No! No! No! Not yet!
A third contraction hit and Beth knew there was no fighting it; her body wasn’t listening. With a flash of pain like fire scorching her inside to out, something lava hot slid from inside her and a pained sob escaped her lips. Somehow Kahtar shoved the Old Guard’s hands aside and caught the thing in one hand.
Beth’s heart sunk so far it seemed to have left her body. Her face crumpled.
This is my fault.
Long heartbeats later Kahtar whispered, “Merciful, ilu!” Balancing what appeared to be some sort of slimy creature in the palm of his hand, he shook his head, tears streaming down his face. “She’s beautiful!”
The comment brushed against Beth like a lie.
“What is that?” Beth gasped, horrified. The thing he held in his hand didn’t look human, and it certainly didn’t look beautiful.
“It’s our daughter!” Kahtar said with reverence. “This is our daughter, love!”
Another sob tore out of Beth’s chest. It looked lifeless and grotesque, a reddish ball of flesh and what looked like wet feathers on top, with a horrible cord hanging from the belly. An Old Guard now held the pulsing thing. Not only was she dead, but something had to be horribly wrong with her.
A dry sob wracked Beth’s entire body. “She’s dead and there’s something wrong.” But the words didn’t ring true.
“No, love! She’s alive! Not a single thing is wrong! Thank you, ilu! Thank you, Beth!” Kahtar reached for the little creature and cradled it in his hand, poking it gently. It moved, unfolding itself from an oval ball to reveal a large head, with tiny arms and legs punching and kicking the air as if in slow motion. It made a sound, like a weak version of when Wolves got his tail stepped on.
“She’s breathing!” Kahtar said wonderingly. “She’s breathing all by herself! Beth! Do you see this?”
Nodding, Beth stared, trying to understand what he wasn’t telling her.
Welcome Palmer materialized from thin air at the side of an Old Guard, a bag valve mask in hand. He dropped to his knees beside Beth and allowed the forbidden bit of plastic to fall to the floor. Beth watched her alleged daughter between her knees, hopeful as Welcome bent his dark head over it, examining it even as he fingered the twisting umbilical cord still attached to Beth’s insides.
“Of all things miraculous, what do we have here?” he breathed. The cord turned black in places and dropped from his pinching fingers.
“Apparently it’s a daughter,” said Beth. “Kahtar said it’s a normal one.”
Welcome’s green eyes shone in the shimmering light of so many Old Guard. He smiled. “And so she is.”
“She doesn’t look right,” whispered Beth, needing to tell the truth.
Welcome tugged the yellow blanket lower, hiding the fact that his hand snaked beneath it to touch her as invasively as the Old Guard had done. His eyes slid out of focus briefly, and Beth felt things inside of her shift slightly as he rubbed none too gently on her parts.
“Please. What’s wrong with my baby, Welcome? Tell me the truth.”
“Nothing is wrong with your baby. She’s just very tiny. I suppose the truth is at birth no babies are very pretty in the traditional sense. Some are less pretty than others, but babies are always wet and wrinkly like that when they’re born. I’ve never seen one so small breathing, though! She does look rather like a bald bird, doesn’t she?” Welcome smiled at her. “But the truth is she’s amazing and a miracle. Wait a couple of weeks. I promise you’ll see what we do. Kahtar? Give her to Beth.”
Beth tried to lean away when Kahtar brought it closer, but his other arm was still firmly around her shoulders. She looked down at her daughter. The baby’s face looked like a shriveled apple, the features a series of wrinkles.
Kahtar moved the blanket covering her and placed the thing against Beth’s bare skin, whispering in the ancient tongue, his dialect old. Beth’s shades didn’t go back far enough to understand much of it, but the words, “Filia mea Dianta” translated clearly.
“You want to call her Diana?” Beth eyed the little thing critically, trying to determine which wrinkles might be hiding eyes.
“Dianta,” Kahtar corrected. “Diana is a virginal name; I wouldn’t inflict that legacy on our offspring.” He looked hopefully at her, as though awaiting her consent.
She’d had a list of girl names picked out, but in this moment couldn’t think of any that would suit what had come out of her. This is my baby. Beth tried to make herself believe it. She doesn’t look like an Elspeth or a Lelia.
