Claimed by the Elven King: Part Four

by Cristina Rayne

  “Of course, the House of Vanvir aren’t the only ones who covet my throne. I am certain members of my own House were equally troubled by your extremely swift pregnancy. Had I been confirmed sterile, then the next in line to the throne would have been given the chance to either conceive a child with Limira, or even a human wife, in order to cement his claim to be king.”

  He suddenly leaned forward and brushed his lips briefly against mine before pulling back and flashing me a tight smile. “I imagine whoever was behind the attempt on your life is now desperately hoping that the child is not male because, as you humans say, hell will freeze over before anyone will ever get near enough to you again to try.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  That I was now living in a gilded cage was an understatement.

  The day after my attempted murder, Sethian had assigned what amounted to a small army to stand guard at every possible point around the royal suite and my personal garden. Visits to said garden had been reduced by Sethian’s order to only once every few days, and never on the same day. What I had loved the most about my previous walks in the garden was the openness and sense of freedom that it had given me after being cooped up within the castle walls for long periods of time. That air of freedom no longer existed as the moment I so much as stuck a toe outside, I was immediately surrounded by no less than twenty elven guards, making me feel even more claustrophobic than when I was indoors.

  At least I still had sitting out on the balcony to look forward to, but even my access to that had been, understandably, severely restricted. Unless Sethian, himself, accompanied me, those doors were kept tightly locked.

  These days I often felt like one of those clichéd princesses that were locked up in a tower for whatever reason served the plot. To someone like me who had spent practically every night of her life gazing up at the stars, being cooped up indoors was practically torture.

  That trip to Talloth? At this point, I’ve pretty much given up on seeing it anytime soon. Sethian had tried to assuage my disappointment by assuring me that after the baby was born, we would all be taking a trip across the realm to introduce the new royal child to the elven people once the baby was a few “moon-cycles” old. However, I had tried not to get too excited or even to think about the trip very much because the way my luck had been going for the past few months, something catastrophic was sure to happen the day before we were to leave, thus forcing Sethian to cancel the trip.

  Today was one of my “garden” days, and even though my back had been killing me all morning, I was determined not to miss my walk outside. Well, waddle really, as I now resembled a beached whale. My stomach had grown so large in these last couple of months that I was afraid that I was going to have twins, no matter that Sethian had constantly assured me that he could only hear one soul. The thought of giving birth to one baby was already scary enough. Having to go through it twice within minutes was a terror that was unfathomable.

  I had only been walking for less than half an elven-mark when a sharp pain abruptly shot from my back, then radiated through my abdomen, causing me to stumble and fall heavily to my knees onto the thankfully soft grass.

  “Emily!” Lariel cried, instantly falling down to her knees as well beside me, placing a hand worriedly on my shoulder. “Are you all right? Did you hurt yourself?”

  Another sharp pain closely followed the first, and for a couple of seconds, I was unable to answer her as I doubled over. By then, Rinwen had also dropped down to her knees beside me, and the circle of guards had moved in more closely.

  What the heck? Everyone had always said that contractions didn’t come this closely together until a woman was pretty close to delivery. Maybe that lower back pain I had been feeling since the middle of last night hadn’t been so benign after all. Of all places—why did this have to happen to me now?

  “I think I’m in labor,” I finally managed to gasp.

  Both Lariel and Rinwen’s hands instantly jerked away from my body as if they had suddenly been burned. Then both women rose to their feet and hastily backed away from me, the guards following their lead just as quickly. What in the world was going on?

  I moved as if to get up, and Lariel immediately said, “Emily, don’t try to get up! Just please sit down right there for now.” She turned to the other woman. “Rinwen, please go find His Majesty.”

  “Lariel, why did everyone step away from me all of a sudden?” I asked in bewilderment as I did as she had instructed and let myself sort of topple over from my knees to my backside.

  “His Majesty didn’t tell you?” she asked in surprise.

  Once again, I seemed to be missing something major. “Tell me what?”

  “It is forbidden for anyone other than the father of the child to touch a woman once she has gone into labor. The birthing process opens your soul and the child’s soul up in a rather unique way in order to forge the familial bond between mother, father, and child. Even the physical touch of an outsider can contaminate that sacred bond, and that must be avoided at all costs.”

  I cradled my stomach in my hands, wincing as another contraction hit. If that was the case, and I had indeed been in labor since last night, then I just screwed up royally as all three of my friends had touched me at least once while helping me bath and dress this morning.

  Lariel made a sympathetic noise. “Just a little while longer and His Majesty will be here to take you to the royal birthing room.”

  At least Sethian had told me about that particular room one night when I had grilled him about where I would be having the baby, though I had not been allowed to see it beforehand. When I had asked why, his answer had just been confusing, something about “disrupting the energies of the room” whatever that meant. When I had pressed for more details, he had just shrugged and said it wasn’t something he could really explain, that the room had been created by the mages of old using archaic forms of magic now lost to the pages of history to ensure the power of the royal family.

