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She drops a hand to her expanding belly, frightened eyes coming to me.
“First comes love,” my father sing-songs, “then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
LAYDEN
Present Day
Phoenix looks bewildered and horrified as she clutches her quickly expanding stomach with two hands now. “I can feel something moving. Oh god, Layden—”
I reach out and clutch her hand, not knowing what else to do. We’ve seen accelerated pregnancies in my brothers and their wives before, but nothing like this. Then again, their wives were normal human women. We never knew what might happen if two spirit beings from other realms made it here and tried to procreate. Not to mention whatever magic our fathers have conjured in this circle by their evil, infernal sacrifice.
Phoenix’s eyes squeeze shut, and her head tips back. “Oh god, Layden. I think the baby’s coming.”
My eyes fly wide. Baby? I look toward my father, but he’s still just standing there, grinning in satisfaction like a cat that just got the cream. Son of a bitch!
“It’s okay, we’re okay,” I tell Phoenix because I don’t know what else to do at this point other than lie.
“Layden,” she screams, her legs falling open.
Fuck, fuck! Am I about to deliver a baby? I move between her legs, and holy shit, I see a head crowning. A large head.
“Push,” I say for lack of any other ideas. If the baby keeps growing, it might get too big for her to push out. “Push now!”
Phoenix screams, and her hands clench in the blanket as she starts to push. Blood pounds in my ears as I reach forward to catch my child only minutes after procreating them. This is a mind-fuck if ever there was one.
The head comes out, face down. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing. I just know I can see the hair on the kid’s head actively growing from peach fuzz to a downy brown. “Push!” I order, reaching out so I can catch the shoulders after Phoenix screams and bears down again.
The kid almost slips out, but I catch him. Him. “It’s a boy!” I cry, tears in my throat as I look down at my son, perfect little black wings nestled against his back.
“Layden,” Phoenix reaches down and grabs my shoulder. “Layden!”
“What?” I look up at her and lift the baby to her chest. She takes him, then starts shaking her head.
“There’s another one.”
Oh fuck. I look around us. Both Vlad and my father hold out their hands to take my newborn son from me, but I hold him in my arm, gook and all.
“Okay,” I say, trying to hold all my freaking out on the inside. “Okay! Now we know what to do.”
Phoenix screams louder than I’ve ever heard anybody scream as our second son is born into this world, covered in blood and goo and also so completely perfect.
My first son has started crying. Loudly. I lay the second on Phoenix’s chest and am about to move up to her side so I can sit behind her back while she cuddles both our newborns who are still growing, now fat cherubic babies. Children. I have children. I can hardly believe it, but there’s no time to really take in all the emotions I’m feeling. Especially when Phoenix’s eyes fly up to mine, tears squeezing out.
“Oh god, Layden, it’s not over.”
Fucking fuckity fuck my whole fucking life—
Her face contorts in pain, and she clutches our one crying sons to her breasts as I drop down again between her legs, where, indeed, a third head is crowning.
“I can’t,” Phoenix cries. “I can’t do it.”
“Yes, you can,” I say with determination, even though I’m terrified because the two babies that are out have already grown so much. “Push now. Don’t wait. You’ve got this. You’re a badass goddess who can give birth to this last baby because there’s nothing in the world you can’t do. I believe in you. I love you. You’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met and—”
Her animalistic scream breaks off my stream of encouragement. I reach down and catch our daughter, who, unlike her brothers, has snow-white wings.
Phoenix collapses back after passing the placenta, and I pull out the pocketknife I always keep on my belt to cut each child’s cord. Our firstborn has continued to grow and looks like he’s a toddler at this point. I use the pocketknife to cut swaths from the blanket where it’s still clean to wrap around each child’s shoulder like a long, hanging toga with room for expansion, especially considering how fast they’re growing.
