* * *
Aiden looked up at the intercom’s beeping, but all he heard was the crash, then a low moan. “Mickala?” he asked, but there wasn’t any answer. Mickala? Are you okay? There still wasn’t an answer, only a blank space where her mind should be. He glanced at the Dellings, but they couldn’t get the wolf demon to answer them, either.
He dropped the bale of hay he had and took off for the house. EJ had heard the commotion over the intercom as well, and he was right behind Aiden. They burst in through the door and saw Mickala on her side. They both swore loudly as Aiden held her against his chest, and her pulse was racing, her breathing fast and shallow. “EJ, call an ambulance,” he said. Ian?
What’s wrong, Aiden? he replied instantly.
Mickala’s unconscious. It looks like it’s her pressure again. EJ’s called her an ambulance, and they’re on the way, he explained.
We’ll let Chad and Philip know, and we’ll all meet you there, he said instantly.
It was only a few minutes later when the ambulance arrived, and Mickala was still unconscious. Aiden explained to them she’d been having problems with her blood pressure, but she’d been taking medication for it. “She’s been fine for the past few months, but over the last couple of weeks, it’s been trying to go back up. EJ and I were out in the barn, and the intercom went off, but all we heard was a crashing sound. We ran up here, and she was passed out on the floor,” he said, raking his fingers through her hair anxiously, then threw it back into a low ponytail to get it out of the way.
They checked, and it was approaching stroke levels once again, worse than it had been in the beginning. Once they got her in the ambulance, they began an IV and put in some medication to help lower it. EJ was following in his car as they headed down the driveway. Mickala’s eyes slowly opened, and Aiden took her hand as she looked around wildly. “Don’t worry, it’s okay,” he said, pushing her hair out of her eyes. “You’re going to the hospital. Your pressure went up again, and you fainted. EJ and I called an ambulance, and he’s following us. Chad, Philip, Ian and Nehela are going to meet us there. You’re okay.”
“Selene?” she asked weakly, her breath fogging up the oxygen mask on her face.
Aiden looked up at the EMTs, and they patted the princess’ shoulder in reassurance. “We’ve already checked on her, and the Healers will double and triple check on her when we get to the hospital.”
The stretcher under her suddenly got wet, and her eyes widened. “My water just broke,” she said, taking Aiden’s hand. “Can you get Mom and Travis?”
“Of course. I’ll send Ian to get her as soon as we get you situated,” he said. Over the course of the next five minutes, the contractions began coming hard. Aiden knew her time was running out. Michelle?
Hey, Aiden. How’s Mickala? she asked, a little surprised he was contacting her this way. Usually, he just called her on the phone.
She’s on her way to the hospital, he said, then gave her a brief explanation about what was happening. Her water just broke, and she’s having contractions. She wants you and Travis there, but I don’t think you’ll make it in time if you fly. As soon as I see Nehela or Ian, I’ll have one of them come get you.
Okay, thanks, Aiden, Michelle said. And don’t worry. Mickala and Selene will be fine.
He gave a forced chuckle. Thanks. I think you know me about as well as you know Mickala.
As soon as they got inside the hospital, they rushed Mickala to the delivery wing, and Aiden saw the others waiting. “She’s in labor now,” he told them, then looked at Nehela and Ian. “Can one of you get Michelle and Travis?”
“I’ll go,” Ian said. “I know Mickala will probably want you with her right now.”
A couple of minutes later, he was back with them, and Travis was looking green. “I think I’ll fly next time,” he said, his voice unsteady, and they all laughed. His knuckles were white as he gripped the back of the chair Michelle sat in.
As soon as Healer Jones got Mickala settled, they were all able to see her, and she gave them a weak smile. “Hey, guys,” she said.
Michelle hugged her. “How far apart are you contractions?”
“About two to three minutes apart,” she replied, gritting her teeth as she felt another come on. “My pressure is back to normal, though.”
Michelle nodded. “Mine spiked each time I got pregnant with you, then again every time I went into labor.”
