Ella
Bright light. A soft, warm breeze that smells sharply of pine and cedar. Somewhere in the distance a soft, delicate voice sings a beautiful song–a lullaby. A baby whimpers and is gently shushed.
I feel hands grazing down my arms. The scent of honeysuckle and lavender fills the air, and birdsong echoes in my ears.
I snuggle deeper into the warmth penetrating my back. Ryatt’s scent brushes over my senses like a loving embrace. Deep in my chest, in my soul, that thread that binds us together sings with satisfaction. His scent is sharper than before. It’s everything I love. Everything that sets my soul aflame…
I jolt to awareness, and I’m blinking frantically to clear my vision. Murmuring male voices cut through the lullabies and birds singing, and suddenly I’m in an unfamiliar cottage made of dark stone, the windows open to reveal a landscape of towering pine trees and rolling mountains capped with snow.
They’re people standing outside of the cabin dressed in warrior leathers. I suck in a breath as a golden haired man turns, his green eyes meeting mine and widening with shock.
Granger’s mouth parts, then he pushes whoever is standing next to him out of the way before he disappears from view.
The door to the cottage opens, spilling light throughout the small space. The Beta takes up the entire doorway as he ducks his head to come inside.
I whirl to look at whoever is sharing the creaky, goose down mattress I’m lying on and find Ryatt, fast asleep, resting his head on his arm while his other arm remains draped over my waist. I wasn’t dreaming. This is real. Our bond–I can feel it. What happened?
“Granger–”
“Ella–Luna,” he says briskly, bowing his head. His eyes are wide as he meets my gaze again.
“What happened?” I try to scoot into a seated position, but Granger jumps toward me.
“Lie down, please, you should be resting–”
“I–” I reach down to push the sheets away but stop when my hands brush over my suddenly soft belly.
Dread consumes me. My stomach hollows out, and a strangled sob forces its way up my throat.
“No–no!” My scream echoes through the cottage as tears well along my lashes.
Ryatt jerks into awareness, and suddenly, I’m on my back again, Granger and Ryatt looking down at me, holding me down as I thrash and scream and cry out for the daughter I’ve just lost. I can’t hear what they’re saying to me over my cries of agony. Despair curls through me, twisting in my heart like a heated blade.
“You should have let me die!” I scream at Ryatt, and sudden hatred boils through my veins. “Fuck you! You fucking bastard! Our baby!” Each word is a sob. “Our baby, Ryatt! You should have let me die with her!”
“Ella,” he breathes, taking my face in his hands. “She’s okay.”
“What?” The chaos in my mind stills. “What did you say?” I whisper, looking from Ryatt, to Granger, and back again. “Ryatt, what did you say?”
“She’s alive,,” Granger says so softly I almost miss it. “She’s beautiful.”
My eyes are on Ryatt though, on his tear stained cheeks and the dark circles lining his eyes.
“She has dark hair. A lot of it,” Granger continues, his voice choked with emotion. “She’s so small, Ella. I’ve never seen–never seen a smaller baby.”
“She’s okay,” Ryatt whispers, brushing the choked words over my cheek while I lie in absolutely stunned silence. “You did so well. You both did so well.”
My chest jerks with each breath. I’m not sure I’m awake. Is this still a dream? Have I cooked up this best case scenario in my mind to ease the pain of losing our daughter?
“Where–”
Footsteps ring through the air. Granger is blocking my view of the threshold, but a shadow stretches across the room. He leans away, resting on his knees beside the bed while Ryatt straightens and helps me sit up.
My back rests on a rough, lumpy pillow, but I can’t feel anything as the woman comes into view. Her long, white hair is braided messily away from her face. She looks familiar somehow; it’s something about the curve of her mouth and wide set of her eyes…. Her eyes. Wow, I’ve never seen eyes like this before. A milky white against a dark blue, or green, I can’t tell.
But my gaze leaves her face on instinct as a soft, cooing sound whispers from a bundle of thick blankets in her arms.
My heart threatens to leap out of my chest.