  That had made me a little nervous. I had wondered what exactly those mysterious “energies” within that room would do to the baby, if anything. Sethian’s answer of “what needs to be done” was less than reassuring. I was coming to understand that there were many aspects of the elven culture that I would never understand, or more correctly, couldn’t understand, simply because I was human.

  The fact that I still couldn’t “hear” my baby’s soul had driven this point home better than anything else. It was something that I had been really worrying about over the past few days as the possibility of going into labor had gone from “sometime in the near future” to “maybe in the next few seconds.”

  How would I even know if the baby was hungry or distressed or sick or anything if elven babies didn’t cry and I was the first human mother in their history that was mentally and emotionally deaf to her child? Sethian had told me not to worry so much about it, that it would definitely happen at birth. He had seemed so genuinely confident about it happening that it should have reassured me, but the fear just wouldn’t leave me. Now that the moment of truth had arrived, I was more scared about finding out whether or not Sethian was right than of the pain of actually giving birth. Before I had started freaking out about my possible defectiveness, I had thought that nothing could be scarier than childbirth.

  Another contraction hit, and I doubled over with a moan. Although that one had been slightly more painful, there had definitely been a longer interval between it and my last contraction. The frequency of the previous two had probably been a fluke, thank goodness.

  I was also grateful that my water had yet to break. I would rather be somewhere less public when that happened. I glanced over at the guards, some of which were staring at me with way too much interest. Yes, somewhere less public and hopefully with less of an audience.

  A few moments later when the air began to shimmer and warp in front of me, it was all I could do to keep from crying in relief. Even before Sethian had completely faded into view, I was already reaching for
him. Although a bit caught off guard, he easily caught me under my armpits and lifted me to my feet as though I weighed nothing.

  My face must have showed my fear clearly because he immediately pulled me into a tight embrace and said, “It’s all right. Soon the unpleasant parts will all be over, and you will have our child in your arms.” I could hear the excitement and pure joy in his voice.

  He looked over at Lariel and Saeria. “Have all the necessary items prepared for when we return to my rooms. I suspect you will not see us until this evening.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” they replied in perfect tandem.

  I flashed them a tremulous smile before the scenery around me began to change, and a tall, gold-plaited door that I had never seen before, reminiscent of a vault to a treasure room in some late-night adventure movie, faded into view before us.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  That Sethian unlocked such an intimidating door with a large, though ordinary-looking golden key rather than with some form of elven magic seemed a little strange to me given the mystical bent that surrounded this particular room. However, the moment Sethian ushered me across the threshold, it felt very much like the time I had accidentally gotten too close to an activated Tesla coil during a lab at the university. The room positively thrummed with power in a way that sent every warning bell in my subconscious screeching.

  Then another contraction hit, and the uncanniness of the room became the least of my worries as the strength of that sudden pain almost had me collapsing to the ground in a ball of agony.

  “Wait! I can’t—” I moaned as Sethian continued to urge me forward. If the pain was already this bad, I couldn’t imagine how I would be able to endure it when it inevitably got worse closer to delivery.

  Sethian began rubbing my back as I bent over with my arms wrapped tightly around my belly. “Just breathe slowly,” he said. “We are almost to the pool. You will feel much more comfortable once we are inside the water.”

  Right, the water. I had been a little surprised when Sethian had stated that all elven births were water births.

  After a few more seconds, the contraction subsided, and I was able to breathe more easily. I straightened, and said, “I’m okay now.”

  I was able to focus on the room again while he left my side for a moment to pull the heavy door closed. The room was completely composed of marble from ceiling to floor. In the center was a large, circular pool about forty to fifty feet in diameter that was sunken into the floor. It was filled to the rim with water so clear that it almost appeared to be empty. The space reminded me of a futuristic version of an old Roman bathhouse without the columns.

  Along the edge of the pool was a large pile of towels and next to that, looking completely out of place, a small, leather-handled dagger. That was it. No flasks of medicines or bowls of herbs that I had half-expected, but Sethian had told me he would be personally seeing to my pain with his healing abilities so I suppose painkillers were really not needed here.

  A loud series of clicks suddenly resounded throughout the room, and I instinctually turned towards the sound in enough time to see Sethian turn the last of the door’s four locks.

  “Shouldn’t we wait until Yara gets here before you lock us in?” I asked, rubbing my stomach anxiously.

  “Yara?” he echoed in confusion. Then he shook his head. “I never did explain, did I?” he said as he wrapped an arm around my waist and guided me towards the pool. “It is forbidden for anyone other than a child’s father to be present for a birth. An outsider’s presence would interfere with the familial bond that is newly being formed.”

  “Lariel did mention something like that, but…” But what if something goes wrong?

  “A healer is not necessary for a successful birth,” Sethian said as if reading my mind. “It is very rare for a Sidhe woman to have complications during the delivery.”

  “But I’m human,” I couldn’t help adding. “We have complications all the time.”

  “Yes, but you are having an elven child,” he said as if that answered everything.