* * *
The contractions grew in strength, and she was biting her bottom lip against the pain. The healers came in to check on her, and she had already dilated to seven centimeters. “If you keep this up, I think Selene will be her before tomorrow morning, " he said approvingly. “Are you sure you don’t want the epidural? If you wait much longer, it’ll be too late.” She just shook her head. “All right. If you need anything, just let me know. I’ll be back in about an hour to check on you.” They could all see that she was getting tired. “Get some rest, Mika.” The Healer looked at Aiden, Nehela, and Michelle. “You three will be staying for the delivery, right?” They all nodded. “All right.” He looked at the others, then asked if they could wait outside so she could rest.
“Of course,” Ian replied, taking her hand. “You’re going to do fine, cousin.”
She smiled up at him. “Thanks, God Daddy.” She and Aiden had long decided that he and Nehela would be Selene’s godparents.
It was hard for her to do anything more than doze with her contractions becoming more and more intense. Aiden was on one side, Michelle and Nehela on the other, taking turns pressing a cool cloth to her forehead. The sun was rising, snow falling heavily, when she felt a heavy pressure building deep within her body, and Aiden let the Healers know Mickala was ready to push.
The strongest contractions yet started, and tears sprang to her eyes, but she knew it was far too late for the epidural. The Healers came in, but Selene’s head was already trying to come out, and they had Mickala breath through a couple of contractions until Dr. Jones arrived. He got ready, then looked at Mickala. “Are you ready, Princess?” She nodded, and he told her to push.
Aiden gasped as her hand clenched his in a vice-like grip as she bared down. “Good, Mickala,” he said through clenched teeth, and Michelle and Nehela were urging her on in the other ear. “You’re doing great.”
It was almost three hours later, and she felt completely exhausted, barely able to hold her head up. “You’re doing great, your Highness,” Dr. Jones said. “Her head’s right here. Just one more big push.”
She bared down again, and a low groan turned into a loud cry as Selene’s head and shoulders entered the world. Mickala fell back against the bed as the doctor pulled the infant out the rest of the way, trembling violently, her eyes closed. They flew open, however, as she heard the loud cry of the newest member of the Solarian Royal line. She glanced up at Aiden’s face, and it was full of love, awe, and a lot of fear as he cut the umbilical cord.
Thirty
The Newest Wolf
They wrapped Selene in a blanket and laid her on her mother’s chest, and it was the most amazing feeling in the world. The baby looked up at Mickala, and a tiny, four-cornered star began blazing on her forehead, and she instantly stopped crying, as if she’d recognized her mother. Mickala and Michelle’s own stars appeared, pulsating brightly, and a beam appeared from Mickala’s and connected with Selene’s. Only after a few minutes of being born, the infant smiled. Mickala couldn’t help but smile back, and she felt as if her heart had swelled to twice its size, instantly full of nothing but love.
The beam disappeared, and the infant turned dark blue eyes onto her father, and another smiled formed. The Healers took her then to weigh and measure her, and she was twenty inches long and seven pounds and four ounces, the picture of perfect health. They handed her to Aiden this time, and Mickala had to smile at the look of almost terror on his face at holding such a tiny, fragile looking being. She knew he was afraid he would hurt her, and she touched his hand gently.
“You’re not going to hurt her, Aiden,” she said.
He smiled, cradling the tiny bundle to his chest. “I’ll never let anything happen to you, Victoria Selene Clarkson-Miller,” he said firmly, and his daughter just smiled up at him again.
The Healers asked if she felt up to company, and she nodded. “Of course. She’s got grandparents, godparents, and uncles out there.”
Healer Jones smiled, then patted her hand. “I’ll let them know.”
It didn’t take even five minutes for the others to come into the room. Chad and Philip had some experience with babies, along with EJ, so they showed no qualms about holding Selene. Nehela had helped Michelle with Mickala when she’d been a baby, so she was more than happy to hold her, along with Travis and Michelle herself.
Ian, however, showed the same hesitation as Aiden, his entire body tense and stiff. With some coaxing from the women in the room, he eventually took the tiny infant in his arms, and she smiled up at him. He was among the most powerful beings in any world, feared for his brutality and cutthroat ruthlessness, and he was absolutely powerless to do anything but smile back at the bundle in his arms, and Mickala knew Selene had already won him over.
