“TARIK!” Azoth screeched, rushing over to him.
Tarik sprang upright, rushing to greet his other half. They embraced, intertwining, tails curling into places Luc didn’t need to see.
He ignored them and concentrated on Oren, who was looking around him in fascination.
There were multiple clutches of eggs scattered in the cavern, but it took a long time for demons to be ready for hatching, sometimes years. Because of that, they were inspected routinely for any early signs and moved to the hatching area accordingly. There were only three eggs that had been ready at the last check, and they were sitting in a tidy circle on a molten base that glowed orange.
“Can I get closer?” Oren asked, looking at him with hopeful eyes.
Luc raised a brow at the irregular shapes of the eggs. “If you want to.”
Oren let out a squeak of happiness, rushing over and kneeling down in front of them. Luc followed him, smiling and shaking his head.
“They’re moving!” Oren gasped in amazement.
“They’re trying to hatch,” Luc said.
“They’ve been doing that for two hours,” Tarik grumbled, stroking through Azoth’s hair and nuzzling his neck.
“That’s why I came to get you,” Azoth lied to Oren, arching into the touches. “So you could see the miracle of life for yourself.”
“Oh, that’s so sweet!” Oren said, and Luc bit his tongue from refuting it when Oren looked up at him. “Can I touch them?”
“Go ahead. You can’t hurt them.”
Oren reached out for one and held the egg in the cradle of his arms like it was the most precious thing he had ever seen. He ran his palms over the rough, spiky surface, the shell pulsing slightly as more and more cracks appeared in it. It was leakingonto Oren’s slacks, but the little human didn’t seem to care one bit. He was leaning down over the egg, cooing at it.
“You can do it, little one,” he said. “Just push really hard and you’ll be right here with us. We can’t wait to meet you.”
They had hatched billions of eggs in their time in Hell, and Luc, while proud and excited for their new demons, didn’t think any had ever had the treatment these particular eggs would be getting.
Oren called out of the cavern at passing demons and ordered them to grab blankets. He cornered Jek and sent him to the living world to get baby clothes and dispatched the rest to find suitable spaces for cribs and nests he’d be building for the hatchlings.
The demons tried explaining, rather patiently, that the hatchlings didn’t need any of it, but Oren fixed them all with a glare that had them scurrying away at the speed of light.
Nobody consulted Luc on any of it. Nobody even looked at him as they dispersed to do Oren’s bidding.
Luc found he didn’t care at all.
“You’ll be so happy here.” Oren kept talking to the egg. “I’m Oren, and I’ll be your uncle. You can come to me for anything, at all times. I can’t really demon all that well because I’m a dead human, but I can help with a lot of other stuff.”
The egg vibrated in his hold, a clear sign it was seconds from breaking completely.
“Did you see that?” Oren said, looking up at Luc. His eyes were almost glowing, and the smile on his face was rivaling the fires, it was so bright. “It totally recognizes my voice.”
“Sure, hon,” Luc said, not having the heart to tell him most demons hatched deaf and blind and stayed that way for the first couple of days.
“Come on!” Oren said, facing the egg again. “You’re almost here. Your uncle Luc is here too, and your uncles Tarik and Azoth are super excited to meet you.”
“No, we’re not,” the twins said in unison.
“Not interested,” Tarik said.
“Leave us out of it,” Azoth added, gluing himself tighter to his twin.
“They’re just joking,” Oren said. “Don’t listen to them. You’ll be safe and loved here. Just come out.”
The egg shook harder, then split down the middle, the shell falling off in Oren’s lap, leaving him with a handful of bright red-and-yellow tentacles. There was an eye on the tip of each one, and the hatchling had a small, stone-like gray body with limbs that looked too heavy to move.