Kahtar ran a big finger over the furrowed body. “I like the name Mars too, and as she was born under a blood moon, it would suit.”
Beth shook her head, unwilling to inflict that name on a girl. Her father would never forgive her.
Kahtar smiled. “Dianta, then?”
Somehow it suited. Beth nodded.
“It’s the name of a prolific huntress. And Mars for a middle name, as our daughter is strong with life. Do you feel it?” He kissed Beth’s sweaty cheek, his lips lingering.
Beth felt nothing beyond a hazy dream-like shock. She bit back the words on the tip of her tongue and settled for shaking her head slightly and muttering, “Huh-uh. Are you absolutely sure she’s okay, Welcome? She doesn’t look like I thought she would!”
Kahtar chuckled, whispering into her ear, “Remember the Constantine’s? You met my grandparents and cousins. They’re all ruddy and dark and small.” He glanced at Welcome Palmer as though just remembering the doctor was there. “I’m the fluke in the gene pool.”
Welcome eyed Kahtar through narrowed eyes for a moment, and returned his attention to moving Beth and the baby into the bedroom.
Within a few more hazy moments all the Old Guard flickered away and Kahtar stood at the foot of the bed with the baby balanced in both hands, seemingly unable to stop admiring her. Welcome tugged and shifted Beth, adjusting a nightgown over her, thick towels under her, and blankets around her the way she suspected her father would if he were there. Suddenly she wished he could be, and her heart burned with loneliness as tears stung her eyes. Her dad would probably never know his granddaughter’s middle name. More than anything Beth wanted to be home. But this was supposed to be her home now.
“Kahtar, you’re interfering in their bonding. Bring the baby back over to Beth.”
Kahtar tore his gaze from the baby, his steely eyes wide, and hurried back to the bed, holding the baby under Beth’s face. “Smell her.”
Beth wrinkled her nose. “Why?”
“Please, humor me.”
The creature writhed in Kahtar’s hands, as though burrowing. There was something horrifyingly small about it. Beth cooperated and leaned forward slightly to sniff it. “It smells like—what is that?” Beth sniffed again. “Oh! She smells good!”
Tears warmed Beth’s eyes, and she touched her daughter tentatively, running a finger over the naked torso. The skin felt incredibly soft, just a wrinkly doll of a baby. Her baby. Doll-sized. The tears pooled out of her eyes and Beth carefully took one of the grasping hands between her fingers. The impossibly wee hands were perfectly formed. “That’s adorable! Do you see that, Kahtar? Look at her hands, look at her thumbs! Oh, heavens! Look at her toes! She doesn’t have any nails!”
“She will,” Welcome promised from the sidelines. “They often don’t at first, especially when they’re early.”
“Can I hold her? Please? She’s so small that I’m afraid of her, but I want to—I need to!”
Kahtar tugged at the gaping opening of Beth’s nightgown, fully exposing one breast, and turned the baby onto its stomach as he laid her down. She looked like a hairless squirrel clinging to the side of Beth’s breast with her face planted on top the nipple. “She can’t possibly fit her little mouth on that,” Beth said, fairly certain which wrinkle was the mouth part.
Welcome frowned as he wedged himself fearlessly in front of Kahtar to position Beth’s hand properly against Dianta. Beth’s entire hand, finge
rtips to palm, was the exact same length as the baby.
“Support her head. Their necks aren’t strong enough to support—”
Just as he spoke, Dianta lifted her head up despite Beth’s hand gently cupping it, opened her mouth like a python and did a face plant back on the breast, sucking the entire nipple into her mouth.
“Ow!” Beth protested. “Ow! Welcome, get her off!”
Welcome laughed as though delighted. “I can’t believe what I just saw!”
Kahtar laughed his deep, genuine belly laugh. Beth was not amused.
“Holy ow! Seriously, guys! I think she has teeth.”
“Beth, let her feed anytime she manages to latch on.” Welcome had one hand on the top of Beth’s head as he caressed her hair. Behind him Kahtar mirrored his movement with a finger on Dianta’s dark hair.
Beth still thought it looked like drying feathers.
