Maeve
Misty lingers nearby as Ginny, my midwife, rises from between my legs, her face cast in the shadow of the sunset sending golden and crimson streaks of light through the curtains. The snow is melting. Ice thaws on the windows. I relax my legs with a grimace, Misty coming to my side to help me back into a seated position.
“So?” Misty asks as Ginny disposes of her gloves. “Is this happening?”
“Slowly, but yes. She’s quickening now. Her contractions will grow stronger from her, but they’re still far enough apart that I believe we have some time. A day or so.”
“A day?” I whine.
Ginny and Misty give me mirrored looks of sympathy, but it’s obvious there’s nothing more that can be done.
“Well, that means you have a full day to finally decide what her name is going to be,” Misty quips, shrugging a shoulder. “I’m leaning toward Misty, but I’m sure your Mom and Sarah would beg to differ.”
I playfully narrow my eyes. “If she ever makes her arrival, I’ll give her a name. Until then, I’m going to continue wallowing.” I roll over, grunting with the effort, and hug one of the six pillows currently stacked around the bed while Ginny murmurs to Misty about whether I’m planning to have the baby here, in my room, or at the clinic.
I watch the sunset fade, picking at the tassels on the pillow, wondering what the men are up to. I woke up to Soren puttering around the room, taking bites of a sandwich and looking incredibly bored. I’m not sure he knows what to do with his time here, which makes me wonder what I’m going to do when it comes to him having a life here, with me, with our baby.
I can’t see Soren finding any kind of solace in a soft life where he can watch TV to his heart's content and take up a hobby, like… underwater basket weaving, or something.
But I can see him… going to work at the same training facility where he was given a shot at a real future all those years ago. He’s incredibly gifted as a warrior.
The idea of him trying to wrangle a group of teenagers in the fourteen to sixteen class makes me chuckle, however, into my pillow. He doesn’t have the patience for that, but they’d love him. They’d worship the ground he walked on and run home to their parents with a colorful new vocabulary I wouldn’t stop hearing about for years to come.
But… he wouldn’t have a title. He’d be a background character.
Would he be okay with that?
He’s never given me the idea that power is something he wants, but… he’s an Alpha. It’s in his blood. He’s a born leader.
Keeping him locked up in a gilded cage is the same as trapping him in a silver band, isn’t it?
I curl around the jolt of guilt now ripping through my body.
“You okay? Hungry? Thirsty? Want to go on a walk?” Misty peppers me with questions.
I shake my head, rolling over onto my other side in an attempt to get out of bed completely. “I should go check on Soren, actually. I worry about him being alone with Grandpa and my dad for this long.”
“As far as I know he’s holding his own,” she murmurs, clutching my arm to steady me as I lift my legs off the mattress with a grunt. “Your dad’s being weird, though. I’ve never seen him like this.”
“He feels guilty, I think.” I sigh.
“About what? I didn’t realize you were fighting with him, too. Everyone was under the impression you left before Solstice because of Ryatt–”
“Well, that last part is true, I guess. I wouldn’t call it a fight but…” He overstepped my boundaries by forcing me back to Moonrise during Solstice, but now… now I realize he was right. Soren coming back confirmed it. I was in danger. The baby was in danger. I close my eyes, waddling toward my dresser where I left my robe wadded on its surface, and shake it out, saying, “Dad knew Soren, I guess. Soren was a trainee in the Ghosts, and he… he didn’t come back from leave. I don’t know the details of what it looked like for Dad and his captains but… I think something else happened, something Soren doesn't know about.”
“Your mom told me your dad had Soren pegged as a future captain before he even came into wolf powers.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” I whisper, more to myself than to her. Misty takes her leave, and I dress as best I can. Fatigue clutches my body. I move at a snail's pace into the tidy living area of my suite, but I find Jane there carrying a tea tray.
“Oh, I was hoping to surprise you,” she says with a soft smile. There’s a new light behind her eyes, and her cheeks are… softly pink. She looks warm all over.
I smile to myself as she sets the tray down and turns to me, tucking her hands behind her back. “How’re you doing, mistress? I feel like I haven’t seen you in days.”
“You’ve been busy,” I tell her, and it’s not just because of Patton and their mate bond. While I’ve been dealing with my family and the first signs of labor, Jane has been doing everything else. Clearing my schedule, handling questions from the press about why the family is gathering here, etc. “And I’m all right. Just tired. I was about to go find Soren–”
The door to my suite opens, sending an echo through the network of hallways and archways leading to the living room. Soren’s footsteps are undeniably set in determination as he rounds a corner, but when he sees me and Jane standing in the center of the living, he pauses in an archway, and his eyes…
“What happened?” I rush out.
Jane steps beside me and turns to face him, still gripping the tea tray. It’s the chamomile blend from the tea shop. Soren and I notice the scent at the same time, and his dark, steely expression deepens.
Blake fades out of the shadows, and Jane looks at him, her nostrils flaring as Blake leans to murmur into Soren’s ear, “Patton is in the Roguelands gathering your contacts. He’ll be meeting us in Twin Rivers within the next hour–”
“What?” I gasp, looking between my cousin and mate.
Blake licks his lips. Soren steps forward, resigned, and holds out his hands in surrender.
But I already know what he’s about to say and do.
“No,” I whisper, looking from him to Blake and back again. “No, Soren–”
“Listen,” he says quietly, edging toward me cautiously like I’m about to burst into flame before his eyes. “Maeve, this ends with me. I have a chance, okay, to kill the Viper. She’s the one in the way of your family finding Hannibal and putting an end to his–”
“It’s not your responsibility–”
“It is.”
