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Not his world.
She wasn’t leaving him like this.
Peeling his fingers away from hers, his hands wrapped onto either side of her face as her scream faded. “Stay with me, Juliet. Stay with me. What’s wrong? We’ll fix it. I swear we’ll fix it. Stay with me.”
She sucked in a hysterical breath. “It—it hasn’t stopped. Why hasn’t it stopped? Evan—why hasn’t it stopped?” Her eyes went wild, searching past Evan for the midwife, terror leaching into her words. “Where is my babe? I want to see my babe. Please let me see her. Please.”
The midwife, a stout older woman with hands that could crack walnuts, turned back to Juliet, her hands clamping onto Juliet’s ankles, her voice even. “You’re not done yet, child.”
“Not done?” Juliet’s voice pitched into a scream. “I’m done. The babe is out.”
“Ye have another one cresting.”
Evan froze, staring at the top of the white cap on the midwife’s head as she bent over. “Another one?” His voice thundered into the room.
“Another one. Ripe for making an appearance.” The midwife didn’t look up, her hands busy. “Push now. Push, m’lady.”
Evan grabbed Juliet’s hand again just as a growling roar rumbled from her chest and her whole body curled up, shaking with the first push.
“Don’t stop. Don’t stop,” the midwife barked.
Juliet fell back against the bed.
Excruciating, the whole of it. The pain that Evan saw rolling through Juliet’s body.
He couldn’t lose her like this.
He couldn’t.
“Try again, m’lady. Buck up. This is the one.” There was no room for refusal against the midwife’s order.
With a gasp, Juliet lifted herself, screeching as her body contorted one last time, pushing, her hand crushing Evan’s palm.
And just like that, another life, another soul into the world.
New breath.
Not one new light. Two.
But Evan couldn’t look away from his wife. She’d collapsed back onto the bed, her eyes closed, her breathing shallow.
The air in his lungs frozen, Evan reached out a trembling hand and smoothed back the hair from her forehead. “Ye cannot leave me, lass. Ye cannot.”
For long seconds his stare stayed locked onto her, willing her to stay. To not leave him.
She couldn’t. Not now. Not now. This was everything. Everything she wanted. Everything he lived for.
Not now.
Her eyelashes fluttered and her head rolled toward him, an exhausted whisper making it past her lips. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Evan collapsed downward, his head landing on her shoulder as he heaved breaths into his lungs. Breath after breath, each one a prayer of thanks that she wasn’t about to die on him.
A knuckle nudged into his arm and he looked up. The apprentice was nudging the first babe, bundled tight in a white blanket, into the expanse of his hands.
His fingers still trembling, he took the tiny creature from her, cradling his daughter like a bird’s egg in his hands. His head bent and he set a kiss onto her wee forehead, just below the reddish fuzz of hair atop her head.
He nuzzled her into the crevice between Juliet’s arm and body, his voice breaking. “Our girl.”
