Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 38865 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 194(@200wpm)___ 155(@250wpm)___ 130(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 38865 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 194(@200wpm)___ 155(@250wpm)___ 130(@300wpm)
On hands and knees, I scream and I curse and I breathe and I push and then there is relief and a sudden emptiness. Sithren has caught our third child in three years.
“It’s a girl,” Sithren said. “And she looks just like you.”
I crawl into a more comfortable position on my back and reach for her. Sithren puts her on my naked belly. We are both slimy, crying messes.
This baby has my eyes. Human eyes. She has no scaling. She has ten fingers and ten toes. She is perfect. Just as Henry, and Melissa, and Tethys are perfect. I have four children. Four…
“Oh, fuck…” I curse as I feel a familiar tightening and an insistence inside.
“What is it?”
“Five,” I tell him. “There’s another on the way.”
“It’s okay,” he says, lifting the baby from my chest to allow me to writhe as necessary. “You can do this. You can…”
I can’t hear him over my screaming. The pressure is building. The pain is taking over. It’s never easy, no matter how many times I do this. Every time there is a sacrifice of blood and agony to be made. I meet it with as much bravery as I can muster as I am swept once more into the maternal breach.
There were three. I have three babies. All girls. Three girls born wild. The villagers are astounded, and also somewhat put out because nobody thought to make three baby blankets. The girls, much like their mother, will have to make do with hand me downs and the generosity of others.
“They're beautiful,” Sithren says, his big arm wrapped around me as I attempt to cradle all three of them at once. They are warm and happy, their eyes just barely open, sleep already upon them. They’re small but perfect.
There was a time I was absolutely desperate to have just one baby. I didn’t even consider that I might have multiples. My arms, my heart, and my life are all full of babies. Sithren has made me a mom many times over. I never dared hope a creature like him would give me what I craved. I thought he would forever torment me, use me, punish me, but he has become my ally in life and my closest family. With him I have replaced all the tenuous, easily broken bonds with the Authority. I thought I knew what loyalty was, and I imagined that I knew what love was. I knew nothing. But I craved everything.
“Get some rest,” he says. “I will watch over you.”
I close my eyes, feeling the kind of warmth and love that transcends time. This is an eternal connection, one that will never be broken in this world or the next. This is happily ever after.