Chad and Philip laughed quietly, watching Ian’s bond with his niece/second cousin/goddaughter forming already. “That’s going to be the most protected little girl in either realm. Aiden and Mickala as parents? Michelle as a grandmother? Us and EJ as uncles, Ari as a great-uncle, and Nehela and that one there as godparents? She won’t have anything to worry about. The only ones stupid enough to come against her would have a death wish.”
About an hour later, the Healer ended up running everyone out, and Aiden took his daughter to the nursery, saying she needed to rest. She was told to relax and get some sleep. “You’ve been through enough in the past few hours with your blood pressure shooting up, then going through delivery with no epidural.” He cut the lights off and closed the blinds against the steadily brightening sky.
Aiden leaned over and kissed her, then kissed her forehead. “Healer Jones is right. Sleep as long as you want, and I’ll handle everything else.”
She smiled wearily, then took his fingers and laced them with hers. “We did good, right?”
He kissed her again. “You did amazing. Selene’s perfect in every way. Now, rest.” She was asleep before the door closed behind him.
* * *
It was almost nightfall before she woke up again, a healing assistant coming to check on her. She apologized, but Mickala waved it away. “Would you like me to bring Selene?”
“Please?” The assistant nodded, then turned the lights up slightly. Aiden came in a few minutes later, looking much more comfortable holding her than he had earlier, and she knew he probably hadn’t set her down but for a few minutes the entire day.
He handed her their daughter, and she noticed they’d bathed her and dressed her in a pink gown, a pink cap. Aiden had wrapped her in a pink blanket with embroidering in silver thread. Also, in between her birth and now, she’d developed tiny black ears which flopped forward and a tiny black tail, but they all had silver tips, and her eyes were a dark golden color, a few shades darker than Mickala’s own halfway form. Mickala held her, and it didn’t take the infant long to fall asleep. She breathed her scent deep into her lungs, her eyes closed, then let it out slowly.
Aiden sat on the edge of the bed, his arm around Mickala. “She was so amazing. She hadn’t cried this whole time. Not even once, and she was surrounded by crying babies. She just looked around, like she was curious about where she was.”
“Has she eaten yet?” Mickala asked, pitching her voice low so she wouldn’t wake her baby.
He shook his head, then brushed his hair out of his face. “Not yet, but they said it’s normal when they’re this small. She’ll probably be hungry when she wakes up, though.” Mickala nodded, and one of Selene’s hands broke free of the blanket, her tiny fingers curling around Mickala’s with a grip that surprised her.
They brought Mickala’s dinner, and she realized she was starving. Aiden laughed as she wolfed it down, and she grinned up at him. “I have room to eat again,” she said with a laugh.
“That’s kind of what I thought, so I told them to make sure it was enough. How do you feel?” Aiden asked.
“Better, but I’m still a little sore and a lot weak,” she admitted.
“Healer Jones said you probably would be for a couple of days, but you should be able to walk around today, and if everything goes smoothly, you’ll probably be out of here either tomorrow or the day after.” Selene woke up a few minutes later, then looked up at her mother with another enormous smile. “The healing assistants can’t get over it. They say babies that small don’t smile, but she’s been grinning this whole time.”
* * *
Mickala’s first attempt at breastfeeding went well, then they changed her diaper. Michelle tapped on the door, and Mickala told her to come in. She smiled to see her daughter beaming down at her granddaughter. Selene looked up at Michelle and gave another smile, and Michelle was helpless to not smile back. She stroked the black and silver ear, and the baby closed her eyes, seeming to enjoy the feel. “I used to rub your wolf’s ears the same way, anytime you were upset, and it always put you to sleep in no time.”
“Where’s Travis?” Mickala asked, looking for him.
“Outside,” Michelle said.
Mickala rolled her eyes, then called for him to come in. He grinned sheepishly as he sat beside Michelle. “How are you feeling?”
“Pretty good, actually. I’m so glad you came, Travis,” she said, hugging him.
