Blood of the Infinity War (Afterlife saga Book 8)

by Stephanie Hudson

  I had woken and the first name from my lips hadn’t been Draven for once, but Ranka. I remembered her face, seeing it even now when she landed on her knees after taking Draven’s blade through the chest. She had hung on, clinging to life until we returned. I ran over to her where she lay bleeding on the Temple floor and the second I touched her hand she released a deep sigh of relief.

  “Now I can go in peace, knowing my part played helped aid the Fates,” she told me and then I leaned down and whispered,

  “If you want peace my friend, then leave this world showing him the truth, set yourself free,” I told her and her wide eyes told me that she knew of which I spoke. So, she nodded and I moved aside allowing Draven to take my place.

  “My Lord…I…” she started to say but instead quickly morphed into her true self. Into Ranka the man. He swallowed hard as if waiting for the worst, but I knew my husband, as he knew me. Draven placed a hand on his arm and said,

  “I have always known, Ranka.” This surprised us all but no one more than that of Ranka.

  “And I respected and cared for you all the same…my loyal friend,” he told him and Ranka dragged in a shuddered breath before taking hold of his hand and with his dying breath told him,

  “It…it has been my… honour to serve you… My…my Lord…always.” And then he passed away with a small smile on his lips. It was a great loss and one that I cried over along with Sophia. We may not have had the chance to get to know him in this time, but we did in the past. He will always be the one to save my life and kick start a journey that made winning this war possible.

  After this Draven had simply taken my hand in his and walked us both through the rubble of the Temple. The others understood the need for our time together. After all, I had died and come back as a Demonic God, and basically killed all our enemies with little more than a thought…which wasn’t exactly part and parcel of my personality. Of course, there was also the matter of Draven now knowing I was pregnant. So yes, everyone knew he needed this. Which was why I heard Sophia enter my mind with only one request.

  “Go be together, we will deal with things here…go and take care of each other.” And take care of each other we did. Unbelievably the door back to Afterlife was untouched and when I asked Draven how, he simply winked at me as way of an answer. It was only when I noticed something in the rubble that I pulled away from him and said,

  “Just give me a second.”

  “Oh sure, it isn’t like we just survived the end of the world or anything,” he replied sarcastically. I blew him a quick kiss and then started digging the through the mess at what I thought I saw. Then my grin grew huge and I dragged it up and shouted back at Jared,

  “Well, would you look at what I just found!” Then I waved his precious leather jacket at him making the whole room erupt into laughter despite what we had just been through.

  But hell, why not…we were family after all.

  He took it off me and said,

  “I don’t think you can class that as survived…but I sure am glad you did, Doll.” Then he granted me a kiss on the cheek before taking the ruined jacket with him. It was a symbol of us all I think, as we were all certainly looking a little worse for wear. But we had won, the Earth was safe and we had survived… that had been the main thing.

  Draven hadn’t spoken to me during the walk back to our room, but the second I was through our door he spun me around and just simply held me. My emotions hit their limit and I sobbed in his arms, as I could barely believe it was finally over. Everything the Fates had said had come true just in twisted ways we never believed they would. But all this time I had spent thinking my days were numbered and that immense weight had finally been lifted from my shoulders and it was…

  Done.

  Well almost.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” He had whispered into my hair before pulling back to look at me.

  “Because I was afraid. I knew that you believed as I did that me being pregnant was what would have killed me. But now I knew it has to do with the future.” And it did. Lucifer’s words had confirmed that. Our child would be the end of the Infinity war, one that the next generation would face but we would be ready.

  As they would be.

  That night Draven made love to me and held me all through the night. It was the first night I didn’t dream. It wasn’t what I would have planned for our wedding night, but to me, with the war won, it was perfect.

  Draven explained that after giving me the choice, Lucifer had taken Pertinax’s Blood from me so that I could regain my humanity. Well, most of it anyway as I was still a Vampire, Demon, Venom of God hybrid with a little bit of Angel thrown in there for good measure, thanks to Draven’s blood. But Draven knew the truth and he didn’t care, just so that we could be immortal together…and now, with a baby on the way. He had only wished that he’d had the courage to grant me a child himself instead of his younger self doing it without his knowledge. I had placed my hand on his cheek and told him that I was sorry and I wished for it too.

  To give Draven his credit that, despite this, he warmed to this idea very quickly. So quickly in fact that the second we met back up with our family the next day, he announced it to the world. My mother had burst into tears in seconds, along with Libby but this wasn’t the strangest thing to occur. Ari had heard this news and burst into tears for a very different reason.

  She had dragged me into the toilets in the hotel we were still all technically staying at in Worcester. Then she had broken down admitting that the night Draven and I had ‘conceived’ in the past, Ari hadn’t been in the next room. She had tried but hadn’t realised until it was too late when Vincent had sneaked into her room and stole her away.

  She told me that she tried to tell me this before, but she thought she would have had another opportunity to ‘help’. And then she wanted to wait until after the wedding, not wanting it to ruin the day to tell me. I couldn’t help it, I was in shock. I had held my belly and looked down at myself hating that such an action would only upset her further. But I couldn’t help it. I had truly believed.