Trying not to complain, she hunched her shoulders forward, hoping the baby would let go.
Welcome leaned closer. “Try to relax…” he paused, his attention back on the mouse-sized creature latched onto Beth’s breast. The feet were moving fast, toes digging into the crease beneath her breast.
Kahtar pushed his finger between Beth’s nipple and the baby’s face, and it stopped struggling. “Keep your finger here when you nurse her. Her nose is so small your flesh blocks her airway.”
“Is there even any milk? I don’t want to endure this for nothing.”
“There’s a precursor to it, but there’s something more crucial than milk.” Welcome turned his attention to Beth, his dark brows pulled together in a frown. “Close your eyes and really feel your daughter.”
Frowning, Beth obeyed. Tonight when she’d gone to bed with the blood moon shining through the window, she hadn’t expected to meet the little acrobat who bounced on her bladder and left her craving red meat and anything with malt in it. Yet here she was, months early, safe and sound.
This amazing little wonder is my daughter.
Beth smiled, really feeling the life against her skin, the body breathing fast beneath her right hand. It hit then, the touch of Dianta’s heart against hers, grabbing hers in a freefall and burrowing inside it with haughty fierceness.
You will never be the same, it told her. You’re mine. I own you. The truth of that hit Beth hard, like she’d opened her eyes for the first moment to discover she was a mother—which she had.
“Oh! Feel that! It’s a marvelous heart! She’s so strong!” said Beth.
“Yes, she is,” said Welcome Palmer. “What a heart!”
Kahtar laughed again. The joy shining on his face made it every bit as handsome as Welcome Palmer’s. “That heart reminds me of your mother’s!”
“I don’t know how to be a mother,” said Beth, feeling inadequate with this little life pressed to her breast, gnawing.
“Nor does she know how to be your daughter.” Welcome smiled sagely. “You will learn together.”
Beth winced as Dianta savaged her breast, biting brutal and sharp against her nipple.
“Oh, hold on,” said Welcome, impertinently jamming his index finger against Beth’s nipple and forcing Dianta to detach. The flickering lamplight showed pin pricks of blood on his finger. Welcome shoved another finger into Dianta’s mouth. “Yipes. She does have a tooth, sharp as a needle.”
Beside him Kahtar grinned from ear to ear, as though this was somehow a good thing.
Beth shifted in the bed, leaning against the pillows and bringing her knees up she angled Dianta’s head onto her other breast, trying to avoid the tooth. “Come on, wild thing. I won’t keep track of your mistakes if you don’t keep track of mine.”
BLOOD AND BONE—BELTANE
STANDING IN THE bathhouse, Kahtar flicked soapy foam into a bowl of water from his straight-razor. Tipping his head back, he scraped the blade up the length of his throat. A deep gash ran from his elbow to his armpit, only half-healed by the Old Guard who’d inflicted it. It burned every time he lifted his arm.
The wooden door to the shed slammed inward, startling him. He nicked his throat.
“Kahtar!” Beth practically flew at him. “There you are! Hey, are there Macaws inside the veil?”
A ribbon of blood ran down Kahtar’s throat. He grabbed a washcloth and held it to the wound. “You slam in here to ask me that? Where’s Dianta?” He scanned toward the cabin.
“No, I came because I want to show you something. The plebes are watching her until I get you. Come on! Hey, you’re really bleeding there! Did you nick yourself shaving?”
Kahtar scowled at her. “Why did you leave her with plebes? I told you they’re inept.”
“Because you also told me you don’t want her outside and I needed you. I think we should take her outside though. She’s bigger now and I think the rain has finally stopped. It’s gorgeous out. Do you realize this is the first sunny day since Dianta was born?” Standing in the doorway, Beth motioned for him impatiently. “Come on, you have to see this!”
Kahtar grabbed a towel, wiped the rest of the soap off his face and tugged his shirt over his head. Holding the washcloth to his still bleeding throat, he followed Beth out the door.
“You look nice.” He nodded toward the summery dress she wore, noticing her clogs were still the ugly felt ones she’d worn every day since Dianta was born.
“Thanks, I’m celebrating—and this is the only dress that fits, because I’ve been eating everything. You know the cookies you made last night? Gone. The problem with getting rid of all my shoes is that not one of the three I kept will fit now. These things are one of the plebes.”
