"Celeste, please don't cry." Solomon reached up and rubbed the tears that were streaming down my face with his free hand. "Please, tell me what I can do to fix this. Anything." He looked resolute and ready to face my demons. But was I?
The pain came again in my gut as I realized that I had so much to share that I had been keeping from him. I cleared my mind and tried to put everything into one short thought. "Okay, let me see how to phrase this."
Silence hung in the air for a second and then Solomon huffed loudly as he shifted in his spot, sharing his impatience. I held my finger up for him and he quieted back down.
"Just one more minute, please." I sang as I continued to put my thoughts in order. Finally, finally, when I suddenly felt ready to fill Solomon in, my gut relaxed and I felt relieved. This is the right thing to do.
"Okay." I sat up in the bed and began to pat the area next to me. Solomon's eyes lit up as he eyed my hand suspiciously. He slowly reached down and placed his guitar on the floor, finally standing up and walking to the other side of the bed to take the spot beside me. I allowed him to sit directly next to me and I leaned against him as I spoke to the air in front of us. "This is going to sound weird." I smelled his gorgeous scent wafting into the space surrounding us as I closed my eyes and sighed. "I met my father a while back."
"Are you speaking of the ocean god, Lir?" Solomon was shocking me with this sudden revelation of knowledge that I had no idea he had access to.
"I don't remember telling you anything about him. Have I been talking in my sleep again?" I turned my head towards him and looked up at him seriously. My words were in jest, but my body language warned him that I was worried about the topic.
"Well, Gabriel had shared some information about Lir." Solomon shrugged.
"Yes, well, he likes to go by Dylan now. He mostly wants me to refer to him as Dad, or possibly Your Holiness, although he really never asked for the last one. He is quite a card, though." I shook my head as I thought about Dylan and his Jersey Shore accent. He was a true bona fide dad, grade-A pain in the butt.
"He's a mighty god. He deserves whatever respect he requests of you." Solomon winked at me as if he understood that Dylan wanted respect, and the fact that Solomon wanted me to just hand it up to him on a silver platter just rankled my hide a bit too much.
"Yeah, yeah, well, he's a pain in my backside."
"He's your father."
Simple enough answer. I figured that was enough to keep the conversation afloat for now without a fight.
"Okay, well..." I looked away at the fire and I could feel my gut seize up again. Get it out in the open now before you implode, woman. "He doesn't like you. He doesn't want me anywhere near you, especially after Cora is born." I turned to see the expression on Solomon's face, but it was a mask—emotionless. "He's afraid that, because I love you, that we will have a child. He refuses to accept that a grandchild of his would be part vampire, besides Cora of course. She's a 'child of legend'." I made the air quotes especially obnoxious again. "So he's just fine with her." I sighed.
Solomon didn't miss a beat. "There was something else. I would like to hear it all, if you wouldn't mind." Solomon reached over and put his arm around me, pulling me into his chest and allowing me to take comfort in his delicious scent as well as his masculine perfection. YIKES!
"Yes, well, my future self wasn't very happy with you either. She kind of agreed with Dylan." I spoke directly into his chest, but I knew that he could hear me so it didn't bother me as I closed my eyes and just listened to the air fill and vacate his lungs. Solomon breathed from habit—he liked the scents and the movement more than the desire to breathe. He could have gone forever without breathing, but he needed to taste the air to ensure his senses didn't feel deprived.
"Why would that be the case? I'm sorry, I'm struggling to understand." Solomon honestly sounded shocked that my future self would have disliked him.
"I believe that you had broken my heart...in the future. You left me for another woman." I sighed deeply as I concentrated on the movement of his chest to keep my mind off of other things. "At least, that is what the future me said—that you were not trustworthy."
I pushed back from him as I looked him squarely in the eyes. "I honestly don't believe that you would do that to me. I just can't believe it." I shivered and shifted in my seat. Why can't I just get comfortable? Here I have an amazingly hot guy dying to wrap his arms around me, even when I'm giving him bad news...and I can't sit still. What the HECK?
