you do get really started, you’ll want to be as well-rested as possible.”
In the jet’s back room, I curled up on the bed with my arms cradling my belly and closed my eyes. My nerves were jumping with so much anticipation that I wasn’t sure I’d managed to drift off at all when Aaron came to wake me for the landing.
Something in my heart brightened at the sight of my estate, the windows all along the walls of that miniature castle gleaming in preparation for our arrival. One of my mates had called ahead for the staff to be ready, and they’d expected us in the morning anyway. The four alphas formed a shield against the cold wind as they ushered me into the house.
I’d just made it to my bedroom when the first contraction came, like a pinch expanding into an ache that spread across the base of my belly. My breath caught. I sat down on the edge of the massive bed.
“It’s started, has it?” said one of the healers from my own estate—a wolf shifter named Lydia whose face was lined and whose hair was slate-gray streaked with white. She’d helped my mother deliver me and my sisters, and she guided me farther up the bed with
a knowing look. “It’ll take some time before we have any real work to do. Rest as well as you can until the pains start coming close together.”
“What do you need from us?” Aaron asked me.
I swallowed hard, feeling abruptly uncertain with the unfamiliar sensations starting to rise through my body. “Just—stay with me.”
“Of course.”
They all climbed onto the bed around me, surrounding me so I could nestle between their forms. I breathed in their combined scents, my forehead resting on West’s shoulder, one hand clasped around Nate’s fingers while my other palm stayed on my belly, and right then I didn’t feel nervous at all. My daughter was coming. My mates and I were here, ready to welcome her. I was simply going to do what every dragon shifter before me had done.
Bathed in that warmth and reassurance, I did doze for a while. When I woke to dawn light streaming through the bedroom windows, it was with a sharper pinch that radiated all through my abdomen. A shiver ran through me. I waited for the next contraction to come, just a few minutes later, but I was ready for it. I could feel it. She was on her way.
My mates stirred when I sat up. “Should I call for the healers?” Aaron asked, studying my face.
“Yes,” I said. “I—” My voice hitched as I rode out another contraction. “I think it’s time.”
Marco brought me a glass of water and rubbed my lower back as I drank from it. Nate slipped out and returned in a few minutes with an orange and some toast with butter. The younger healer who’d already arrived in the room nodded approvingly.
“It’ll probably be a long day,” she told me. “Best to keep up your strength.”
I gulped down the meal I didn’t really feel hungry for as quickly as I could. In between swallows, I practiced the steady inhale-exhale the healers had taught me during the birth preparations over the last few months. A restless urge wriggled through me.
“I don’t want to just sit here.”
“Walk around,” Lydia said. “Find a good rhythm. That often helps carry you through the earlier stages.”
West had already been pacing the room. He fell into step with me as I wandered from one side of the room to the other, pausing here and there to brace myself against those deepening twinges.
“Don’t look so fretful,” I told him. “You’re not the one about to propel an entire dragon shifter out of her body.”
His tense expression broke with a chuckle. “I can’t argue with that. I’ve never been good with waiting.”
As another rush of pain shot through me, an idea sparked with it. “You can get the water running in the tub,” I said. “I think I’m going to want that pretty soon.”
He gave me a kiss and a grateful look before hurrying off to the en suite bathroom. Marco had started my phone playing the songs we’d picked out ahead of time—I’d almost forgotten about that. The sweet music of my mother’s favorite folk singer filled the room. It brought a fresh inspiration.
“Her book,” I said. “Where’s my mother’s book—the one Nate’s kin gave me?”
The bear shifter grabbed it off the side table where I must have set it down last night. “Do you want to read it now?”
I pressed my hand to my belly as another contraction rocked me and then started walking again. “I don’t know if I really can. I feel better if I keep moving. Can you read a few of the stories to me?”
He gave me that warm smile I loved and sat down on the edge of the bed, opening the book. His low voice washed over me as he read a mouse shifter’s account of seeing my mother when she’d come to the disparate estate for the first time to officially claim the alpha as her mate and be welcomed by his kin. I could almost picture her there, a younger version of the woman I remembered, telling the assembled shifters how proud she was to be the one to serve them, already preparing an even-handed resolution for some dispute.
He was on to the fifth account, from a bobcat shifter, when my legs started to wobble with the intensity of the labor. “West!” I hollered. “Is that bath ready?”
“It has been for a while,” he said from the other end of the room. I’d been so lost in the stories and keeping myself steady that I hadn’t noticed him coming back in. “Let me make sure it’s still hot enough.”
I followed him in and paced on the tiled floor while he and then Lydia adjusted the water. With their help, I clambered into the tub. The warm water closed around my body in a liquid embrace that gave an immediate relief. I sighed, leaning against the polished side of the tub.