“Are you kidding? I wouldn’t have missed this for the world. I just wish I would’ve had time to get on a plane.”
Mickala laughed quietly. “Yeah, some of our methods of travel can be a bit…unnerving.”
“It’s worth it, though. Can I hold my granddaughter now?” he asked.
She cut her eyes up at him playfully. “I know you didn’t just ask me that. Of course you can.”
Michelle handed him Selene, and he eyed the ears and tail, then grinned. “You know what? They suit her. But where does the coloring come from? And I thought her eyes were blue?”
“They will be in her human form, but both mine and Aiden’s halfway eyes are golden, and my ears and tail are black, and Aiden’s are silver. So, she has the best of both worlds.”
He tickled her tiny chin, and she grinned and cooed up at him. The others laughed at his face, his watery eyes. “She’s so beautiful, and she has the same star as you and Michelle?”
Both women nodded, and Michelle smiled. “For the first time in over a thousand years, there are three generations of our line. This is a very special day.”
“Oh, I called Alex,” Aiden said. “She’ll be here tomorrow.”
Travis looked skeptical. “Um, ears and tail?”
Mickala and Aiden laughed. “We’ll be able to control what form she’s in until she’s seven. She’ll be old enough by then to understand who and what she is.” He just nodded, and she laughed again. “You’re doing well, adjusting to our lives. I have to admit, I’m impressed.”
“Don’t be,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m always finding something else to ask Michelle about.”
“That’s good, though,” his wife replied.
“I’m glad you know what I feel for either of you hasn’t changed. I love both of you.”
They stayed for almost an hour, then they said they were going to let her get some rest. “How long are you going to be in Georgia?” she asked through a yawn.
Michelle smiled. “Probably for a week or two. We want to make sure you’re going to be okay once you get home. You’re really going to need to get some rest then.”
“That’ll be great, and I know you’re not going to stay at a hotel or something when we’ve got plenty of room at home,” she scolded gently.
Travis laughed, looking at Michelle. “I told you.”
* * *
&nb
sp; Before Michelle and Travis left, there was a knock on the door, and Ari came in, beaming. “I’ll be damned. My favorite niece, great niece, and now my great-great-niece all in one room!”
“Uncle Ari!” Michelle said, jumping to her feet and hugging him tightly.
Ari winced, laughing as he hugged her back. “You look good, Chelle.” He rubbed his ribs when she let him go. “And I see you’re as strong as ever. It’s been too long, dear.”
“Not that long, Uncle. Just since Mickala’s wedding.” She sighed, then waved Travis over. “Ari, you remember my husband, Travis. Travis, you remember my Uncle Ari, right?”
“Of course I remember. We met at the wedding.” He shook his head as Travis started trying to bow. “There’s no need for all of that. You’re family now. You still seem to be okay with everything. I’m very impressed.”
Travis shrugged. “I’m still adjusting, even what? Five, six years later?”
Ari grinned. “I know, but if you’re this okay with everything, I have no worries about you.”
“We were actually getting ready to leave,” Michelle said, indicating Mickala nodding off. “But it was so good to see you again, Uncle.”
He gave her another hug, kissing her cheek. “You, too, dear. Hopefully, it won’t be so long next time.”
Michelle and Travis left, and Ari grinned at the new parents. “Ian called and told me the good news. How are you feeling? He told me what happened at the house.”
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “I’m fine now.”
He took the baby when Aiden passed her over. “What did you name her?”
“Victoria Selene,” Mickala said with a faint smile.
Ari smiled fondly, nodding. “It’s perfect. I remember how Angel would tell me stories about your great-grandmother on Earth, how strong, brave, and gentle she was, everything I know you to be, and your daughter will be. I never had the honor of meeting Selene on Earth, but I remember how she took Sathe and myself in on Solaris after Malik’s family destroyed Elagon. She treated us as if we were her own blood kin, showing us such kindness. I know I was just a child, but our father told us the most amazing stories about her once we’d been reborn and waiting on Sathe to get his own memories back.” His smile widened. “I know she would be so proud of you. I know Angel definitely was before she passed on.”
Releasing the Demons: Solarian Chronicles II Page 27