"OUCH!" I sat up straight like someone had just punched me in the gut.
Solomon instantly went tense and held me out at arm's length as he assessed my pain level and appearance just from how I looked. He knew me a little too well if he was able to tell that much just by looking at me.
"You're in pain." Solomon pushed up from the bed and I immediately felt remorse that he was leaving me alone.
"Please..." I huffed as the pain in my gut began to tighten into a ball. "Don't leave me." I felt so vulnerable that I began to shake with fear.
Solomon turned to me as he pulled out his cell phone and tapped in a number. "Never." His eyes glowed as he held the phone to his ear.
My heart sputtered at his reaction. SHEESH he's sexy when he's so adamant.
"Gabriel, there's something wrong with Celeste. Please come with Mortisha as quickly as you can." He nodded in response to something that was being said. "Yes, now." He nodded again. "Quite, yes. I'll see you in a few minutes."
Solomon ended the call and began to pace the room. I was relieved when the dull pain in my gut subsided, but he was still pacing around the room like a caged animal when he finally burst towards me in a rush, yanking me into his powerful arms.
"I would never leave you if I could help it. I would never leave you for another woman ever." His eyes burned like white hot flames as he took my face in his hands. "And I would never stop loving you for the entirety of my existence. You are all I have ever wanted, and you are all I will ever want. You are it for me, Celeste. There is no other woman in this world that could even try to compare to you. I can't even see other women in this world when you are here, filling my every thought. Dammit, Celeste, you even invade my dreams. I can't even get away from the thought of you—it consumes me. How could I leave you, hurt you, deny you anything? How?" His voice shook as he reached down and laid a cool, but consuming kiss on my burning lips.
My body became putty, and the only thing that brought me back to earth was the renewed pain in my gut.
Just then Gabriel and Mortisha rushed through the door, both looking determined and as businesslike as two medical professionals.
"Describe the pains." Gabriel instantly noted that I was grabbing my stomach area below my baby.
"Dull, aching." I breathed out as I closed my eyes. Solomon had released me and set me on the bed so that I could face Gabriel. He still kept his arm around me, ensuring that I wouldn't fall over if I became incapacitated with pain.
"How long do they last?" Gabriel ticked off the questions.
"A couple of minutes."
"I am assuming that the pains are recurring. How long between pains?" Gabriel looked into my eyes with a penlight before reaching down to feel my belly, pushing firmly against the skin. What he was feeling for was beyond me, but I knew that he was to be trusted.
"Umm, about eight minutes." I heaved a sigh of relief as the pain subsided again.
Gabriel turned his eyes to Mortisha just as a huge crash sounded just outside the window of my bedroom.
Releasing me gently, Solomon raced to the window in a flash and threw it open to peer down below. Smoke drifted up through the opening as Solomon hissed through his teeth and yanked the panes closed, pulling the curtains shut over the window as well. He rushed towards the door in a blur and stopped abruptly in the shadowed hallway.
"I must go. The castle is under attack and we must protect our perimeter. It appears that there was a deep breach, and it must be addressed now." He paused and looke
d at me as if he were in pain, flinching as if he had been stabbed. He clearly didn't want to leave. Turning towards Gabriel, he ordered, "You take care of Celeste, do you hear me? Not one hair on her head will be harmed. Do you understand?"
Gabriel leaned back as he fidgeted with the pen in his hand, a strained look in his black eyes. He almost looked like a demon, but his eyes were obsidian black instead of scorching red. "She's in labor, Solomon. The baby's going to be born prematurely."
Solomon's back went rigid as he took one step towards us, his hands trembling at his sides as he fought his inner emotions and sense of immense duty.
"Solomon, you must protect the castle." Mortisha's voice rang through the room like a command. "We will protect Celeste and the baby. Celeste will be safe. The baby will be safe." Her words washed over all of us and I immediately felt a blanket of peace settle over me. THIS is what I would have liked to feel when I spoke to Solomon of the future.
