"Oh, yeah, I forgot." I tried to clear my mind as I stared at Leo from my position on the operating table. "Right." This day didn't seem like it would ever end where I got to hold my baby. I wanted to scream because of my frustration. Get this over with already. I want to hold my baby!
Solomon chuckled down at me from his position inches above my head. "Very convincing."
I narrowed my eyes on him as his ears lifted again in response, stretching his mask. My mind could imagine he no longer had that mask on and the butterflies in my stomach began to swim around again. Where the heck have you guys been?
"Almost there." Gabriel said reassuringly. I was positive that he was getting an idea of what it was like to be around me on a regular basis. I mean, he had been with us for the duration of the pregnancy, so it wasn't a shock to me that he began to pick up some survival skills from Solomon and Von. Valuable life skills like don't tick the hormonal queen off.
Suddenly an intense pain ran through my stomach. "AHHHHHH! That HURTS!" I howled as the walls began to quake and shudder. "I thought it wasn't supposed to hurt!"
Gabriel and Tisha began talking in quick sentences, lowering their voices below my register of hearing, Luckily for me, Solomon tilted his head to the side and lowered his masked face to sit right next to my ear. His voice was a whisper meant only for me. I tried to remain calm as he spoke.
"It appears that your body is reacting to not having Cora in the womb any longer. Cora is two months premature—highly unsafe for any baby, but it appears that, when she was removed, she was the size of a full-term baby. Gabriel is flabbergasted, but Tisha is not as concerned. Cora is a special being—one of five different species, so it is expected that she exhibits rare traits and abilities. The ability to grow at a faster pace is just one of the many blessings for Cora. She will be able to train faster and become adult much sooner." He paused and listened intently as his eyes seemed to glaze over. "Hmmm, that's interesting..."
"What?" I whispered as I turned my head towards him, brushing his cheek with mine. My cheeks flushed as I realized that we were touching, my body reacting unexpectedly to the touch.
"What are you doing, Celeste?" Tisha's voice sounded strained.
"Um, talking." I turned my head back, removing the distraction of Solomon's cool skin. "Why?"
She was silent for a moment, whispered to Gabriel and then said, "What were you doing just a second ago?"
"Ice skating. Why?"
"Well, just a second ago your magic was emitting a blue light. Your whole womb area was consumed with it." Tisha paused for effect. "I will ask it again. What were you doing a second ago?"
My eyes cut to Solomon as his blue-green eyes sparkled down at me and his ears were just about as high as they could possibly get. I wished more than ever that I could see his entire face hidden behind that annoying mask. For the first thirty minutes it was sexy, but now it was just a distraction from the true miracle that was Solomon.
"Umm, touching Solomon." My cheeks blazed so fiercely that it seemed that my own surgical mask was going to burst into flames. How incredibly embarrassing.
"I see." Tisha's voice sounded amused as she began to hum to herself. I listened closely and I unmistakingly caught the tune It Had to Be You. I shook my head and smiled to myself. She knew me all too well.
If my hands were free I would have been fidgeting with something, anything. I needed something to distract me from my incapacitated state, but turning to Solomon for help with that would possibly be embarrassing, in more ways than one. I closed my eyes as I concentrated on not freaking out.
Suddenly another fierce pain shot through my womb again. "Ahhh, what the hell IS this? I'm not in labor anymore!"
My body convulsed as the room quaked in reaction. A moderate-sized crack began to meander its way along the ceiling from the corner of the room all the way to me—directly in the center of the room. It was as if I was its target and that frightened me.
The room shuddered again with groans and moans as my eyes scanned the walls to decide if we were going to be buried alive. My heart pounded in my ears as I counted the number of cracks that were immediately beginning to appear along the walls and ceiling. Every crack on the ceiling seemed to be racing towards the center of the room as if it held the brass ring.
Solomon straightened from his position crouched next to me and laid his hand across my collar bone. He turned around, assessing every minute detail, deciding what to do next.
"We cannot stay here—it is becoming too dangerous in this particular location." His voice had taken a formidable, military tone. He was the queen's general now—-he was taking charge.