  Sophia had seen the whole scene play out and with Pip in tow, she came into the bathroom to find Ari and I in tears, hugging each other. We told them what had happened and instead of believing it she said,

  “Show me.” I frowned not understanding at first.

  “Drop your shields. Drop everything,” she said again and in that moment, I understood. So, I took a deep breath and for the first time since this all began, I started tearing down every wall I had ever built. I was destroying them, no longer caring about preserving my mind, protecting it or anything. I just needed to know right at that second if Ari was right. But in the end, it wasn’t Sophia who saw it.

  It was Pip.

  “Oh my god! I see it! I feel it!” she shouted and my faced shot up to hers and said,

  “Really?!” The hope in both my eyes and voice was testament to how much I wanted it to be true.

  “Oh Gods, I can see it too! Oh Keira, you’re going to have a baby!” Sophia said.

  “I am? I really am?”

  “YES!” Both Pip and Sophia shouted together. Then I turned to Ari and grabbed her to me as we cried together.

  “You did it! I don’t know how but you did it!” I told her and the next thing I knew Draven was barging into the ladies’ toilets demanding to know what was wrong. All the girls left to let me explain as the second Draven had felt my mind becoming open, he knew something was wrong.

  “I…I thought for a moment that I wasn’t…” I didn’t need to say the rest as Draven looked down at my belly and then suddenly dropped to his knees. Then he placed a forehead there at my stomach and whispered in awe,

  “Our child, I can sense our child.” I held his head to my belly and let my tears flow in sheer happiness.

  After this, I explained why I had been so worried, telling him of Ari’s gift. At first, he had been surprised but understood my concerns, which begged the question of how and when?
In the end, the answer hadn’t taken us that long as Draven pulled back on my hand. We had been on our way back to meet everyone who was in the dining room waiting for us.

  “That night…I felt something, could it be?” he said to himself and when I asked him what he meant, he turned to me with the biggest grin and said the last place I would have ever imagined conceiving a child with Draven,

  “In Jared’s office…the night before our wedding.”

  “Oh my god, on his desk!?” Draven’s grin got even bigger and said,

  “The desk we broke.”

  After this it was quickly confirmed that it was indeed the night, when in Jared’s office, we had heard someone about to walk in to the room, when Draven roared out at them in annoyance. Well, it turned out that someone had been none other than Ari, who had been trying to get away from Vincent. He had been angry and jealous of the part she had played on the stage and they had argued before he had found her and left with her struggling over his shoulder.

  But in her emotional state when she had touched that door it had been enough to project her power into that room and stay with us. So, Draven had got his wish after all. He had been the one to create a child with me in this time, as we were always meant to do.

  Which brought us back to now and sat back in Afterlife which always felt like home. Of course, since being back here he had also needed to buy a bigger table as his council had grown by considerable numbers. That wasn’t the only thing he’d had to buy since I became pregnant, as Draven being Draven had taken possessive behaviour to the next level.

  Which meant I couldn’t even sit on my own freaking chair without him getting into a caveman style grump. I thought I’d won the fight when my belly started growing so big he couldn’t fit me on his lap anymore. But I found out one night that Draven could do smug very well as when I had walked into the VIP that night, I found a new massive chair waiting for me. One more than big enough to fit him with me in between his legs comfortably.

  Which was the chair I found myself squirming on now as the baby felt as if it was currently training for a kick boxing championship. Although knowing Draven, I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t pop out and pick up a rattle holding it like a weapon. We didn’t know what the sex of the baby was as I wanted it to be a surprise. Of course, to achieve this surprise I also had to build up my shields again, and vowed to do so the very night I had brought them down. As having sex with Draven when he knew your every thought was a little unnerving, and more than a little embarrassing. Especially when he kept saying, ‘You want to do what to me now?’ and ‘You want me to do that to you here?’ Oh yes, he’d had loads of fun teasing me and whispering naughty obscenities in my ear.

  “I swear if this baby doesn’t come out soon I am ordering the spiciest food, drinking raspberry leaf tea, after going for a jog and a quick round of acupuncture and then if all else fails, tying you to the bed and riding you like a cowgirl!” I said not even caring if everyone could hear us. Draven nearly choked on his drink along with a few other council members around the table.

  “Jesus woman, why the hell would you do all that shit…last one not counting?” Sigurd asked after banging his beer bottle on the table.

  “It’s in the book, tips on how to bring on labour,” Draven told the rest of the table whispering the mention of ‘the book’ like it was a curse word…that damn book! I swear it had become the next bible in our household. I had shamefully thrown it at him once when he had made the mistake of nagging me to do my pelvic exercises. I hated to admit it but I was an angry pregnant woman…who knew?

  Well, Draven certainly did after enduring eight months of ‘bitch’ Keira quickly followed by tears of sorrow and ‘guilt’ Keira.

  “The book?” Jared asked on a chuckle.

  “Oh no, here we go again,” Sophia said, obviously having been party to this conversation quite a few times now, oh and Pip who thought seeing me angry and the size of a cow was the most hilarious thing in the world, her words not mine.