"AHHH!" My pain was back now and it was a bit more uncomfortable than before. I began huffing and puffing like I had learned in my Lamaze class as I waved at Solomon in the doorway. I had learned some concentration and relaxation techniques, but it wasn't like I was planning on delivering naturally anyway. Give me drugs and give me drugs NOW! But Solomon had to leave. He had to get his mind off of me and the baby if he was going to head into a battle, as well as stay alive.
"Make those pains every four minutes." I released a deep breath as I sighed, bracing myself on the bed.
"Solomon, go, please." I looked right at him and gave him the bravest expression I could muster. There was nothing inside of me that actually wanted him to leave, but I knew that he needed to help protect the castle. He could be the one to tip the scales in our favor. He was now the protector of the family.
Solomon nodded gently with cold steel in his eyes and was immediately gone. I felt so alone.
25
The contractions seemed to be gaining momentum and force for a while there. By the end of the second hour, whenever a contraction would hit, I wanted to jump out of the bed and dash for the window. It no longer mattered that I couldn't shadow jump or fly—I wanted out as quickly as possible. For some strange reason, my mind thought that I could run away from the pain of labor and childbirth. It was frightening that I was going to have to endure more pain to finally hold Cora in my arms again.
I kept telling myself that the closer the contractions got, the closer to the end of the tunnel I was. That was a comforting thought until Gabriel had to open his big fat mouth.
"It looks like you may be transitioning to hard labor soon." He smiled down at me while he checked the paper printout on a machine that I had been strapped to shortly after they realized I was in labor. He actually had the nerve to SMILE at me when he said that! AHHHHHHH!
"HARD labor? HARD?! This isn't hard labor?!" My voice convulsed with each word. Another contraction hit and an explosion was felt rocking the castle just outside the window.
Gabriel and Mortisha stared at each other for one brief second, but I could understand the fierce emotions kept at bay as their eyes flickered and froze. Oh no!
"Tell me, is the baby going to be okay? Is Cora going to be OKAY?!" I demanded as their heads turned back towards me.
"Yes." Leo's voice drifted along the stale air of the room as he strode over to me with his perfectly long legs. He was approaching from a far corner where a shadowed portal blinked out of sight. He stopped at the side of the bed, grasping my hand and pulling it into his chest firmly. He was so hot that my body temperature shot up a couple of degrees just from the contact. His skin's pretty warm too. HA, HA!
"Are Celeste and Cora going to be okay? Answer the woman—she's in pain and overly hormonal for Hades' sake!"
My eyes cut to Leo to warn him that I was much more dangerous than that at the second.
"Yes, they are fine." Gabriel's voice rang out. "It's just...well..." He turned to Mortisha as if she were his lifeline and she put a steady hand on his shoulder as she turned to Leo. That's super weird.
"There is a strange...coincidence that we have noticed during Celeste's labor." Tisha took a step forward and came closer to the bed, advancing on Leo as if she were delivering terrible news. She had the 'don't shoot the messenger' look on her face, but she didn't seem concerned about anything that Leo could do to her—her eyes actually kept flicking back to me as she attempted to share her news.
"It appears," flick, "that every time that Celeste has an especially strong contraction," flick, "that we feel the attack on the castle in the form of an explosion," flick, "or even the walls groaning as if the castle is going to fall down upon us." Flick, flick, flick. Was she just inferring that I was a natural disaster waiting to happen?
My heart missed a beat as I processed what Tisha had just been saying. I was dangerous. This painful, not even hard labor was tearing the place apart. The world was crashing down around our ears, and it seemed to be directly related to my being in labor.
Just then I felt Cora move inside me. I cooed and ran my hand along my belly, covered with the monitor strap that Gabriel had placed on me.
"Shhh, Cora, it's okay, baby. It's going to be okay."