My mates took turns sitting by the edge, stroking my hair, rubbing my shoulders. After a while, the contractions blurred together so much that I wasn’t aware of much except bracing myself for each new wave and gripping the hands that reached out to me. As the pressure inside built, my dragon’s claws started to extend from my fingertips with each rush. Scales broke out on my sides.
“Partial shifting is normal during this stage,” Lydia said, unperturbed. She made me sip some fruit juice. The other healer added more hot water to the tub. Then all at once my entire body seemed to clench from the waist down. Tears sprang to my eyes.
“I think she’s ready to come now,” I gasped out.
“We can do this in the water or out, however you feel most comfortable,” Lydia said, her voice so calm and sure that the momentary flicker of panic wisped away.
I tested my arms against the water and grimaced. “I think out.”
My mates had to support me on the way back to the bedroom, where the healers had set down sheets. The stool they’d brought looked suddenly appealing. I hunkered down on it, panting, and my mates circled me, all of them holding me up together.
The time after that was a total haze. I breathed and I pushed, and voices murmured encouragement all around me. My clawed fingers dug into the sides of the stool. A small puff of dragon fire slipped from my mouth. And then, with one last pang that echoed through every muscle, my daughter emerged into the world.
The healers fussed over her for a minute, cleaning her and whispering softly to her as she started to wail. My gaze stayed glued to that tiny form as my body shifted completely back into its human state. My heart was already swelling with even more love than I’d already had in me for this life I’d helped create.
Lydia brought my daughter to me and laid her on my chest so her little infant mouth could find its way to my breast. I cradled her, tears in my eyes, as she drank her first meal. A sprinkling of dark hair covered her round head. Her skin was so soft I was almost afraid my embrace would break her. But I could already feel strength in her too.
She wasn’t just a baby. She was a dragon shifter too. And she would be a great one. I’d be there to guide her, every step of the way.
“Have you decided on a name?” Lydia asked.
I almost laughed, hearing that question again. “Not yet. I think I want to get to know her a little bit first.” Maybe just meeting her wasn’t enough. It felt like an even bigger decision, looking at the little person I was cradling against me.
The sky had darkened outside the window. A whole day had passed while I’d been bringing this treasure into the world. With a sigh, I let my mates guide me to the bed. They settled around me again as I lay on my side, tucking our daughter close to me.
She blinked, peering around at us with squinty eyes. “Looks like she’s got Marco’s hair,” Nate said, beaming.
“Lucky for her,” Marco said, his voice just as bright. “And our eagle shifter’s eyes, it appears?”
Aaron grazed his fingers over our daughter’s back with a fond smile. “I think all babies’ eyes are blue to start out with. But we can always hope it’ll stick.”
“Because there’d be something wrong with her ending up with green ones?” West put in wryly, kissing my shoulder.
I offered my other breast to our little girl, and she turned her head away with a grunting sound. Marco started to laugh. “Clearly she got wolf boy’s attitude.”
Despite my exhaustion, I started to gig
gle. “Hey!” West protested, but then we were all laughing. In the midst of that blissful sound, our daughter snuggled closer to me and shut her eyes. I slid my arm around her protectively and relaxed my head into the pillow, waiting for sleep to take me too.
The last thing I heard was Aaron’s voice murmuring, “Merry Christmas.”
Chapter 11
Ren
The third time my daughter woke me up to feed, the sun was up outside. I’d stirred awake before she’d made much of a sound to her delicate face nuzzling at my breast. My mates were all still sleeping.
I lay there quietly for a short while, letting her have her fill. A lot of my body was still achy, but my legs itched to move. I carefully eased myself off of the bed without disturbing the guys, holding our little one against me with one arm and then the other as I tugged on a night gown. My slippers were right there waiting for me to step into. Then I picked up a blanket that had been left folded on the dresser and wrapped that around both of us.
The gleam of the sunlight called to me. I shuffled over to the glass door that led to my chamber’s balcony.
Chilly air washed over me as I eased it open. I cuddled my daughter even more carefully under the shelter of the blanket before I stepped outside. She let out a contented-sounding sigh. Her tiny hand traced over my collarbone.
My breath caught at the scene that met me. It must have snowed overnight. A white crust sparkled across the valley and the mountain slopes as far as I could see. Frost glittered on the balcony railing. We’d gotten our white Christmas after all.
My daughter tipped her head toward my other breast, and I helped her latch on. I gazed down at her for a moment before raising my head again.
“This is your home,” I told her quietly. “It was mine too, when I was your age, and your grandmother’s and your great grandmother’s before me, going so far back I can’t even count. No one will ever be able to take that away from you. I promise.”