Oh my gosh! SEXY! Shut up, hormones! Eat some chocolate!
"Normally, I would agree with you." Gabriel's voice clipped out from the other side of the curtain. "But moving Celeste in this condition could be disastrous." The ceiling plopped a piece of plaster onto the ground near where Gabriel's voice had come from. "But...options will be considered."
"Teleportation? Can Leo shadow us out of here?" Tisha's voice offered. She sounded weak and worried—not my favorite tone of voice from Tisha.
"No." Leo shook his head over the curtain, leaning in towards Tisha's voice. "I have sealed the shadows so that the shadow demons cannot travel through the castle. Everyone here must travel by walking and use the doorways just like a normal human. We would have been overrun by now if I hadn't taken matters into my own hands by doing so."
My head spun. It was almost impossible to process just what Leo was saying. He was strong enough to close the shadow portals? What kind of a demon was this guy? Was he the Hercules of demons? What he just claimed to do seemed like a monumental task—it almost seemed epic. My eyes surveyed Leo as he rocked Cora in his arms and I saw him lean down to kiss her.
My heart fluttered as I realized just how loved Cora and I were, and I was immediately more attracted to Leo than I had ever been in the past. But of course, it was nothing compared to how I felt about Solomon. I turned my eyes guiltily toward Solomon to see, with a rush of relief, that he wasn't looking at me at all—he hadn't caught the guilty expression that I probably had in my eyes right at that moment.
Clear your mind, Celeste. Get with the program.
27
We were finally settled back into my room, but we now had a hospital baby bassinet sitting next to the left side of the bed, away from the window. The idea of the baby anywhere near where the shadow demon had appeared earlier was fiercely disturbing to me, but that didn't matter because Von had pushed her over to the other side without a word. In fact, he didn't want to have the bassinet as close to the bed as I did because he wanted her in the corner, as far away from all activity as possible. It looked like his protectiveness was already kicking in. Good. He needs to show a little protectiveness for someone in his life. Ouch.
I had been moved in gently and propped up on a mountain of pillows until everyone was sure that I had to be comfortable. Being pampered was actually kind of a nice change. Every man in the room jumped at any word that I would say. Well, all except for Gabriel. Gabriel would just lift his head, chuckle, and then go back to looking at charts and scribbling notes. He was taking the doctor role seriously, but what could he have been writing down that took so very long?
I narrowed my eyes on Gabriel as my mind focused solely on him. He is trying to avoid being a part of the family. Hmph, well he is just going to have to make nice and eat turkey with the rest of them. I want pouty little baby faces, cooing noises and silly made-up baby languages. That is it—he's going to pay in one cruel way or another. I glared over at him as he continued to scribble and chuckle underneath his breath.
The atmosphere was quiet and comforting as Jack walked over to a wall panel and pushed it in gently. "Leo says that this room is wired for stereo. Let's see how it sounds."
Gabriel's head popped up a he threw daggers at Jack's back. "None of the crap that you played on the plane, please. The baby deserves not to have her ears assaulted b
y that garbage."
"You obviously wouldn't recognize good music even if it walked up to you and gave you a huge hickey on your forehead in the shape of Jimi Hendrix's guitar." Jack narrowed his eyes as turned sharply to face the huge digital stereo system hidden behind the panel, tapping his bottom lip with his pointer finger. "Now, let's see...grunge, classic heavy metal, acid rock, death metal..."
I giggled as I watched each musical style mentioned make Gabriel cringe—it looked like he was being slapped with each word Jack threw at him.
"Could we please have classical, Jack? Mozart if you could swing it." I smiled over at Gabriel as he looked up at me in relief and a tiny bit of shock. "What? I love Mozart. He was a rock star in his time." I winked at him as a smile spread across his copper-toned face. Wow! I actually got to see some teeth on that handsome smile. He really should smile more—it added so much more to the boring stick-in-the-mud that he usually was.
