“Are you certain you don’t want an epidural?” Dr. Collins asked her.
Tamsin shook her head. “I can do this.” She met Dewi’s gaze. “And I know Dewi and everyone can help me, too.”
“Don’t be a martyr,” Dewi teased. “Shifters use painkillers when needed, too.”
“I’m all right.” The contraction ended and Tamsin straightened on the ball, stretching her back. “I know I can do this.” She offered Dewi a smile. “Apologies about the early wakeup, but Rupert and Maisie were both night owls.”
Elaine tearfully laughed. “Yes, that’s right, they were.” She sniffled. “They came in the middle of the night, too.”
For the next several hours, Tamsin made progress while Dewi, Brianna, Nami, and even Badger and Duncan took turns with her. When it came time for the final push, it was Brianna and Dewi flanking her, Dewi sending her energy and helping dull the pain until, finally, a tiny but strong cry filled the room.
Tamsin collapsed on the bed while Nami moved in to help the doctor.
“Congratulations, Tamsin,” the doctor said. “She looks perfect.”
Tamsin started sobbing while Brianna and Dewi held her. The sound nearly broke Dewi’s heart, because she remembered how Tamsin had screamed in anguish on Christmas when she’d unwrapped the present Trevor and Elaine had sent her, a little stuffed bear with a voice box in its paw and recordings of Rupert and Maisie’s voices on it, as well as little T-shirts made from their clothes, still smelling like them.
Dewi heard a chorus of joyful howls in the living room as word was passed to them.
“Would you like to snip the cord, Tamsin?” the doctor asked.
“Dewi, if you please?” she asked.
“Of course.” She did, and the doctor laid her on Tamsin’s chest while he finished what he had to do. Nami brought the tablet over so a tearful Trevor and Elaine could see Tamsin and the baby, and while they were doing that Dewi eased herself out of the bedroom and into the hall.
Duncan stood in her line of sight and with a head-tip she motioned for him.
He joined her and she reached for his arm to send him a silent thought.“I think she’ll need you or Badger with her, now that it’s sinking in.”
“You’re probably right. And we’d rather you not be absorbing that much grief with you pregnant, too.”He walked into the room while Dewi retreated down the hall and out the back door onto the lanai. At some point Joaquin and Malyah had arrived, too, but Dewi didn’t want to talk to anyone just yet.
She needed to…breathe.
Space.
Dewi lowered herself into one of their chairs and stared up at the early morning sky. It wasn’t fair that Tamsin had to endure that without Maisie and Rupert. Or, at the very least, without Trevor and Elaine at her side.
She’d pulled out her phone and was about to text Peyton with the latest when she faintly heard Tamsin’s anguished howls start, mournful, keening wails for Maisie and Rupert.
Dewi closed her eyes, trying to hold back her own tears. She herself was the yang to that yin; her parents celebrating her birth while she spent her entire life mourning their deaths.
When she heard the sliders open behind her she knew it was Ken and didn’t turn even as the volume of the howls raised and then dropped again with the closing of the door. He walked over, standing behind her, leaning in to wrap his arms around her.
“Badger went down there to help him,” he said. “They’re going to let her cry it out for a while and then give her a helping nudge to focus on the baby if she doesn’t seem like she’s going to pull out of it on her own.”
Dewi held on to his arms, nodding, the tears finally slipping down her cheeks.
It was gut-wrenching, knowing she couldn’tdoanything to make this right for Tamsin. Even bringing her father’s head to her would be cold comfort, not recompense.
He rubbed his chin in her hair. “Are you all right, sweetheart?”
“Mom and Dad should be here,” she whispered without thinking.
He softly sighed, kissing the top of her head. “I know.”
“Yourmom and dad should be here,” she added.
“I know, baby.”
