There went my everything. Before Lero answered my knock I didn’t know it was possible to miss someone when they went into another room. I didn’t know that you could love someone so much that you ached deep inside to think about it. That you couldn’t stop thinking about them and you didn’t want to.
“That’s why we did all the magic in the Other World to be true-mates,” Lero chuckled, picking up my thoughts over the mating link as he walked back into the bedroom. “Leftover pie for breakfast?”
“If you want or you could start with that I can cook up something with protein.”
“Pecans have protein,” he shrugged, “but I won’t say no to a steak either.”
“Maybe some eggs? Some potatoes? Gravy?”
“If you want to wash dishes too,” Lero yawned and stretched.
Raising his arm above his head, showed off his big pregnant belly. Inside him, Urso kicked, visibly moving Lero’s flesh.
“Sheesh! Calm down, cub,” Lero laughed. “Just because you heard the word pie doesn’t mean you have to get so bossy.”
And that was our life that last month of Lero’s pregnancy. Good food, good company, and lots of getting kicked by our firstborn who was yet to gain his title by being born.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Lero
Nightshade Bear Territory
Some carriers take to bed the last days of their pregnancy but each morning I woke up with an urgency to do things. Things around the house. Make things. Cook things. Sew and update the shop. Pile all the pillows around the edges of the bed so I could crawl under it and hide. Then I remembered how Vallis was afraid of closed in spaces so I tried to pick them all up but managed to get two before I had to give up and take a nap. Then I woke up and sewed a dozen baby blankets at my machine and little outfits. I made shirts for wolves and bears and a pair of socks that had little bells around the cuffs.
And I ate.
And ate.
And ate some more. Food consumed my thoughts every time my baby moved. Had I eaten enough to give him a fair shake of things? Had he gotten what he needed from my body? All the healers said that he was healthy and he kicked enough that I was pretty sure he’d come out of the birth canal and open up his own kickboxing studio but still I wondered.
I listened to podcasts about milk production and birth plans. I had one but had I put enough thought into it? Enough details? I was going the path of the least amount of intervention. My grandsire would be on standby with IV pain meds if I needed them. I’d accept an IV if I was getting dehydrated. No, I didn’t want people poking around every few minutes to see how far dilated I was. I might shift into a bear if the need came over me and I’d have the baby at home because we’d spent enough time in the hospital while Vallis was recovering. I wanted him there with me the whole time. No one was allowed to send him away. If by an anti-miracle, I needed a c-section, they couldn’t send him away then either. They were to robe him up and keep him by my side.
With everything going on, it wasn’t any surprise that my baby waited until three days after his due date to start his journey. It was a little past three in the morning and I was still up sewing a fuzzy sweater for a sloth shifter who lived on Hemlock Mountain. He was pregnant with his tenth child and his alpha wanted to get him a little surprise gift. I was nearly finished when I pissed myself. Only it came out on the wrong side of things. I kept sewing until I finished the hem of the sweater because everyone knew that first babies took forever, right? So, why hurry to let everyone know? Labor took a while. Once I finished the sweater, I sent Grandpa a text and waddled into the bedroom to change into the soft cotton robe I’d made just for today.
“Mate?” Vallis sat up and leapt from bed a second later. “Are you okay? Of course not! I left you up alone and now –”
I put my hand over his mouth so I could get a word in edgewise.
“Of course, I’m okay. My water broke. It’s not an emergency. At this point, not having a baby feels more like an emergency. I sent Grandpa a text. I need help cleaning up the sewing room. I was working because my back hurt too much to sleep. I finished the sloth’s order. It needs to go out in the morning. I’ll have Grain package it up and take it---”
“Mate,” Vallis pulled away from my hand. “This isn’t the time to think about work! The baby is coming!”
I swayed on the spot, grabbing onto his arm as I rocked out a short contraction. I’d witnessed enough babies being born that every bit of panic I expected to rumble through me disappeared. My body knew what to do and unless it encountered something unusual it would do its job no matter what I thought or talked about. Still, worry creased Vallis’s brow.
“Mate, people have been having babies since before we kept records of it happening,” I said. “It’s okay. That was a contraction. A little one. Things will look a lot more scary before the baby comes. If it’s too much—”
“No,” he shook his head. “My instincts say to get you into bed and---”
“No,” I shook my head at him this time. “Unless I’m bleeding to death or about to be eaten, your instincts aren’t the important ones here. I love you, but this is me going through it. Moving during labor is not only instinctual but recommended.”
“Sorry, I didn’t meant to be a cave-al—”
“It’s okay,” I cut him off again. “Look, I know we talked about it beforehand, but sires always freak out the first few times. I’m just drawing a line in the sand now because I’ve seenwhat happens when carriers don’t. Someone gets bit and let’s just say it won’t be me losing a chunk of flesh in the moment and I don’t want to do that to you.”
Vallis nodded and took a deep breath. My bear rambled on about how alphas think they know everything about labor but can’t feel what we feel even if they paid attention to the mating links they had.
“Are you mad at me?” I asked when he didn’t say anything for several long seconds.
