“Again,” I bark and Laken bears down hard. Coop is whispering something into her ear and she nods, bearing down one more time just as the shoulders pop out.
“Now,” Ezrina calls out, but I didn’t need her to.
Instinct takes over and I clasp my fingers around the tiny arms and pull the sweet angel into this world. I hold the baby up and find myself staring right at the goods.
“It’s a boy!” I shout and the room erupts in cheers as her sisters rush in, her brother and her mother land by her side, every face wet with tears, including my own.
Ezrina quickly clears the passages and rubs the baby down as he squirms and cries, the bleating of a little lamb. She quickly swaddles him in a blanket and hands him my way.
“This one is yours, undisputed,” she whispers with a wink.
And sure enough, I’m looking at my twin, even more so than Eli. This one is me through and through. I can see my future right there in his eyes, and I’m in love, so deep, so gone. There is no feeling like looking your child in the eyes for the very first time. And I vow at this moment to love all of my children equally. I know what it’s like to have a father favor one son over the other. That won’t be me. My heart has just exploded to new heights, and I will love them all with the same ferocity. This little one has just etched himself over my soul just like the others.
“Wesley”—Laken pants—“don’t be greedy.”
Fletch tips his chin up. “Don’t be too hard on him. That’s his MO.”
The room breaks out with warm laughter as I lay our son into his mother’s arms for the very first time. He blinks up at her as his dimples dig in and out in an adorable fashion.
Holy hell, he is perfect.
“What’s his name?” Her sister Lacey leans in hard with Cooper’s little sister, Marney, by her side. They’re both in high school now, all grown up and beautiful in their own right.
Laken lifts her tear-filled eyes to mine. “His name is Wesley.” She nods and my entire body explodes with love for this woman, for this moment, for our perfect, perfect son. “Wesley Cooper Edinger.” She gives a tiny shrug my way.
Shit.
I swallow hard and nod back. There’s no way I’m protesting this one.
Marney jumps up and down as she hugs her brother. “She still loves you, Coop. I knew it!”
I knew it, too.
The crowd clears out, and Ezrina offers to come back in the morning for a wellness check. She and her husband, Paragon Lurch, hightail it out with their medieval equipment and the bucket filled with afterbirth. Skyla congratulates us both, even kisses me on the cheek in a genuine show of affection. Fletch comes up and hugs me hard.
“I miss you, man. I’m moving to Paragon next winter. I miss everything and I want it all back.”
I examine this male version of the woman I love. This is the boy I grew up with in Cider Plains, the one the Counts saw fit to kill right along with me. The one who stood by my side at Ephemeral.
“I can’t wait. It’s going to be better than before. I promise.”
“It better be.” He mock shoots me as he heads on out.
And finally, Coop pulls me in for a hearty embrace and I embrace him right back. It feels right, emotional, as if he were a part of the family, after all. Once way back in a different time, a different day, he was my very best friend.
Coop takes off and it’s Laken, little Wes, and me. We hold onto each other as if there was a hurricane about to burst into the room and blow us apart.
And a part of me wonders if there is.
Wesley Cooper Edinger.
Now that, I did not expect.
25
The Sacrifice
Skyla