Leo walked over from the corner of the room that was closest to the fireplace. He had been poking the logs in the roaring fire, making sure that the room was the right temperature since there were a lot more bodies filling the room than usual. Straightening back up, he turned towards the bed and swept across the room like he was the leading man in an old 50's movie, coming to stand by the bed with a sexy, steamy-eyed grin on his face.
"My dear, I would like to present you with a gift. A small reminder of how grateful I am that you have allowed me to be a part of your and Cora's life." He reached into the front breast pocket of his black-as-night suit and pulled out a four inch by four inch black leather box.
I was instantly nervous by the sight of the box. My heart began to pound and slowed down slightly when I realized that the box was much too large to house a ring. Thank goodness! Miracles do happen!
Reactively scanning the room for signs of Camela, my eyes skipped across every dark surface just to be safe. That demon woman would probably scratch my eyes out just for looking at the box, much less accepting the gift inside. I didn't need that kind of drama at the moment.
My eyes finally flicked up to Leo's as he grinned down at me seductively. We both remained there for a moment before he winked and led my eyes toward the box held comfortably in his hands. My heart sped up at just the sight of it. It was beyond frightening to consider what sat inside. It could be almost anything.
Leo paused for a moment and then chuckled lightly underneath his breath, making sure that I knew he could hear my heart fluttering underneath my shirt. How embarrassing! He was enjoying the experience way too much. Reaching down with his right hand, he lifted the lid open on the box while his left hand held it out toward me as if he was revealing a gold medal. And the award for the most messed up life in an action-thriller goes to....
I couldn't help but be enthralled as Leo opened the creaking box to reveal a monster-sized blood-red ruby pendant on a thick braided yellow gold chain. It seemed a bit over the top for anything that I would wear, but it would have gone great with the red slinky number that Leo had me dressed in the first time that I had 'visited' the demon castle. The ruby was an oval the height of a golf ball and half the width. My heart stopped as I noticed that there were oval diamonds surrounding the ruby, giving it an even more striking appearance.
Leo beamed down at me as he began to pull the necklace from the box, setting the box on the table beside the bed. "Pigeon's blood."
"What?" I was probably turning a couple shades of green as I looked down at the enormous ruby. Could he have had a bunch of pigeons killed to make that bloody thing? Soo...going...to...hurl...if he did.
Leo smiled down at me. "That is the name of the color of ruby—it is considered absolutely the highest quality with this clarity and cut." Wow, the demon was teaching me something about jewelry, but a man that knew more about jewelry than I did was sort of not a turn-on.
"Okaaaay." I smiled up at him, hoping that he caught on that I did not like being schooled by a demon about jewelry. I was going to accept his gift graciously, though, and act like I appreciated that monstrosity.
He nodded down at me as he held the clasps of the necklace. "May I?" He leaned forward without waiting for a response and laid the heavy ruby on my chest, pulling the chain around for him to clasp at the back. I had to lean forward to give him room to do it, but it was a strangely familiar feeling to have someone place jewelry on me. Maybe, just maybe, men put jewelry on me all the time and I just don't remember. Am I unconscious?
I looked up at Leo as he pulled away to admire his jewel on my chest, the ruby dangling between the v-shape of my pajama shirt.
"Thank you, Leo." I smiled up at him as I reached up and fondled the jewel with my fingers.
It felt warmer than I expected, but it figured since Leo was a burning furnace of pent-up sexual energy all of the time. Why would I think that today would be any different? The ruby felt perfect, and I looked down to see that it was sparkling with the light reflected from the fireplace.
"It's breathtaking."
Leo's eyes became alive with red flames as he smiled down at me with his seductive glare. "Yes, well, it pales in comparison to you, my lovely Celeste." My right eyebrow automatically raised in response. Leo chuckled under his breath as he bowed formally and backed away from the bed as if he knew that others were going to be approaching me.
"Okay, well, I guess I had better present you with my gift as well." Gabriel came over to the bed and placed a tan bundle on the bed near my hand. "This is for you, Raven Celeste of the Woods." He smiled down at me. "That is deer skin, by the way. The skin can be used to house your gift when you are not in need of it. It is the most natural way to retain moisture and prime condition."