All that eating had left Beth with a softness Kahtar found appealing. The last time he had seen that dress Beth hadn’t filled it out quite so expertly. Swallowing, he forced himself to stop staring. “Are you celebrating Beltane?”
Beth didn’t answer for a moment as they sloshed across the expanse of somewhat marshy backyard. It had been raining for nearly a month. Kahtar glanced at her to find Beth turning nearly as pink as her dress, chewing her lips like she did when she tried not to answer a question. He knew instantly what she was celebrating and it wasn’t dancing around a Maypole, per se.
A month. It’s been a month today!
Kahtar smiled and took a good look at Beth this time. Palmer had been adamant that they give Beth’s body a month to heal. Despite the fact that Welcome had used his skills to quicken the healing process, he’d instructed the only demands placed on Beth would be Dianta’s, and he’d followed the command with a meaningful look at Kahtar. It left Kahtar fully aware the good doctor had known they hadn’t followed his pregnancy instructions to the letter. Welcome had taken him aside to reiterate his demands the night of Dianta’s birth.
Make Beth rest. I won’t go so far as to say I know why she delivered so early, because this has been the strangest pregnancy I’ve ever seen, but I mean it this time. Let her rest.
Beth couldn’t resist answering for long. “Of course I’m not celebrating Beltane. I don’t even know what it is.” She pouted a little. “I can’t believe you forgot our month of waiting is up.” Self-consciously she tugged at her dress to pull it up higher on top, while simultaneously attempting to tug it down over shapely thighs. There simply wasn’t enough fabric.
“I never count days when I’m fasting. It makes it seem longer. But I’d be happy to enlighten you about some old Beltane rituals tonight.” Kahtar held her gaze until she flushed, and they both looked away, grinning as they gave up keeping their feet dry and sloshed through the yard.
“You never answered me about the Macaws,” she said.
Kahtar managed not to roll his eyes. “This veil is a few hundred years older than everything outside, but it’s the same otherwise. When you’re on the other side of it do you see many Macaws flying around Ohio?”
“Of course not. I realize they’re not native, but I saw one fly over your bath shed a few minutes ago.”
“You probably saw a barn owl, there’s o
ne hanging around,” said Kahtar as they stomped up the porch steps and left their muddy footwear outside the front door.
“I think I know the difference between owls and tropical birds. You should have seen Wolves; he practically took flight after it. He knew it was something new.” Beth held the door open.
“Once I watched Wolves chase his own tail for forty-five minutes. I timed him. You might not want to use him as a witness.” Kahtar sneaked a kiss against Beth’s soft cheek, and crossed the great room to where half a dozen plebes bent over Dianta’s cradle. Relieved they weren’t holding her, per his orders, Kahtar bit back a smile when he heard one of the thirteen-year-old boys comment, “She’s a wee mouse, isn’t she? Oh, yes, she is!”
The boys noticed him then and backed away, looking fearful—although for once they were doing exactly what they should be doing. Kahtar didn’t mind if they basked in the delightful touch of her baby heart while they watched over her. He leaned over the cradle to bask some himself.
The touch of Dianta’s heart felt nothing like Beth’s or his. It reminded him of cliff diving, or gorge scrambling. “What new wonder did she perform today? Did she turn her head by herself?” he asked Beth.
Dianta lay on her back, pumping her fists and legs within a nest of soft blankets. The babe had grown a bit, and now stretched longer than the length of Kahtar’s hand, but still smaller than a newborn should be. Kahtar reached into the cradle and lifted her out as Beth joined him.
“Well, of course she did that too, but that’s not why I came and got you.” Beth ran her fingers over Dianta’s ruddy cheek, and the babe turned her head in that direction, opening her mouth wide. “Always hungry, aren’t you?” Beth teased her fingers over Dianta’s wrinkly face. “Have you noticed how unique she is? I’ve been trying to find something about her that’s familiar to you or me—like my toes, or your fortitude—which she definitely doesn’t have! She wants everything now. But then today—”
FOREVER The Constantines' Secret: A Covenant Keeper Novel Page 6