My lips part, and the world outside ceases to exist as my daughter is placed in my trembling, weak arms. I’m so exhausted that I barely have the strength to hold her as the woman adjusts the blankets so I can see my baby’s face.
She’s the color of a strawberry. That’s the first thing I notice. Her skin is thin and nearly translucent in the soft glow of the fire on the far side of the room. She parts her lips, her tiny brow furrowing as her eyelids flutter open. Dark, colorless eyes meet mine.
“Hi,” I whisper.
Her face twists, her bottom lip jutting out before a wail of epic proportions erupts all around us. It’s the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard.
“She’s got some lungs on her,” the woman beams, resting a hand on my knee. “How are you feeling?”
“I don’t know,” I reply absently. My full attention is on the baby in my arms. Beside me, Ryatt slowly gets off the bed, clearing his throat.
I tear my eyes from our daughter’s face and meet his, expecting to see the same kind of joy I feel singing through my heart but….
He looks away from us and says to the woman I’ve gathered is a witch, “I need to speak with you.”
She nods, and follows him out of the cottage.
I turn my attention to Granger. “What was that about?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Ryatt seemed so angry when he looked at the baby,” I push, gathering her tighter. She calms, becoming dead weight in my arms.
Granger looks down at his hands. “You almost died, Ella. He was here with you the whole time, through everything. He… he thought you were going to die. Both of you.”
Granger tells me everything. From the moment I collapsed in that clearing, to the moment the baby was born. I nearly died in Ryatt’s arms. Our baby, born far too early, had been on the verge of death for several days while I withered away from a fever in this very bed.
Ryatt, according to Granger, gave up hope that either of us would survive.
But then the baby turned a corner with the help of the witch, and I…
“Your fever broke yesterday,” he explains, pouring a tall glass of water from a pitcher and handing it to me. “The witch has been dosing you with herbs to keep you at rest. She decided this morning that you were healed enough to skip the herbs today. We weren’t confident you’d wake up.”
Several women from the nearby village had come, all of them having babies of a similar age, and nursed our baby in my stead.
Ryatt sat here next to me, Granger explains, for four entire days.
“Has he held her?” I ask.
“No,” he answers honestly, and it crushes me.
The baby whines, rooting against my chest. In response, my heavy breasts begin to tingle, and milk soaks through the long white nightdress I’m wearing.
How can I be so happy–and so distraught–at the same time?
“I’ll leave you. Do you–do you know how to…”
“I think so,” I whisper, my voice cracking over the word as I fumble with the buttons on the bodice of the dress.
Granger clears his throat and leaves the cottage.
Tears burn down my cheeks as I try, and try, and try to get the baby to latch. She’s getting frustrated, and crying, her little face turning a dark purple as her wails fill the room.
“I’m sorry,” I sob, over and over again. She’s too small, I realize, to even breastfeed. Her little mouth and jaw can’t figure out how to nurse.
I’m soaked with milk when the door opens again. I turn my head, tears streaming down my face. “Ryatt, I can’t–”
It’s not Ryatt. Disappointment swells in my chest as the woman–the witch–walks in and closes the door behind her. She carries a basket of supplies, setting it down gently beside the bed before sitting down near my legs.
“She’s used to a bottle now. It’ll take time to teach her how to nurse properly. We’ll collect your milk in the meantime, don’t worry.”
“What did I do wrong?”
The witch looks at me, looks through me. “This wasn’t your fault.”
“She shouldn’t have been born yet!” The words tumble out of me, falling over one another.
“This happens sometimes. The curse didn’t help the matter, of course.”
“It shouldn’t have happened to her!”
“Luna, take a breath. You’re alive. She’s alive. Your curse is gone.”
Relief floods my system but it’s short lived. At what cost? What happened during those hours I spent trapped in my worst nightmares while the curse tried to pull me under and rob me of my life and child?
“He hates her, doesn’t he?”
She winces, then reaches into the basket and pulls out a bottle. The milk is still warm as my fingers close around it. “Place it on her lower lip. She knows what to do.” She ignores my question, and maybe that’s for the best.