I looked up at him as I reached out for the package.
The skin on the package felt like butter, and I rubbed my hand over it again and again just for the sensation of it. I could feel my stress magically slipping away, as well as any apprehension that I had about accepting this gift. It was going to be a comfort to have it with me, so basically, he wasn't getting it back even if he wanted it.
Smiling up at him, I began to unfold the flaps of the package to reveal something I hadn't expected. It wasn't jewelry, a book or anything else that would have been typical of a gift from a man to a woman. It was a smudge fan, a grouping of three eagle feathers.
A memory came back to me that only Native Americans were allowed to keep and use eagle feathers. The fan's handle was constructed of a piece of wood that had multiple rings. Each ring was dyed red, blue, green or purple. A stick of bound and dried sage was lying next to the feathers in the bundle. Used together, the sage stick would burn cleansing smoke, and the feathers would be used to direct the smoke over and around my person, or any area that I needed to have spiritually cleansed. It was a powerful tool to have in the arsenal of a shaman.
"You will need to cleanse yourself after such a difficult and stressful delivery. There seem to be so many negatives that have attached to it. Although, the positives do outweigh the others." He frowned to himself. Goodness, this man was about as sexy as Von was when he was reading his gloriously boring books.
I raised a single eyebrow at Gabriel. "Are you saying that I'm...dirty and I need a bath? Is that your professional opinion?" My voice hitched up in volume just before Jack burst out in laughter on the other side of the room. A smile spread across my lips as I watched stark fear shroud Gabriel's startled expression. A sensation of wicked joy flooded my mind as I drank in his discomfort. It was much more fun to play with Gabriel than I had expected. Going to keep that option open for later. Smiling up at Gabriel's frozen expression, I patted the smudge fan appreciatively. "Thank you, I know how to perform the cleansing ritual. I think it's a sound idea. Thank you for the tools."
Gabriel blinked several times before he snapped his mouth shut and began to walk away hesitantly. I suddenly felt bad for Gabriel because he had no idea how to react to me, and he was truly getting an idea of just how much fun I could have at his expense. Maybe it was a go
od lesson to learn, just so that he knew never to push me too far. Poking the dragon is never a good idea.
Von cleared his throat on the other side of the bed, the side closest to Cora, as he took a step closer and held out a hardbound book wrapped in a large pink bow. It was smaller than an average-sized book, bound in dark green fabric. As I held it in my hand, the scent of aged paper wafted towards me. So, basically, when I flipped open to the copyright page and the date that stared at me was 1944, I wasn't surprised. Von loved old books and this was special for him to share one with me. I stroked the book as I turned it over to look at the spine; Comedies by William Shakespeare. Well, that made sense. Von's reading of the comedies of Shakespeare was probably one of the only times that I had stayed awake during his torturously long reading sessions. I loved the rhythm of the way he would read and enjoyed the random and creative storylines that Shakespeare had shared. A smile spread across my lips and heart as I looked up at Von.
"I love it. Thank you." I offered him my most sincere and genuine smile. He smiled back at me also, but his was a sad, almost regretful expression as he turned and walked slowly back to the side of Cora's bassinet.
Taking a moment with my new gift, I looked down at the book and began to flip through the aged pages until I came across an illustration of The Merchant of Venice. It was the scene where Portia was settling payment with Bassanio, the man that she loved and saved from death. All she demanded from him was the ring that she had put on his finger when they had been married. But he wouldn't give it up because he loved her so very much and couldn't bear the thought of releasing the token of her love and their affection, which he had sworn to never remove from his finger.
My eyes searched the room for Solomon as the story began to strike a chord in my heart and mind. It finally hit me with such finality that I was willing to accept the truth. I was in love with Solomon, and come hell or high water, no pun intended, I was going to make things work for us. Enough with the wallowing and worrying about Dylan and his negative attitude. He was only the Ocean, and an overprotective dad to boot. He was going to have to learn to deal.
Ritual Magic Page 26