“But I can do it. I can do this for you–”
“No,” he breathes, holding my gaze as he shakes his head. He gently takes my arm and guides me back into our room, closing the door behind him, and pulls me against his chest.
I’m too tired to fight. My body is honed on the changes actively taking place inside of me. My powers are… loosening, changing in a way I can’t explain, like they’re making room for something greater–the full strength of my powers as they mature.
“I spent the last ten years of my life fighting to take it back,” he whispers into my hair. “I killed people. I hurt people. I stole and fought to keep my head on my shoulders.” He pulls away enough to look down at me. “I laid in the Vipers bed and let her fuck me, Maeve, to protect Patton. Now I have to protect you and her.” He places a hand on my stomach, where the baby is silent, still, lying in wait for her grand entrance to the world. “And I will.”
I shake my head, but in my heart, I know this is done. He’s been in and out of our room all day, and most of the day yesterday, as well. He’s been plotting and scheming, making sure every detail is in place for me.
“I am here,” he says in a whisper, “to take a burden off your shoulders. This won’t be the first time I step up and tell you to step aside for me. You’re my queen, but you’re also my mate. Let me protect you–”
“I have powers, Soren.”
“Save them for her. Save your strength for her.”
Tears sting my eyes, but don’t fall as I… give in. Give up. As I go against every fiber in my being screaming to chain this beautiful, infuriating man to my bed and rush off to do this myself.
But I can’t. I don’t know where the Viper is. I don’t know her people. I’m not familiar with her games.
Soren is. He knows her on a level that makes me sick to my stomach.
“Come back to me,” I whisper into his shirt, closing my eyes against a surge of grief that burrows through my chest.
“I swear on the Goddess that I will come home,” he replies sternly, like he’s branding the words into existence. “We have it all planned out, Maeve. Your father has Ghosts undercover in Twin Rivers already. I’ve given him the Viper’s location, and they’re clearing the way for us.”
“Us?”
“Blake and me. Blake took Patton to the Roguelands today, jumping him from place to place to alert the people we trust, people who want out just as much as we do. Blake shattered their bands.”
I swallow past the lump in my throat. “I don’t know if I fully trust Blake. I feel like he’s hiding something.”
“He might be, but he’s clear on what he wants. He wants her dead as much as I do. He needs her out of the way to take down Hannibal. Once the Viper is gone, and the baby is here, you can handle Blake however you want, but I need him right now.”
“And what do I do?” I whisper.
“Stay here with your family. This won’t take long, Maeve. Hours, at the most. We’re leaving at nightfall.”
“Promise me something,” I say, holding him at arm’s length. “Promise you’ll be here when she’s born.”
He smooths my hair out of my face.
“Promise me,” I repeat, gripping his arms. “I want you here. I want you to see her.”
“I will be here,” he says, his eyes locked on mine. “I swear. I will be here when she’s born. I will come back to you, even if it means I have to walk through hell to get here. I will come home.”
He brushes his thumb over the healing mark he left on my neck, his eyes dropping to my lips, but he kisses the corner of my mouth instead.
Time moves in a blur for the next two hours. I sit in the living room with Jane, who’s ghostly pale and uncertain. Patton didn’t even get to say goodbye to her before Blake whisked him away, but I know Patton wouldn’t have left her behind if he didn’t believe we all had a shot of a life without the worry of the Viper or Hannibal chasing them down, hurting them, hurting us.
I watch my father fit Soren with new Ghost armor–something top of the line. Dad doesn’t say much, but seeing them together… seeing my family accepting him while knowing the truth… it’s overwhelming, to say the least.
I was wrong about them. About everyone. I drove a wedge between my family members thinking they’d never understand, and maybe they never will, but Soren is now the bridge between us.
Goddess, please let him come home.
I refuse to say goodbye. Soren, too, simply turns to Blake, both now wearing plain clothes with their Ghost gloves tucked in their jackets, and they disappear. Jane leaves to cry herself to sleep, I suppose. I sit on the couch, watching the stars prickle into view, and see twin shadows in the archway.
Grandma Ella comes to sit beside me. Grandpa Ryatt stays put, his eyes on his watch.
An hour passes, then another, and the world keeps spinning.
“Your mom is going to be here in the morning. She just confirmed they’re leaving the Deadlands at daybreak. Kieran can jump without the herbs, I guess, but Brie is still terribly ill,” Grandma says, smoothing my hair away from my face as she draws a bath for me. I stand in the bathroom as the water surges out of the tap, fragrant steam billowing toward the tiled ceiling.
“Grandpa should have gone with them,” I tell her, hugging myself as another contraction soars through me. I wince, but Grandma Ella bites her lip.
“He wants to be here, with you.”
“I didn’t understand why–I thought he was sending me away from Maatua because he didn’t trust me.”
“He built the world you inherited, honey. Knowing what you’re going through now is killing him. It makes him feel like he didn’t accomplish enough.”
“That’s not true,” I whisper, shaking my head, but just as the contraction fades, another begins, worse than before.
I double over, gripping the counter, and groan through the tight, deep pain threatening to snap my spine.
“Oh, dear,” Grandma huffs. “Okay, this one was bad.”
“I–” I can’t talk through it. The pain steals my breath away.
“Maeve, just breathe–”
Water spills between my legs, tinged with blood.
I meet Grandma’s eyes.
“I can’t—not until he comes back–Oh, Goddess–”
“Don’t panic, Maeve,” she whispers, but her skin pales as I double over again, clutching my stomach. “Ryatt? RYATT!”