“Probably.” If he ripped her baby away from her, I'd kill him, then make it as right as I could with her.
“Our moms were pressuring us to have kids. Stephen was an accident when I was a teenager, though Supay children are never considered accidents. Like I said, it's expected.”
“And?”
Elias gave me a squeeze. “He found a human surrogate, Riley.”
What the hell?“Is that even an option?”
“No,” Anthony said. “It was her egg, my sperm. I paid her handsomely, but I got in a lot of trouble. They were going to imprison me for five years to pay for my crime of involving a human. She had no idea we were anything other than human.”
“Why didn't they imprison you?” Axoular asked, enthralled in the story. He had to wait a few minutes for his answer, as a contraction ripped through me again. Axo checked his phone as I groaned my way through it. “Five minutes apart.”
“That's surprising,” I said. “This early in labor I should be more like ten, based on how I progressed with David and Daniel.” Once I caught my breath I turned back to Anthony. “So, why didn't they imprison you?”
“Because she was a girl. Once they determined a human had a girl, they wanted to try it again.”
“But sperm decides the sex of the baby,” I said. “Surely they know that.”
“They do,” Elias said. “But we're magical creatures.” He rubbed my stomach. “They follow even the most ridiculous leads when it comes to increasing the female Supay population. There are still quite a few pureblood Supay women out there, but they're aging. Many of them are past the childbearing years, and fewer and fewer girls are born every day.”
“Did anything come of it?” I asked.
“No. They hired twenty human surrogates across the world. They had three girls and seventeen boys. They did it again early last year with thirty surrogates and had two girls and twenty-eight boys.”
“Well, it's a good way to help drive up the numbers of kids if the dads are willing, but it seems a shame to deprive all those kids of mothers,” I said. “Those poor babies won't ever know the women that gave them life.”
“Our lives aren't always easy. They’ll know plenty of love. We cherish our children,” Elias said. “In any case, there weren't that many men willing to do it that way, so the program was scrapped.”
“Tell me about Stephen's mom.”
Anthony described how she became pregnant. They were childhood sweethearts and dated off and on into adulthood. She had no interest in their plan to find a woman that wanted to marry all three of them, and Elias and Michael weren't that fond of her anyway, so they parted ways.
I sucked in a sharp breath when the next contraction hit. It came on fast and hard. I tried to breathe and count through it, but the pain was too intense.
Axoular checked his phone. “Four minutes.”
“What are births like on Galdiart, Axoular?” I asked once the pain was gone.
“Scary.” He lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. “When I was born, my mother had me in a hospital with modern technology and life-saving techniques. Very few women died in—or as a result of—childbirth.”
Axoular paused when he saw me wiggle as a gush of fluid leaked out onto the pad under me. “I'm leaking fluid, and it feels weird.” I smiled and shrugged. “Sorry.”
“Don't be sorry. I'm thankful to be a part of this,” he replied.
Elias nuzzled my neck. “We want to hear everything you feel and go through. We're here with you for this.”
“Go on, please,” I told Axoular.
“After the war, there were so few doctors and no electricity. In our camp, we had two doctors, and neither were birthing specialists.”
“Oh, no,” I said. “Is anyone there currently pregnant? I didn't even think to ask that. Just wanted to get out the families with kids first.”
“No, the only one that was pregnant already had an older child and came over already with her husband,” Elias said. “I helped move them.”
Some savior I was. I'd handed the responsibility straight over to Elias and Anthony and focused on my own pregnancy. “I'm sorry. I should've been more involved.”
“Riley, this pregnancy has been really hard on you. Was it this difficult with the boys?”
