Page 96 of Feast

Ika breathed through the end of a contraction and steeled herself for the next one, which she knew was coming a moment later. Muk was there with a small wooden bowl of cool water, and Ika managed a quick sip before the next contraction turned wrenched her insides.

She had never experienced pain like this, and it was growing more intense by the moment.

Then something shifted inside of her. The weight of her baby had dropped lower in her pelvis. Ika felt an overwhelming urge to push. She grunted, bearing down as she used her inner muscles to shove the baby out of her.

“Don’t forget to breathe,” Alyx reminded her. The woman was positioned between Ika’s open legs. Ika was grateful the expert on bringing infants into the world was a woman, because her possessive ukkur mates would never have allowed a male to be in that position.

Ika did the breathing exercises that Alyx had taught her the night before, then tensed and pushed again.

“Good,” Alyx said. “Keep it up, Ika. Keep pushing.”

Ika breathed and shoved harder. The pressure down below was so intense that it felt as though she were being ripped apart. She grunted through her pain and squeezed hard on Gunnar’s and Slaine’s hands as she pushed again and again.

Then she felt her hole spreading and stretching far beyond anything she had experienced before, and she let out a loud scream.

“Gods!” she cried out. “Gods, it hurts!”

“I know,” Alyx said in her reassuring voice. “Don’t give up, Ika. You are almost there. The baby’s head is starting to come through.”

Gunnar leaned over to take a peek between her open legs, and his eyes widened with amazement.

“Gods…”

Ika screamed again as the burning pain around her hole intensified.

“Be strong, Ika,” Thusar purred. “Keep pushing. Keep pushing.”

“I am pushing, gods rot your eyes!”

On any other day, Ika knew that speaking so disrespectfully to her pack leader would warrant a sound thrashing of her hindquarters. But today she got a free pass. Thusar held her in his arms and purred at her ear to soothe her.

“The baby is almost out,” Alyx called. “Just one more good push, Ika. Come on, you can do it!”

Ika sucked in a deep breath, then she bore down hard and pushed with all of her strength.

Out. I need this baby out of me…right rotting now!

Suddenly the intense pressure and pain between her legs was replaced by a sensation of emptiness and relief. Ika slumped back into Thusar’s muscled body, panting and sweating and limp with exhaustion.

“She did it,” Gunnar muttered. “Ika, you did it! Look!”

Ika didn’t look at first. She felt so tired that all she wanted to do was just fall asleep right then and there in Thusar’s lap. But then the sudden, sharp wailing of a tiny voice snapped her eyes open. Between her legs, Alyx was holding the tiniest little ukkur Ika had yet seen.

She could hardly believe it. Everything was just as Rolf had described it in his story. There was a little tube connected to the baby’s belly, and its skin was slippery from being inside of Ika. A moment later, one last bit of mushy stuff fell from Ika’s hole connected to the other end of that tube.

“Is it a boy or a girl?” Ika asked weakly, using the Earth words she had learned from Alyx the night before since her own language had no words for such things.

“It’s a girl,” Alyx said with a smile.

Muk helped Alyx cleanse the newborn with warm water and clean rags. Alyx then removed the belly tube and the other weird stuff attached to the end and gave that to Muk to dispose of. Then she brought the little squirming, crying baby to Ika and placed the child in her arms. Right away, the baby got quiet.

The four ukkur gathered around to admire their new daughter.

“She’s so beautiful,” Gunnar said.

“Beau-ti-ful,” Slaine agreed, gently petting the baby’s head.

“What are we going to name her?” Muk asked.