Chapter Seven
Mercy
Familiar and beloved vivid blue eyes waited for her when she woke. So many thoughts swirled through her, she didn’t know where to start.
A huge bloody gash marred his forehead. Might as well start with that.
“What happened to you?”
He touched the wound. “Nothing of consequence.”
“Liar.” The Mahdfel healed quickly. Anything that left a gash was of consequence.
“A misstep in the training arena. It won’t happen again.” His voice was firm and decided. Whatever happened, whatever kept him away from her, would not happen again.
“You’re late.” Mercy tried to sit up and winced, from both the throbbing pain in her abdomen and the neediness in her words. She hated how she clung to Paax for support, how alone she felt when he wasn’t there, but, dang it, a woman needs her husband when she’s in labor. She refused to feel guilty for wanting her husband to hold her hand when she needed him most. If anything, she should be forcing an apology from him for leaving her high and dry. The only person who’d held her hand was Dorothy.
And shouldn’t a proper mother’s first concern be for her baby? Shame flowed through her because the first words out of her mouth wasn’t for the welfare of the baby but because her husband didn’t hold her hand and hurt her feelings. Some mother she was going to be.
“I came as soon as I could.” He crouched down next to the bed and pressed his forehead to hers. She closed her eyes instinctively, savoring the contact.
“I needed you,” she said, voice raspy and dry. She wanted to keep accusation from her voice but it was a struggle just to form words.
“Here.” Paax pressed an ice chip to her lips. It melted on contact, soothing her parched mouth. She motioned for more.
A flurry of activity broke out in the room. The bed was adjusted to a sitting position, pillows propped behind her back, medication administered and a light, floating feeling disconnected her from the pain in her body. Everyone’s attention was centered on her but no one actually spoke to her. The haze of anesthesia wore off and the fog of confusion left her mind. The medics checked her vitals and finally—finally—someone thought to inform her that the surgery was a success.
“The baby?”
“Healthy. Perfect warriors the pair of them,” Paax said, chest swelling with pride.
Pieces clicked into place. Mercy remembered perfectly the curious light headed sensation of her chest being squeezed, and then Kalen barking out orders that the twins’ heart rates were dropping.
“Twins,” she said.
“Can you believe our good fortune? Two sons.” Paax straightened, speaking to someone over her head and completely ignoring her.
“You are very fortunate, sir,” Kalen agreed.
A wide grin flashed white against the warm plum of Paax’s complexion, the warlord thoroughly pleased with himself.
Somehow that was the thing to push her over. Not the being ignored by everyone in the room. Not her husband’s absence during her labor when it took a terrifying turn. Heck, not even the way her doctor conveniently forgot to tell her that she carried twins—but her husband apparently knew.
No, it was the way Paax puffed out his chest with that self-satisfied grin, like he was the one to carry two babies in his body. Or to suffer through sleepless nights, mood swings, swollen ankles, back pain, tender nipples, twice a day medical appointments and never had a moment to himself because a flotilla of warriors had to follow him everywhere. She did all the work and he took all the credit. Right now all she wanted was to hold the product of that work—nine months and change—in her arms and count his fingers and toes and kiss his little nose.
Noses.
Twins.
That explained all the punching and kicking. Four restless little feet had her convinced the kid was an acrobat. Turns out it was two acrobats.
A hand on his sleeve caught Paax’s attention. “I’d like to hold my sons now. And you two can also explain why no one thought fit to inform me that I carried twins,” she said when her husband bent his neck towards her.
She sounded calm, which was important because she did not feel calm. Far from it. If she’d had the energy and something handy, she’d be throwing stuff at the walls and shouting at the top of her lungs. She still might if a certain pair of aliens didn’t get their purple butts in gear and let her hold her babies.
Forget them. She’d climb out of this bed and do it herself.
“What are you doing, female?” Kalen asked, alarmed.
“You’re too slow. I’m going to find my babies.” Her legs moved just fine, albeit slowly. Her entire middle, stiff and unwieldy, was the problem. Numbness wrapped around her abdomen, masking pain. It was like she wasn’t even connected to her body or she was driving a car from the passenger side seat. She could almost reach the pedals but not quite. “What did you do to me?”
“Remain in bed,” Kalen snapped.
Mercy lifted her chin and planted a foot on the floor. Screw him.
“You had major surgery,” he added, voice softening. Skilled hands lifted her legs and put her back in the bad, pressing her shoulders down gently. “We cut through muscle here.” His hands moved, indicating a vertical line right through her belly button.
Mercy lifted up the gown. An angry red line bisected her still round belly.
The incision looked painful. She poked it with her index finger. Nothing. “Why doesn’t it hurt?”
“Medication and the pure raw talent of your medic,” Kalen said without a trace of humility.
“Looks a little large. Did you have to butcher me?”
“Time was a factor,” he said with a frown. “I needed to extract both your sons quickly.”
With no regard to bikini season, apparently. She poked at the incision again.
Paax gently knocked her hand away. “Let it heal, little star.”
“I’m going to have a scar.”
