I feel Az stiffen behind me. “What?”
“If you gave her a portion of your power,” Syrin continues, “then she could maybe charge it the same way you do. Feed on you.”
“I can't feel lust right now,” Az replies, sounding completely bewildered and a little disgusted. “Not even distantly. My consort is?—”
“Not lust,” Syrin says. “Love, Asmodai. Try love.”
I feel his exhale against the back of my neck. “Fuck,” he groans under his breath. “Alright.”
It only takes a few seconds before I feel a trickle of… something. It's small and tentative at first, but then warmth starts seeping into me, seemingly coming from everywhere my body touches his.
The cold recedes, inch by inch. The drain on my energy doesn't stop, but now something shores it up. It feels nourishing, invigorating. It feels like Az.
“Az,” I breathe.
“I'm here.” His voice sounds strained, and I can't tell if it's from effort or emotion. “I'm right here, little fairy.”
The angels work in silence around me. I feel pressure, but next to no pain anymore. They've numbed me to most of it, the ether moving through my body, lifting the worst of it away.
My eyelids are so heavy, I can barely keep my eyes open.
“Stay with me,” Az says, his voice low and fierce. “Simone, stay with me.”
“I'm not going anywhere,” I mumble.
“Good.” His arms tighten. “Because we have the rest of eternity together.”
The room tilts again.
I let my eyes close.
Time moves strangely. It might be minutes, or it might be hours. There's light behind my eyelids, golden and shifting, and the quiet, careful sounds of the angels working, and Az's heartbeat, and the warmth that keeps coming from him in slow waves as he feeds me, and Ijust… float.
Somewhere at the edge of awareness, I feel the pressure change. There's a release, a loosening, the drain on my energy suddenly stopping.
Az's arm goes rigid around my shoulders as I hold my breath, the silence horrible.
Then there's a cry, and my whole body shakes with relief.
“A boy,” Daniel says, his voice rough with relief.
The sob that tears out of me has been building since the moment I saw the blood on the sheets. Or maybe longer. Maybe since a hospital in France with a beeping heart monitor and a baby that never got to cry.
“Little fairy,” Az breathes, so much emotion in his voice.
“I know,” I manage. “I know.”
Something warm and so very light is placed in my arms, and I look down.
He's wrinkled and red and gooey and perfect. His face is scrunched tight, his fists clenched like he's ready to punch someone for taking him out of the warm place he was nestled in. He has dark hair, just a dusting of it, and barely visible at his temples are two tiny, smooth nubs.
His eyes find my face, and he stops crying.
“Leander,” I whisper.
Az leans forward, looking over my shoulder at his son. I can feel it when he stops breathing, his whole body going completely still.
“Incredible,”he says. That’s all. It’s everything.
