Chapter 34: Erick

 

 

 

Aiden moaned like a wounded beast as Sarah and Carla led him by the arms toward the bedroom. Rowan trailed after them, hefting a bulging apothecary bag.

I stopped her just as she was about to shut the door in my face.

"No. You stay out here," she said before I could say a word.

"B-but I'm the father!" I said.

"So is Aiden, and he needs a peaceful environment so I can concentrate on delivering the baby safely," Rowan said. Despite her brisk tone, her brow softened with what looked like sympathy. "It helps to have some company. Maybe Kaden or Caleb? They've gone through this before."

With that she shut the door. A soft click told me that she'd locked it, too. From somewhere inside, I heard the muffled sounds of Aiden's sobs.

It was absolute torture.

Taking Rowan's advice to heart, I searched for and found Aiden's phone stuffed between two couch cushions in the living room. Just recently, he'd begun to teach me how to use cellular technology, and it was my first time attempting to make any sort of call on my own without his guidance. With some trouble, I managed to find Caleb's name in his contacts list and struggled out a single text message. Unable to figure out how to insert spaces or punctuation, the best I could do was:

AIDENISINLABORPLEASECOME

Twenty minutes later, Caleb and Liam were sitting on the couch, with their chubby baby Monica plonked on the floor between Liam's feet.

"Do you want to hold her?" Liam asked out of nowhere. I supposed he was tired of seeing me pacing back and forth.

"It helps to have something to do with your hands. Trust me," Caleb added.

So that was how I ended up holding Monica. A little over a year old, she was roughly the size of a sack of potatoes and was heavier than she looked. I expected her to cry after being shoved into a stranger's face, but she cooed happily, as if she'd spent every day of her life so far in my arms.

I patted her soft, warm back as she tangled her fat fists in my hair, marveling at the fact that soon, I'd have a little baby of my own to hold.

"You might consider cutting your hair now that you're a dad," Caleb remarked at the exact moment his daughter decided to test the attachment of my hair to my scalp.

"Yow!" I screeched.

Liam leapt up and pried Monica's fingers apart, untangling the fistful of my hair that was clutched in her grip. A small section of my head burned with pain as I combed out the tangles she'd left behind.

"I don't think I can do this," I finally said.

Seeing a baby up close made me realize how fragile and helpless they were. How alive they were.

"But you're a dragon, aren't you?" Caleb said, legs crossed and arms slung leisurely over the back of the couch. If there wasn’t a screaming, pregnant shifter in the next room, he could've been at a casual family dinner, waiting to digest between courses.

"Exactly. I'm a dragon, not a parent." It had been a thousand years since I'd even had a parent myself.

Caleb and Liam exchanged amused smirks.

"What?" I said.

Caleb chuckled. "Do you think you're the first shifter to ever feel that way?" he finally said.

"I…I…"

I had to admit they had a point.

"I'll be right back," I finally said.

I left the room and went into the hallway, walking right up to the locked bedroom door. When I pressed my ear against it, all I heard was Rowan's soft, murmuring voice.

At least he's not in agony anymore, I thought to myself.

I shut myself in the bathroom and splashed some cold water on my face. Then, I wiped strands of hair away from my dripping cheek and stared at myself in the mirror. Caleb's last statement echoed through the channels of my mind.

Do you think you're the first shifter to ever feel that way?

Caleb had experienced these same exact circumstances, and Kaden had before him. Both of them had faced the unknown, the frightening oblivion of an uncertain future with an innocent child. And look at them now. They were capable and confident fathers, an example for the rest of their pack. But they were merely wolves.

I was a dragon.

When I emerged from the bathroom a moment later, I walked back into the living room and put an object in Caleb's hand.

"What's this for?" he asked, although it was obvious. I'd given him a pair of scissors.

I swept my long hair off to one side. It was the same hair that had grown from my head when I was still in the service of House Bjärk, the very same hair that Sigurd had brushed with his fingertips when I last saw him alive. It was the hair of my former life. My old life.

I had a new life now.

"Cut it all off," I said.

Caleb's confusion was replaced with approval. Gleefully, he raised the scissors and snipped at the air.

 

* * *

 

An hour later, Liam was sweeping my severed locks off the kitchen floor into a dust pan, I was fresh out of the shower, and Rowan finally walked into the living room to announce that the baby had arrived.

When I entered the bedroom, the first thing I saw was Aiden's flattened abdomen bisected by a vertical, stitched seam. Carla was dabbing a potent-smelling, amber paste along its length with a small sponge. Sarah stood near the window, her back turned to me. Hearing me enter, she turned around, and I saw that she had a swaddled, pink baby in her arms.

"Congratulations, Papa," she said, startlingly pale under her blonde hair but otherwise beaming. "You got yourself a baby girl."

Suddenly, the word expanded and contracted in rapid succession.

"A girl," I echoed, my head spinning.

Sarah passed the infant to Rowan, who in turn carried the bundle across the room to Aiden. He had his back propped up on all four pillows, swollen breasts exposed and leaking milk. Numbly, I drifted to his bedside to watch as he guided our daughter's tiny mouth to his teat.

I wasn't sure how long I sat there, entranced by the rhythmic pull of the baby suckling at my mate's breasts. Every so often, a stray drop of milk appeared at the corner of her mouth and escaped to drip off of her tiny, round chin. When I finally tore my gaze away to glance around the room, I discovered that the witches had left us all alone.

"You cut your hair," Aiden said weakly.

My hand flew to my head. I'd almost forgotten. "Do you like it?" I asked, suddenly bashful. My explanation came out in a rush. "I thought it would be easier to maintain now that we'll be busy with the child. I told Caleb to take it all off, but he left some length—"

"I love it," Aiden said. He leaned his head back onto his pillows and smiled, eyelids fluttering heavily. I didn't blame him. He'd gone through a lot in a short amount of time, and it was almost midnight.

"Do you want me to take her for a while?" I asked, noticing that she'd stopped nursing.

Wordless, Aiden leaned toward me, and I carefully took the weight of the baby from his arms.

"What should we name her?" I asked.

I looked up from the baby only to see that Aiden had completely passed out. The baby slept too, the seams of her eyes folded so perfectly they were like creases in paper. Leaving Aiden to sleep in peace, I rose from the bed and walked to the window.

Snow blanketed the backyard. It had collected on each windowpane, forming lace-like patterns on the glass. Looking out at it gave me a hushed feeling inside. As I stared down at the infant in my arms, I found myself thinking of the Lady.

Her name came to me suddenly, as if somebody else had spoken it into my ear. I tried saying it out loud to see how it felt.

"Freya."

At the sound of my voice, my daughter opened her eyes and stared at me with a pair of tiny, blue disks. I saw equal parts of myself and of Aiden in her delicate face, and I just knew.

I felt the onset of tears prickling along my lashline.

"Your name is Freya," I decided.

As the snow came down and Aiden slept, I told Freya all about me and Aiden, the Black Paws, Rowan, and the dragon that lay dormant inside her, waiting.