Blaze wiped the cloth over my head. “You’re doing so well.”
As the next contraction hit, I wanted to take the cloth and smack him with it. The torment lasted so long. I pushed and pushed, but the egg wouldn’t come out. The distress left my body exhausted and I didn’t know if I had it in me to get it out.
“One more.” Garret gave me another ice cube. “One more and your egg will be out. I’m going to push on your stomach with his one. Help you out.”
I recoiled. “No. I don’t want the egg to crack.”
He shook his head. “It won’t. I promise you. Before I moved here to be with Loubaneau and start a family, I was a midwife back in Hawthorn. I’ve helped deliver many eggs. I know you can do this, and we’re going to get this egg out of you.”
I nodded, not quite confident in his words, but I didn’t know how much more I could take.
Another spasm. More torture. As Garret pushed on my belly, guiding the top of the egg, my opening expanded, burning with the stretch.
“You’ve got this.” Blaze kissed my forehead. “Almost there.”
Except I felt like my whole body was going to rip apart. I wanted to scream.
Pop!
My egg tumbled out between my legs. The pain subsided, but it didn’t stop. At that point, I was focused on other things. I reached for my egg and pulled it to my chest. I’d done it. I laid another egg. I was going to sit on it and hatch it as I’d done with Kirin, but this time, I would have a mate to raise the baby with me, and a community of dragons and other shifters to help along the way.
Chapter Twenty
Blaze
“I’m home.” As I entered the front door, I found it strange that I didn’t see Kirin watching some show on television or hear him playing with his toys downstairs. Instead, I was met with silence. The living room was dark and only the light over the kitchen sink was on. Though I was sure I’d seen the light on in the egg room when I’d pulled into the driveway.
After taking off my shoes and hanging up my coat, I tiptoed through the living room and down the hallway. The light was indeed on in the egg room, but I couldn’t hear anyone inside.
Had something happened? Was there an emergency and they’d had to leave right away? Surely, I would have heard about it at work. Maybe something worse happened. Perhaps the community wasn’t as trustworthy as I wanted to believe.
As I peeked around the corner, I saw Ladon and Kirin on either side of the egg, staring at it.
“What’s going on?”
“Shhh,” they both hushed me while my mate waved me over.
Ladon pointed to a crack near the top of the shell. “It happened as soon as Kirin got home from school. Like this baby is anxious to meet its big brother.”
I wrapped my arms around my mate from behind and kissed his cheek. “Well, I’m anxious to meet our baby, too.”
The egg shook.
I held my breath, understanding why they were both so quiet when I came home.
Another fracture formed, meeting the first one.
Then a peep sounded from within.
Ladon ran his hand over the egg. “Come out, little one. Come out and meet your family.”
More peeps. The egg rocked a bit. A bang from within. Then there was a hole.
It was tiny, but enough for the hatchling to dig its egg tooth into and make its way out.
I wanted to help it, open the egg up and see my child, but every dragon shifter I knew told me to let it come out on its own, that it needed that fight and that knowledge. Not for its human form but for the dragon side.
“Blankets,” I whispered, remembering that we’d need to wrap our baby once it made its first shift. “Where are the blankets?”
