“When Marian was in labor with Daemonar, she wanted the birthing room clear of males on occasion, and when I got stubborn about it, she threatened to cook up the afterbirth and feed it to me.”
Daemon felt like something stringy and greasy was stuck in his throat. He swallowed hard and looked at Surreal.
She looked at him and said, “I’ll stab you before I cook anything.”
“Thank you,” he said faintly. “I appreciate it.”
“Then get out!”
Lucivar hauled him into the adjoining room, closing the door to the birthing room most of the way. That gave Surreal sufficient privacy but made it easy to hear her.
Daemon let out a shaky sigh. “She’s hurting.”
“She’s in labor, old son. Having a baby hurts like a wicked bitch. Or so I’ve been told.”
“There has to be something the Healer can do. Something I can do. Hell’s fire, Lucivar. If I can drain the power from Surreal’s Jewels to make her more comfortable, why can’t I take some of the pain?”
“The Healer has spells to dull the pain. You have to let her take care of that part,” Lucivar said. “You trust her, don’t you?”
“Yes, I trust her but—” Daemon tensed as he heard another voice in the birthing room.
“It’s Marian,” Lucivar said. “She’ll keep Surreal company until your presence is requested.”
“Will it be requested?” Daemon asked softly. “She’s hurting, and it’s my fault. She’s having my baby, and she kicked me out of the room.”
“Like I said, she doesn’t like you much right now and doesn’t want you around every minute, but that doesn’t mean—”
“Sadi!” Surreal shouted. “If you want to keep that overrated c**k of yours, get your ass back in here!”
“—she wants you to go too far away,” Lucivar finished.
Daemon rocked back on his heels and stared at the partially open door. “So she’s going to keep flipping from wanting me with her to wanting me gone? For how long?”
Lucivar put both hands on Daemon’s back and gave him a light shove. “For as long as it takes to birth this baby.”
“Mother Night.”
“And may the Darkness be merciful. Show some balls, boyo.”
“That’s what got me into this in the first place,” Daemon muttered. But he went into the birthing room and found Surreal looking teary-eyed and vulnerable—and ready for a few hugs and cuddles.
Lucivar wandered over to the window farthest away from the door. Moments after Daemon walked into the birthing room, Marian walked out and closed the door between the rooms.
“How are they?” he asked when Marian wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned against him.
“They’ll be fine, but your brother is going to need you today,” she replied. “Surreal is focused on having the baby, but Daemon seems . . . shakier, more vulnerable.”
“Until the Birthright Ceremony, the child isn’t legally his. He’ll spend years raising that child and loving that child, but it won’t be his until that day.”
Marian leaned back enough to look at him. “You’ve never worried about that, have you?”
He brushed her hair away from her face. “No, but that’s you and me. It’s not going to be as easy for Daemon to trust.”
“That’s not fair to Surreal.”
“No, it’s not, but that’s how it is.”
Marian hesitated. “Have you ever wondered . . . ?”
He sighed. Then he nodded. “I don’t know if Jaenelle wasn’t able to have children or if it just never happened for them.”
“I think there was a concern—a fear—that she wouldn’t survive childbirth,” Marian said quietly. “Nothing was ever said; I just had that impression the couple of times her moontime was late. It seemed like Daemon was relieved when the moon’s blood started.”
“Could be. It would have destroyed him if she had died that way.” He huffed out a breath. “Maybe that’s why it never happened. Hell’s fire, I was able to make myself infertile for centuries and did it so thoroughly I know I never sired a child until the night we made Daemonar. And Daemon had suppressed his sexuality and fertility even more than I did for most of his life.”
“He wasn’t unreceptive to having a child,” Marian said. “At least, not until Jaenelle got hurt.”
“Not until Jaenelle’s body was healed and remade through a tangled web,” Lucivar corrected. “After she came back to him, he had a hard time dealing with her being in any kind of pain—and took care of whatever was causing the problem.” And maybe had taken care of more things than he’d intended to.
Lucivar kissed Marian’s forehead. “Doesn’t matter why things happened the way they did. Today we focus on helping Surreal get through childbirth without killing her husband.”
Marian froze for a moment, then looked at him with wide eyes. “Someone did remember to take away all her knives. Don’t you think?”
Lucivar released his wife and headed for the birthing room door. “I think I’ll slip in and take a quick look around.”
She felt frightened, feral, and more than a little possessive. Ignoring Helene and the Healer’s assistant as they cleaned her up, Surreal kept her eyes on the man who stood too far away from the bed, cradling her child in his arms. She wanted to tear the baby out of his arms—and tear off his arms in the process.
“Drink this,” the Healer said, holding a cup to her lips. “You need to drink this now.”
“Trying to drug me?” She flicked her eyes to the woman’s startled face, then focused again on the man who wouldn’t even look at her.
“It’s a tonic to provide you with some quick nourishment. A couple of swallows is all. Your body will use it all up; it won’t get to your milk.”
Milk. The baby needed milk.
“A couple of swallows, Lady,” the Healer said.
She took the cup and drained it.
“There,” Helene said as she smoothed the bedcovers. “You should be able to rest easy now.”
The man immediately looked up, looked at her, and she realized he hadn’t been ignoring her; he’d been giving her privacy while they cleaned her and the bed. Now he watched her as she watched him, but there was wariness in his eyes.
What had she done to make him so wary?