Kalen huffed. “That will fade in time and with reparative cream. Human skin is too soft. That is not my fault. It will also not be my fault if you injure yourself running about like a stubborn female before you’ve had sufficient time to recover.”
Bed bound. Fantastic. Just what a mother of twins needed to hear. “I wasn’t going to run,” she said under her breath.
Paax picked up her hand and crouched at her bedside. “Medication will block pain, which may mislead you to believing you are well enough to go about as you please, but this is a lie. Our technology is advanced and you are healing faster than an unassisted Terran, but there are limits. You must rest.”
That voice. Deep and authoritative, it was a voice accustomed to being obeyed. Tired and numbed, her body—the traitor—responded to it as it wrapped around her, reassuring her of her place in the universe and made her feel safe. It was so hard to hold onto her anger when he had a voice like that.
“I need to hold my sons, Paax.”
He nodded and motioned to a medic in the room. Done.
“How long will I be stuck in bed?”
“A day,” her husband said. “The incision is already closed and healing but you must rest or it could reopen.”
Mercy sank back into the pillows. A day wasn’t so bad. “Okay, then let’s talk about how neither of you two knuckleheads thought to mention that I was having twins.”
Kalen and Paax exchanged a look.
Oh heck no.
The suspicion that they were holding something back from her gnawed at the back of her mind for weeks but she wrote it off as being overly tired and stressed. That conspiratorial look confirmed all her paranoid thoughts.
“You knew! What did you think would happen when two babies popped out? That I’d be too tired to notice the surprise double babies or too emotional to care that my doctor and my husband kept this from me.”
“Little star—” Paax laid a hand on her shoulder but she shrugged him off.
“No, don’t go distracting me with that sexy voice. I’m upset with you, Paax, and I have every reason to be. I have a right to make informed decisions about my care.” Kalen opened his mouth to speak but Mercy cut him off. “Don’t you dare say a thing. Just because you wear a white lab coat does not mean you get to make decisions about me for me. That goes for you, too, Paax.”
He opened his mouth to speak.
Mercy held up the hand to a gesture to stop. Exhaustion rolled through her. She couldn’t fight now, as much as she—they—needed to reach an understanding on why what they did was inconsiderate, demeaning and… and… just plain humiliating, like she was incapable of making decisions for herself about herself. So much in the universe was beyond her control and usually she went with the flow without complaint. She had no say in the alien invasion that killed her father and changed Earth forever, no say in registering for the Draft and no say in who she married. She sure as a heck would have a say in what happened to her own body.
“I’m tired, Paax. We’ll talk about this tomorrow. Right now I want to hold my sons. Please.”
“I am not tired,” Kalen said, “and I need to inform you that withholding information of the twins was done to minimize your risk.”
Sure, now he wanted to inform her.
Meridan arrived with a swaddled pink infant in either arm. “Not now, sweetie,” she said, brushing past her mate. The alien doctor frowned, looked as if he was about to put his foot in his mouth but thought better of it. Good.
Mercy forgot all her worries, anger, pain, odd numbness and exhaustion. Her world centered on those two babies and their dusky pink complexions. She reached for them.
Meridan settled one in Mercy’s left arm. Entranced by chubby cheeks and rosy lips, she gentle brushed a finger across his forehead. He had a shock of dark hair.
Nothing should be that cute.
Her son. He did not have a name, yet, but she knew it in her heart. Speaking it aloud would have to wait for the Naming Ceremony.
She placed a kiss on his forehead and murmured, “I know who you are.”
The bed shifted as Paax sat next to her.
The second baby was placed in her right arm. “I know your name,” she said with a kiss to his soft, downy head. He smelled so good.
He opened his vivid blue eyes and squalled, cheeks turning a darker pink.
“I think he’s hungry, mama,” Meridan said.
“Oh. How do I?”
The nurse helped her arrange the baby for breastfeeding and Paax held the sleeping infant. “Is feeding safe with the meds I’m on?” she asked.
“Absolutely.”
“What about—” Mercy glanced over to the son Paax held.
“We’ll feed sleeping beauty when he wakes. Double breast feeding is an advanced move. Let’s just try one-on-one for now.”
The baby cried again. Her breast ached in response. She held him to her chest and he burrowed his face against the offered breast. A warm, wet mouth clamped down on her nipple, rough at first but easing up. Pressure released in her chest. She didn’t realize how heavy and swollen she was until the pressure eased.
“Okay, some basics,” Meridan said. “First, not everyone can or likes to breastfeed. Some babies are biters. Some will chew your nipples up like it’s bubble gum. Mahdfel milk teeth come in early and they’re sharp. There’s no shame in bottle feeding.”
Bubble gum. That was horrifying to picture.
“Second, a human baby consumes a staggering amount of calories. Mahdfel babies even more so. You will probably not be able to produce enough milk for twins, so don’t hesitate to supplement with formula.”
The nurse’s voice drifted into the general background. Mercy paid no attention. She only had eyes for the tiny, perfect being in her arms. Look at that skin, so smooth and flawless and soft. So soft. She counted ten fingers, perfect and grasping. Ten toes on two perfect feet. Two eyes. Two ears. She ran a finger over the top of his skull, careful of the soft spot and searched for horn buds. Two little protrusions waited just below the surface.
