2. Alaric

CHAPTER 2

Alaric

Birth of his children-

I feel the slight tug from Aurora when she reaches out through the bond to gauge my location. It makes me smile that she seeks me out upon waking. Not long after she reached out to me, I feel her pain and discomfort. The dual whines of Dominik and Jayce confirm my suspicions, Aurora is in labor and she's been hiding her discomfort from us. I feel through the bond how intense her contractions and I warn the twins I'm about to pick up speed. I'm closing in fast on the castle and I feel the fear from Dimitri about what may come. I summon other dragons to aide in transporting my family and providing security. Dante and Edgar and the first to shift in the courtyard leaving ample room for me to land.

I land as carefully as I can and apologize to the twins, I see Aurora being escorted out and watch her double over from a contraction. Fuck I wish I could hold her, comfort her in some way. I lower my head to her, and she cries she can't climb, fuck. Slowly I open my hand and extend it to her curling my pinky to make a seat for her to sit on. Once safely in my hand I close my fingers around her, her complaint about the temperature is handled immediately. I turn and launch into the sky clutching the hand that holds my mate tightly to my chest. I am flying faster than I usually do with the twins on my back to its urgent that I get Aurora to the cavern. I land inside the cavern and thankfully Dante beat me there with Nicodeamus. I open my hand the minute Nicodeamus is ready to receive his daughter from me. Dominik and Jayce slide off my back and go to help with Aurora. Her pained cry wanting, no needing me to shift prompts my shift to be faster than its ever been before. The minute I am able to lay my hands on her the pain lessens and its tolerable for her. Dominik shifts to his wolf and lays down to carry Aurora into the cavern.

The rest of my bond mates arrive soon after we make it to the waters edge, Klaus and I escort Aurora into the water trying to soothe her. Nicodeamus explains how special this place is to his family and what its able to do for a female. Instinctually Aurora wanted the water long before knowing what I could do. Watching my beloved mate go though all this pain to bring our child into this world is the hardest thing I have ever done. I constantly push all my love and gratitude to her as the guys switch out taking turns touching Aurora. Eventually her beast urges her to climb onto the island and we follow her. In my heart of hearts I am scared for my love after what had happened to her mother. Without warning her forearms shift to her armored gauntlets and she digs her talons into the earth under her. The contractions are getting stronger and the odd shapes her stomach is taking it frightful.

I'm in constant contact with Aurora when Klaus calls me to him. Slowly I turn my head to look at him and the fear that flashes in his eyes for a mere second scares a few years off of my life. I pass the juice I was holding off to Dimitri and head back to where Klaus is. Gently I rest a hand on Aurora's hip and take a peek.

To say I'm in shock seeing the white scales of my daughter's dragon peeking out with every contraction. Slowly more and more of her head is exposed, she's the cutest little thing I've ever seen. Then reality hits me, what damage is her scales and claws doing to Aurora's insides? "Everything is ok love, we see the baby's head, that's all." I move forward and kiss Aurora's temple. I smile at her trying to reassure everything is ok.

I can feel when Aurora starts to get tired and then the faint pull of her trying to syphon energy off of any available dragon. "Man down!" I yell watching one of the black dragons that accompanied us drop in the tunnel. I turn my head just in time to watch my little Tia slip free of her mothers' body. Klaus wipes her off quickly before Aurora picks her up. Little Tia has mostly dragon feature with some wolf fur and wolf hind paws. She's absolutely perfect in every way possible. Nicodeamus lowers his dragons head to look at the baby and my little girl blows a small plume of fire at him. That's daddy's girl! I say to myself as I move off the island and shift to my dragon. I lower my head and open my mouth and like a good little hatchling she climbs in without fear. I carefully lower her to the ground allowing her to get to know mine and Nicodeamus' dragons.

Aurora's scream catches my attention, my head whips around to see her in labor again! There's a second baby coming holy shit! I shift quickly and scoop up my daughter and carry her back to the island. I put Tia down and take the Dominik's spot and start pouring water over Aurora's back to keep her comfortable. The moment baby number two slides free I'm almost hit with a plume of blue flames. This baby is all its mother, it came into the world ready to fight.

Carefully I pick up baby number two and flip it around several times. I look at the shape of the baby's cloaca and know that it's a boy. The little man blows another plume of flames in my face, I shift my eyes to that of my dragon and assert my dominance, my little man settles down quickly after that. "He's going to be a tough one." I tilt my head looking at her and she's really not catching on.

"Aurora love I know you're tired, but you have a son to help me name." I pass our son to her watching her nuzzle him and then I can see the excitement on her face when she finally gets it that he's a boy.

Aurora names our son and he goes off to play with his sister, it's now that we notice she's bleeding more than she should be. I feel like my heart damn near stopped. Aurora moves off the island and into the main cavern where her father is in his dragon form. I look my mate over, and her beast has changed again, it's bigger and its scales are heavier and more aggressive looking.

I know that look on her face she's searching for something in her father's memories, he bathes her in flames healing her wounds and accelerating the healing of any internal damage. I watch her tilt her head several times and then I hear it. The familiar click of a dragon's ignitor, I'm expecting Nicodeamus to bathe her in flames again. Shockingly, its Aurora who lowers her head and blows frost flames across the cavern floor before her. We all jumped back a bit watching her freeze everything before her. The babies are the first to approach her and they all sniff and lick at each other. We watch Aurora shift and make the baby's shift to human right along with her. Will wonders ever cease?