  “I will have you all know that I …Oh my god,” I said stopping mid flow and then I tensed. Draven tensed also and then the worst and best thing happened.

  My water broke.

  It also did this all over Draven.

  Everyone around the room froze but mainly at our table, one that was full of crazy over protective Alpha Kings, that also didn’t have a clue on how to act around a hormonal, over emotional pregnant lady.

  “AAH!” I shouted as pain shot through me making me slap the table.

  “Keira!” Draven yelled in concern.

  “Shit!” Sigurd shouted

  “Has her water just broke?” Sophia asked.

  “That is a definite yes,” Draven replied as he picked me up and set me down. Sophia looked up and down him now it looked like he had pissed his pants and said,

  “Yep, she sure did.”

  “Oh well, would you look at that,” Pip said and I bent over the table and shouted,

  “Can we try and focus on the lady trying to push a baby out of her please!” I growled before banging the table again as another contraction hit.

  “Wait, another one?” Draven asked, obviously knowing everything humanly possible about giving birth as he had read everything there was to know…and I mean everything!

  “We need to move her!” Sophia shouted and Draven went to pick me up again but I screamed out and said,

  “NO! I can’t…oh God…Draven! The baby is coming!”

  “What, right now?!” he asked again.

  “Oh yeah, like right now!” I shouted back and then the next thing I know, Pip is screaming orders at people.

  “Right, Wolf boy, get everyone out of here!”

  “Seriously dude, can you ask your wife to stop calling me that!” Jared complained before getting to the job at hand and ushering the rest of Draven’s VIP guests out of the doors.

  “Just wait for it…” Sigurd said before Pip ordered,

  “Shadow Man…”

  “Yep, there it is!” he muttered before she shouted,

  “…towels, baby blankets, a pillow everything now, it’s in their room, go now chop, chop!” she said clapping.

  “And while you’re at it, add my complaint to Wolf mans’ whilst you’re adding names to the list.” Adam laughed and said,

  “You’re both dreaming.”

  “Cupcake sugar pants, you’re on gas and air! Go, it’s in Dom’s office!” Pip said making Adam wince as the other two sniggered before getting back to the job at hand.

  “AAHHHH!” Hurry, oh, oh, oh…I want to push…can I push…?!” Sophia helped Draven get me up on to the table and said on a chuckle,

  “Not yet, as we won’t get far with your jeans still on.”

  “Zagan, ring Ari and my Brother, they will want to know. Ragnar, stand guard. Takeshi call them.” Takeshi nodded as Draven had clearly taken over and I was about to ask who exactly he had wanted him to call, but another contraction hit and I was yelling again.

  It was all hands on deck and all those birthing plans Draven had made me sit through, hearing all our options was now out the window. Birthing baths, the best hospitals, the best doctors, music, candles, big round balls to bounce on, well it all meant nothing now. It was just a simple, I am having a baby, now help me get it out and as soon as possible because…

  “OWWW! Ow, ow, ow!” I shouted as another wave hit.

  “Okay sweetheart, it will be alright…”

  “GAS! Get me some GAS NOW!” I screamed just as Adam came running in with the big gas bottle under his arm.

  “Here, let me,” Sophia said when he started looking confusingly at the tubes and mouthpiece. The second the rest of the group arrived, Draven gave them a look and said a stern,

  “Up that end, now!”

  “I think that means you sweetie, as you also have a penis,” Pip had said to her husband and the men all got the hint pretty quickly. Once Draven was assured all male eyes were very much away from my private girly parts, he s
tarted to take my knickers off. Sigurd slipped a pillow under my head and threw Pip the towels, trying not to look. She started placing them under me and Draven gently lifted me.

  “Okay, okay, here comes another one! Oh, oh, oh, AAAAHHHH!”

  “Gas!” Draven snapped and Sophia said,

  “Got it! Here, try this.” She passed it to Draven who tested it out first and then handed it to me.

  “Here sweetheart, deep breaths.” I sucked on it as hard as I could but then when I felt another hit, I started screaming.

  “Stupid thing doesn’t work!” I said throwing it to one side with a snarl and it went crashing into the wall. My Vamp strength certainly kicked in. But then I felt it coming, that feeling like you had to push.

  “Draven! The baby, it’s coming! I…I…need to… push!”

  “Alright sweetheart, take my hand and push through your next contraction.”

  “AAAAHHH!” I screamed and heard everyone around me trying to encourage me to push. Hell, it felt like I had my own cheerleading squad with Pip alone, who looked close to spelling my name out with her arms.

  “Come on baby, you’re doing so good,” Draven praised and I shook my head as I felt tears start to fall.

  “I can’t Draven, Oh, God it hurts!” I said feeling exhausted already.

  “You can and will, you’re doing so good honey, just get ready to push again,” Sophia told me holding my other hand. But that’s when Pip start to go strange.

  “Do you feel it, King?” she said touching his shoulder and he looked her in the eyes and said,

  “Yes…but not now, Pip,” he told her and I was just about to ask when the next contraction hit.

  “Right come on, one big push now, you can do it!” Draven said gripping my hand tighter as if bracing for my pain.