“Does that make sense?” Meridan asked.
“Sure,” she said absently. “When will his horns come in?” Mercy looked towards Paax.
“Soon.”
Full, the baby ceased feeding but did not let go of the nipple. Mercy rubbed his back, amazed at the size of him. “I guess I should be thankful they didn’t grow in utero.” Ouch.
“Ready to switch?”
Mercy nodded, accepting the other baby. He was slower to wake but happily accepted the nipple.
“This one feels… different,” she said.
“Different good or bad?”
“I’m not sure. It doesn’t hurt.”
“Hmm.” Meridan double checked the angle and connection, rubbing the baby’s back when he complained. “Sometimes milk production isn’t equal. Also, he’s developing his technique.”
That made her laugh, shaking the soft flesh of her belly. She tensed, waiting for pain but only found numbness. “A signature move. I guess that’s one way to tell them apart.”
Paax
Exhaustion finally overcame his mate. She fought it, insisting on feeding their sons and holding them until they went to sleep, but eventually her eyes grew heavy. Her head lolled on his shoulder. The sounds of the medical bay filtered into their room. He would rather be in their quarters, in their own bed, but not even the warlord could defy the orders from the head of medicine. Mercy’s health and welfare came first, always.
Carefully, Paax extracted himself from the bed and covered her with a blanket.
The star pendant weighed heavily in his pocket. His plans to present the jewel to his mate had vanished when she woke and there hadn’t been to be an appropriate moment since then.
How about now?
He paused at the door to the room. The moment was private but he was reluctant to wake Mercy. Her rest was precious and there would be little of it in the coming weeks.
No, he decided. The gift of the pendant could wait.
In medical, Paax found Kalen. “Is there a problem, Warlord?”
“I want your report.”
The medic nodded and consulted his data tablet. Paax did not know the male well, mistrusted his youth, but had no doubt that Kalen was the most talented medic in the Mahdfel military.
“Your sons are healthy and robust.”
“No defects?”
“Are defects to be expected?”
Paax made a non-committal noise. He’d given himself a dose of the same compound that changed his brother, albeit a smaller dose. Worries nagged him. He knew how the experimental serum affected him but he did not know how it might affect the genes he would pass to his sons.
Kalen handed the tablet to Paax. “By every measure, they are ordinary.”
“Ordinary. Not exceptional?”
“Did you want an honest report, warlord, or for me to kiss your ass?”
Another noncommittal noise. The most talented Mahdfel medic had the ego and audacity to match his extraordinary talent.
“Exceptionally ordinary, then,” Kalen said.
“They are small.”
“They are within the acceptable weight range. Terrans are small and your sons will grow.”
His little star was, well, little. Kalen did not have to remind him that Terrans were diminutive.
“And my mate?”
“Recovering well. It was a stroke of luck that she was in medical when the twins went into distress.”
A warning rumbled in his throat. His sons’ survival, his mate’s life, should not have been preserved by luck.
“Terrans are surprisingly strong for beings so small,” Kalen said quickly. “As is your mate, in particular. I’m sure we would be having this same debriefing if she had not been in medical when the twins went into fetal distress.”
Paax doubted that. “The length of her recovery?”
“Two days for the acute effects of surgery but she needs to rest for at least a week. Medication and the hormones Terran females produce will mask pain. She may push herself too hard too quickly and injure herself. A week of bed rest would be optimal but I suspect she will protest. No lifting. No straining muscles.”
“And the future?”
“I see no reason why she would not be able to have more children.”
“Twins?” Images of his mother flashed through his mind.
Kalen was slow to respond, which said everything Paax needed to know, really. To have another set of twins would be too risky for his mate. Even with constant medical care, the best medical care known to Mahdfel, it would be too risky.
“What are our options?”
“We control her fertility and implant with a single embryo when ready.”
Paax turned the suggestion over in his mind. His twins developed from a single embryo splitting, not from two ova being fertilized. It was possible to discourage an embryo from splitting but would require some time in the genetics labs. “That is acceptable.”
“Since we are on this issue,” Kalen said, shoulder squared and poised for a fight. “Your female must not become pregnant before I can administer a birth control shot.”
“Of course.”
“And she needs time to heal. Completely.”
Paax narrowed his eyes. Was this medic screwing up the courage to forbid him from having sex with his wife? “What do you take me for? Some beast that cannot control his cock long enough to allow his mate to heal after she whelped?”
“I believe you are a male who did not heed me the first time I gave medical orders regarding your mate. Her body suffered a great amount of stress. She needs to heal and recover. Her hormones are in flux. Terran females are susceptible to pregnancy in this stage and two such pregnancies, back to back, would be disastrous for your mate. Leave her alone until she is on birth control. Is that clear?”
Paax held the medic’s gaze. He did not find defiance or opposition, only frankness. To the male’s credit, he did not flinch or look away. “Understood,” Paax said.