Cora moved again, and this time it was followed by a terrible contraction. I winced as I squeezed down on Leo's hand so fiercely that his head whipped around to bear witness to the intense pain that was rocketing through my body. I gritted my teeth and breathed out towards the ceiling as I closed my eyes and imagined myself in a beautiful place...possibly...
"Celeste!" Leo's voice cleared my mind and brought me crashing back down to Earth. "You can't concentrate on projecting yourself—you will send yourself away like you did on the plane. You must stay with us, my love." Leo cocked his head as the room shook so fiercely that the ceiling rained tiny grains of plaster and dust down on us. Leo's eyes never left mine as he leaned in closer to me.
"Concentrate exclusively on the sound of my voice, Celeste. Release thoughts of anything else." His eyes flickered slightly, and he stared down at me with his ice-blue human eyes. SHOOT, this man was hot when he laid it on like this. I really hated being so incredibly hormonal, but I just couldn't seem to help myself.
Leo reached up and brushed the sweaty hair out of my face and then smiled back down at me. "You are the most beautiful creature I have ever seen. It appears that being in labor truly becomes you, Celeste."
"Shut up." I sucked air in at the same time that I hissed at him. My contraction had not released me yet, and I was just trying to ease my way through it. OMG, if this isn't hard labor, what the hell am I going to do to survive the really hard stuff?! I wanted to cry.
As the contraction began to dissipate, I turned to Leo's shining face and winced. "Thank you for being here, Leo." I was grateful for his support, but his timing seemed suspicious. "What are you doing here, though? Aren't you guarding the castle?"
"I am no guard." Leo shrugged as he patted my hand and set it back on the bed, obviously aware that I was drifting down from my contraction. "I came to check on you before I went into the forefront. The castle is under siege on all sides." He tilted his head slightly as he began to pace the room in his perfect Armani suit. Who goes to battle in perfect Italian slacks, anyway?
"The shadow demons have even found ways beyond our protective barriers, although how that happened we are not sure. We will have to take all of the facts in after this is over—there is much to discuss and someone is going to pay." He continued to pace the room as if he were talking about the color of the floor. It was unsettling because his anger seemed to blend in with his perfect control just a little too well.
Leo stopped his pacing and turned back towards Gabriel and Tisha who were now standing closer to each other like they were getting ready to huddle.
"Take care of Celeste and Cora. Make sure that they have everything they need. And if there are any problems..." He chucked a cell phone to Gabriel and, of course, Gabriel caught it mid-air. The reflexes on all of these men were easy to
take for granted. "Speed dial #1 if you need me, #2 if you need Solomon, #3 if you need Von." Leo seemed to grin slightly at the order that he had set up the speed dial numbers. Leo was always going to be number one, especially in his own book. With that, he turned to me one more time, blew a kiss in my direction, nodded to Gabriel and Tisha and left.
I heard myself sigh as I laid my head back in the pillow and stared up at the ceiling. There were still tiny motes of dust swirling in the air from the earlier quake.
My mind was playing through the discussion earlier about how my contractions were related to the destruction that was felt in the castle. The thought jarred me a bit with a good helping of reality—it was my fault. My eyes caught movement over by the window, but it didn't register that anything else was in the room until I heard Tisha's sharp gasp.
My head turned instinctively towards the movement and I caught the sight of a hideously gnarled black figure standing with dark, empty eyes staring unblinkingly at me.
Shivers ran screaming down my spine as Gabriel ran towards the figure with his bare hands. He was as graceful as ...goodness help me, a gazelle. He sprang into action and was fighting hand-to-hand as another contraction ripped through my enormous belly. Grasping wildly at my sides, my eyes were pulled from the life-and-death fight happening just feet away from my bed.
Crying out in pain, I could hear as the walls began to rumble with tortured screeches and moans. I gritted my teeth as I reminded myself that I needed to continue to breathe. Not breathing would be disastrous for the baby, not to mention me. My vision began to fuzz as I heard a sharp growl where Gabriel and the shadow demon were fighting.
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