18. Derek

18

Derek

C hristmas crept up on us in that strange way time had of speeding up when you least expected it. It was just two days away now, and if I hadn’t known better, I’d think magic was involved. Too bad that magic hadn’t extended to the production of snow; the ground was still bare, the yards and medians just patches of sad, dead grass and fallen leaves. Everyone in the grocery store this morning had been grumbling about global warming.

Every day, my body had continued to change, my back and hips aching, my belly expanding until I thought I was going to burst—literally! I’d always wanted to have children, but I’d kind of assumed I would have a full nine months to get ready for them. Two months? Not nearly enough time. It was making me antsy. My to-do list seemed to be expanding faster than my waistline!

I paced around the kitchen island, waiting for the timer to go off. The whole house smelled amazing, of cinnamon and nutmeg, butter and brown sugar. Wink had been called in to The Pie Bar to make a quick emergency cookie delivery for the children’s hospital. My beast had grumbled, but it was for a good cause, so I felt guilty arguing about it. In the end, he’d told me he would hurry. “Even if I have to use a little magic,” he’d promised, before giving me a peck on the lips and dashing out the door.

I groaned, stretching out my back. With space inside me at a premium, everything had begun to hurt on some level, but right now, there was a tension in my lower spine that no amount of stretching could relieve.

Kit , my raccoon said yet again. Kit’s coming . He’d been a regular broken record for the past two days.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” I grumbled. “Anytime now.” As much as I loved the concept of being pregnant and providing my baby with everything they needed to grow, I was ready to evict them.

Chewy twined himself around my ankles, nearly tripping me, and I growled, the sound definitely more animal than human. Chewy, a great friend to my raccoon, wasn’t fazed in the least, staring up at me with those yellow-green eyes, meowing plaintively.

Maybe a bath would be nice, as soon as these tarts were done…

Luckily, the timer chose that exact moment to go off. “Perfect!” I clapped my hands and grabbed the oven mitts, opening the oven to the blast of hot air. I had just grabbed the tray and closed the oven when a searing band of pain clamped down on my stomach.

“Fuck!” I shouted, dropping the tray in shock.

Told you , my beast muttered. Kit .

“Yeah, yeah,” I groaned, mitted hands braced on my knees as I waited for the contraction to pass. A moment later, I was able to stand up straight again, and I blew out a long breath. “Well, that was fun—not. ”

After cleaning up the fallen tarts, I waited all of ten minutes and two more contractions before I grabbed my phone, fully intending to call Wink back here ASAP. Could elves teleport? It might be a good time to try. If the timing on these contractions were any indication, then I figured this baby might be making an appearance sooner rather than later.

Before I could finish dialing, though, I heard the car in the driveway, headlights coasting past the window, and just seconds later, the door burst open, Wink appearing all wide-eyed and puffing. “The baby’s coming!”

“You don’t say,” I said sarcastically, arching a brow. “Is that what these waves of gripping pain mean?” But then I frowned. “Wait, how did you know?”

“I was just leaving the children’s ward at the hospital when the Santa they’d hired to come see the kids came up to me and told me I needed to get home, that the baby was on the way.” Before I could ask, he said, “It was Santa 49!”

My jaw dropped, but before I could answer, another contraction hit, and my teeth snapped shut with an audible click. Wink was at my side in a flash, still wearing his boots and jacket. “Come on, let’s get you to bed.”

“No, I want a bath,” I gritted out, and Wink didn’t argue, trusting that my body would tell me what I needed.

Not even five minutes in the tub, though, and I was shaking my head. “Nope, need to walk.”

My mate didn’t argue, just helped me out of the tub and dried me off, rubbing my back when I gripped the edge of the counter, my guttural moan echoing in the tiled room.

“Should I call the midwife?” he asked nervously .

I shook my head. “I don’t think there’s time.” I hated to admit that I hadn’t planned for this particular scenario. No matter how many times I shifted or had a conversation with my beast inside my head, I just kept falling back on this “I’m human” mentality, after being raised as one for over 20 years.

Letting my instincts take over, I wandered toward the living room where the fireplace was burning. The bedroom was all wrong for bringing my baby in this world, and I found myself pulling the afghan off the back of the couch and balling it up into a little nest in front of the fire. “Here,” I said, getting down onto all fours, the urge to push becoming all I could hear.

My poor mate was so out of his depth, but he kept his hands on me. “What do you need me to do?” he asked, biting down on his panic.

“I need a cold cloth on my neck,” I said, panting, my eyes closed as I rolled my hips.

A cold chill hit me in just the right spot, but it couldn’t have been a cloth because only three seconds had passed, and it wasn’t wet either. I cracked my eyes open to find my mate’s hands were covered in a layer of frost—magic.

I laughed, the sound coming out as a half-manic sob. “What’s so funny?” Wink asked, though it seemed like he was just happy for a reason to distract me from the pain.

“It’s just so perfect, magic playing its part in bringing our child into the world. Are elf births this hard too, or does the baby just pop out?”

He just shrugged, coasting his chilly hands down my sweat-drenched back in a soothing gesture. “I… couldn’t say.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “They do pop out, don’t they?!” I gritted out in an accusation as another contraction crept up. “Why couldn’t you be the one to carry the babies? ”

“Babies, as in more than one?” he asked, eyebrows jumping. “Does that mean you’d be willing to go through this again?”

I had to pause the conversation for the contraction, bearing down this time as my instincts took over, my body telling me exactly what to do. When it passed, I blew out a shaky breath. “I mean, I was always lonely as an only child. Maybe I could stand to do this one more time.”

“Whatever you want, my love,” he whispered in my ear, kissing my neck gently.

The contractions seemed to stack up, one on top of the other, until it was just one constant wall of pain. I bore down hard, my mate bracing me, not saying a single word of complaint when I squeezed the hell out of his hands.

At long last, our baby came into the world, right at midnight. I collapsed back against Wink as he set our daughter into my arms. The fire had died down, but the moonlight spilled in through the window, and when I looked up, I caught a glint of silver.

“Wink, look,” I whispered, nodding toward the window. “It’s snowing.”

The three of us cuddled together, feeling the tingle of something magical. “What should we call her?” I asked, gazing down as she fed for the first time.

“Well, it is officially Christmas Eve, so maybe… Eve? What do you think?”

I smiled sleepily. “I like it.”

I could’ve sworn she smiled, so I chose to believe that she liked it too.