“Hurry,” I yelled at Rakesha. “It's blue! It's not breathing.” I pushed with all my might, and it slid out into Rakesha's arms, skin a light blue color and hair dark brown and wet.
Cindy reached over and sucked the fluids out of the baby's nose and mouth with a bulb. Rakesha held her arms out, and I saw my daughter suck in her first breath, but her blue skin tone didn't fade. She wasn't blue from lack of oxygen. She was just blue.
I fell back on my butt onto the floor. “Twins.” I reached for her and Rakesha placed my daughter in my arms. She blinked her violet eyes at me twice before closing them when I wrapped a towel around her. I looked up at my husbands, Axoular, Rakesha, and Cindy. “Twins,” I said before I began to laugh.
My laughter turned to tears and I was lifted onto the bed, mess, and all, and hugged in more arms than would fit around me. Cindy placed Michael in my arms and the guys passed the baby girl around, cooing over her beautiful skin tone and amazing eyes.
“I think they have two different dads,” Axoular whispered.
I stared at my babies, as different as night and day, and nodded. “I think that's very likely the case.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
RILEY
“We still haven't named her.” My little blue girl nursed, but she wasn't taking to it as easily as Michael did. She’d already made my nipples sore, but I knew they would get better, slowly. “We could be like the celebrities and name her Blue.” All three of them gave me a blank stare. “Never mind. Turn on a TV once in a while,” I chided.
“Linna,” Axoular said, looking at his phone.
I looked down at her fragile, perfect blue skin. “What does it mean?”
“A small blue flower.”
“She is definitely a small blue flower.” I kissed her head. “Hello, Linna.”
She had tiny spots on her palm that I assumed would eventually grow into the spike that would kill people so she could take on their identity. “I'll teach you to be good, and not kill people.” She gurgled on my breast. “I'll take that to mean she looks forward to being a good person.”
Elias chuckled. “Of course she will be. She's ours.”
***
Our days fell into a routine. They helped with the babies. I quickly discovered I couldn't produce enough milk to keep up with both of them, so I pumped every two hours and we supplemented with formula the guys bought in town. The kids got back to their schooling, then in the afternoons spent time playing or swimming. Most of the boys loved the babies, but David, and both girls, were absolutely infatuated with them. We had to force them to leave the babies and go eat dinner most nights.
After a few weeks, I started joining the guys in the gym to get back into my best fighting shape. I knew I'd need my strength.
It was slow going. My body had been through a lot. My hips hurt every day, and I'd been so easily tired when pregnant that I hadn't done anything truly strenuous since we came home from Bolivia the first time.
Several more weeks passed, and my strength returned steadily. Elias had been right. What would've taken months as a human only took about six weeks as a Sárkány. I felt like myself again.
The twins had grown at ridiculous rates. They already filled out their three-month clothes that I'd ordered online and had delivered to a PO Box for the guys to pick up. I hadn't had to leave the house once, with the Healer coming to see me at the house.
The Junta had heard nothing, nor had their Leyak contact, Ross. Dumadi was in the wind.
Tammy wanted to return home, but I was scared to move the kids. If he got ahold of any of them, they could be used as leverage against me. And if he ever found out I'd had a Leyak baby he'd stop at nothing.
Axoular was cooking dinner for our entire brood, and I sat at the table, the eight-week-old twins sleeping in a portable bed beside me. They didn't sleep well if they were separated, and I had to leave them together whenever possible.
“We need to make a move,” I said. “I'm strong again. We've been working on increasing my stamina with my fire, and all the time in the gym. It's time.”
He shook his head as he chopped peppers to put in the spaghetti. “Not yet. They're looking for Dumadi and they'll find him eventually.”
“You were the one that wanted to go in guns blazing. What happened?” He'd been on my side before, ready to end this.
“The twins were born. I've never seen children be born, much less children I'm growing to think of as my own.” He'd really taken to fatherhood and loved to feed them and take care of them. They loved him back and cooed every time they saw him.
Maybe I was jumping the gun, setting him up to be one of the fathers of my children when we hadn't even slept together, but it felt right. He was a part of our family now. He'd even taken to sleeping in bed with us, though Elias and Anthony still hadn't slept beside him. They were like brothers, and he was still just a friend. A good friend, but a friend all the same.
Anthony walked in with Jaime, Charlie, and Kohbi hanging off of his arms like little monkeys. “I've got some hungry munchkins here,” he said before giving me a slow kiss. He didn't know it yet, but I was ready to get back in the sack again. They hadn't pressured me and were waiting for me to set the pace. I was ready to set a daunting pace.