The baby takes to the bottle in an instant, her weight a calming comfort against my aching chest.
But I failed. I failed them both. Her, and Ryatt.
“The Alpha wouldn’t let us name her, but the women from the village who have been helping have started calling her Eadan. It’s a very old word from the ancient language. It means little fire. But, she doesn’t seem like an Eadan to me. She loves to sit in a warm lap and listen to the birds. Little bird,” she whispers, tracing a circle over the baby’s forehead. A brief shimmer of light, or magic, dissolves into my daughter's skin where the woman touched her.
A blessing, I assume.
I give the witch a watery smile. “Thank you.”
She grips my knee, her own smile turning wobbly. “I did what I could for you both. Your mate struggled with the situation. He still is. He doesn’t hate the baby, but she might remind him of what happened to you. He believes he failed you by not finding me sooner. The curse was… advanced. It may take a long time for your powers to return.”
I try to form the words to ask if she’ll fetch Ryatt for me, but my body begins to ache again. She notices my grimace.
“Rest now, starling.” She gently takes the baby, now sleeping, from my arms.
“Will you stay here with me?”
She pauses mid-step and turns around. My baby looks so impossibly small in her arms. The witch nods, and sits down in a rocking chair near the bed.
I roll onto my side, ignoring my damp dress. My body feels absolutely wrecked. I could sleep for days.
But my eyes stay locked on the witch. She lays a gentle hand on my baby, humming a gentle song. It’s enough to lull my body into numbness as the sunlight shifts to a deep gold, then a raw violet, stars peeking through the gaps in the trees.
I don’t remember closing my eyes, but at some point, I open them to find the witch is gone, and she’s been replaced by Ryatt, who sits with empty arms in the rocking chair.
He’s sharpening a blade.
“Where is she?”
“The baby has been staying with a local family. She’s fine.” His voice is level and uninterested as he slides a wet stone across the edge of the blade, the metal singing with each stroke. Finally, his eyes meet mine, the same color as the blade in his hand.
Something about him is different now. He’s lacking that usual undercurrent of power I’ve grown so used to over the past year that I forget it’s there.
Now it’s silent.
But… our bond….
“We’re mates again. I can feel it.”
His mouth kicks up in a smile that doesn’t meet his eyes.
“What did you do, Ryatt?” I ask as a realization dons on me. My stomach twists as I sit up. “How did you break the curse?”
“The witch did it.”
Something is wrong, I can feel it. He goes back to sharpening his blade as new shadows form around his features.
“Why haven’t you held her?”
Ryatt’s throat bobs as he swallows like it’s painful.
“Ryatt, what’s wrong?”
“I can’t protect either of you.”
“From–from what? What’s happening–”
His eyes lack their silver glow as they meet mine. “I begged the gods to spare your life, and they finally listened the moment I offered my powers to them. I am useless now, Ella. I am just a man. I can’t protect you or her. I couldn’t protect you from this curse even with my powers. I don’t deserve–”
“Shut. Up,” I hiss, and leap out of bed. I rush to him, ignoring the blade and sail into his arms.
I kiss him harder than ever before, tears streaming down my face.
“I don’t care, Ryatt.”
“I do,” he says.
“Have you seen her?” I ask through tears. “Have you seen what we made together, Ryatt? Our daughter. She’s beautiful, and she needs you–”
But he only shakes his head.
“Please try,” I whisper. I hate the painful memories of her birth and my near death dancing behind his eyes. “Try for me, please.”
I lean my forehead against his as the first inklings of sunlight drift through the window.
A new day dawns while I rest in my mates arms and try to sew his battered heart back together again.
The door opens like I knew it would.
“She needs a name,” I tell him as our daughter is placed in my arms. I turn her so he can see her fully, maybe for the first time. “Name her, Ryatt. She’s yours. She’ll always be yours. No one can take that from you.”
His gaze brushes over our daughter’s face. Beyond the door, birds chatter in a soft breeze.
I wait for his answer.