  Then another contraction hit, and I lost the chance to question him more as I focused completely on breathing slowly through the cramping pain. Before the painful spasm had ended, Sethian busied himself with unlacing and removing my dress. I kicked off my slippers, and he carefully guided me into the warm, barely-waist-deep water. There was a seat made of marble in the very center that reminded me of an open-ended toilet seat on three legs, and I sat down somewhat awkwardly onto it at his urging. I concentrated on keeping my breathing even while he undressed.

  A huge wave of warmth suddenly began gushing out of me, and startled, I looked down to see that the once pristine water was now slightly cloudy around me.

  “My water just broke!” I exclaimed, and then I was unable to speak again for a long moment as my body was rocked with a contraction twice as strong as the last one.

  When it was finally over and I raised my head with a grimace, I saw that Sethian was already in the pool and wading out to me. Once he reached me, he positioned himself behind me, to my surprise, and knelt down. Wasn’t he supposed to deliver the baby? Why in the world had he knelt down back there?

  “Lean back against me for a moment,” he said before I could voice any of my questions.

  I did as I was told, and Sethian immediately wrapped his arms around my waist, his hands position flat on either side of my belly.

  “Close your eyes and relax,” he murmured in my ear. “I am going to ease your pain now, though it will not disappear completely. You will still feel each contraction as a mild twinge. For now, just concentrate on connecting with the baby’s soul just as I have instructed you rather than on the frequency of those twinges. The time between now and a mark before the birth is the most important time of the whole process. This is when we both shall bind mentally and spiritually with our child.”

  I nodded and closed my eyes, trying my hardest to relax against Sethian’s chest as the weird chair I was sitting on wasn’t very comfortable. I concentrated on sensing emotions that I knew I was not feeling just as Sethian had taught me, but without really understanding what it would be like to “hear” the baby, I couldn’t be certain that I wasn’t missing something already.

  For the next six hours or so this is what we did. As the seventh approached and Sethian informed me that I still had not dilated completely, I was counting my blessings that Sethian was a healer because I don’t think I would have been able to handle such excruciating pain for so long without losing my mind. As it was, I was already exhausted.

  So far, the only emotions I had been able to sense were definitely Sethian’s, as he was having a hard time containing his excitement and occasionally, impatience. During this time, he had only spoke to me a few times, and mostly just to ask if I was comfortable and if I had heard the baby “speak.” No and no on both issues, but I had kept the first one to myself as it involved the chair and there was probably nothing he could do about it. He still didn’t seem worried about my failure to hear the baby’s soul, so I decided not to worry about it either at this point.

  As it was getting fairly close to the actual birth, I was more concerned with how awful the actual birth would be and whether or not I would be able to push the baby out at all than something that was completely out of my control.

  Another half hour and I was starting to wonder if it was possible to overdose on Sethian’s healing magic as my head had started to spin and everything took on a blurry, surreal look.

  That’s when I felt it, a rush of bewilderment and fear that was not my own. Was that…?

  “The baby’s…scared,” I said a bit deliriously.

  Sethian rubbed a hand across my stomach. “Ah, your minds have finally bonded,” he said with satisfaction. “It won’t be long now, I think.”

  “Wait, you mean it’s because of the baby that everything’s gone all loopy?” I slurred.

  “Yes,” he replied, rubbing at my shoulders. “You perceive the world p
artially as the world the baby perceives. It is skewing your sense of reality.”

  About fifteen minutes later, I was finally pushing, and Sethian was half embracing my body and half reaching between my legs in preparation for the baby’s appearance. A couple of pushes later, the baby was partially out and I was certain that I would be unable to push no more.

  Then at Sethian’s coaxing, I managed one last big push, and I felt the baby’s body slide out completely amidst a cloud of red and a huge surge of adrenaline. I collapsed back against Sethian’s chest, exhausted to the point of passing out, but I struggled to keep my consciousness with everything I had in me. I had to see the baby. I had to—

  As Sethian had warned, there was no cry as he lifted the baby from the water, just a small gasp followed by a larger, startled gasp behind me as I looked at my child—no, my son—for the first time. Only then did I understand Sethian’s reaction.

  Tiny, pointed ears poked out cutely from within a mass of wet, black hair.

  CHAPTER NINE

  A son. I have a son, I thought, still a little shell-shocked about the idea as I stared at the tiny bundle in my arms who silently stared back at me with the most brilliant green eyes I had ever seen. He was beautiful, so beautiful, and I couldn’t get enough of just looking at him.

  Sethian sat beside me on our bed where he had propped me up with a multitude of pillows so I could hold the baby properly, perhaps equally as shell-shocked as I was, but for an entirely different reason. He was looking down at our son as if he couldn’t quite believe that he was real.

  “You’re sure that this has only happened once before?” I asked for the umpteenth time, still kind of freaked out about the whole thing.

  He shook his head. “As I said, I have only heard of one other instance. Whether or not it is actually true is anyone’s guess as there is no physical documentation to support any of it.”