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magic here, is there?
He walked up behind me, very gently kissed the back of my head and whispered,  No.
My knees wobbled, and I grabbed the side of the bed, but Jeremy caught my arm to steady me.
 He ll be fine, Elena. Randall is coming back to do the debridement cut away the infected area 
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 But that means Tolliver said It ll be permanent, won t it? Muscle damage?
 Possibly. He hesitated.  Probably. His arm won t be perfect, but he ll still have it. Right now, those are
my priorities. First, that he keeps the arm. Failing that, that he keeps his life.
I lowered myself onto the bed.
Jeremy put his hand on my shoulder.  Matthew Hull is dead. The portal is closed. Your babies are safe.
You re safe. Yes, Clay might lose muscle. Possibly even his arm. But you know what he ll think about
that?
I looked up at Jeremy.
 That it was a small price to pay, considering what he could have lost.
When you live in a world of magic, you come to expect magic. You can fight that, try to concentrate on
what s real, but deep down, you still hope that the flick of a wand can make everything better and
everyone will live happily ever after.
Clay s cure did come at the hands of a doctor. Tolliver cut out the infected tissue, and found clean
flesh below it. So it was over. A price paid but, as Jeremy said, a relatively small one. I only hoped Clay
agreed.
He woke up later the next day, when the drugs wore off. Groggy at first, he just lay there, listening as I
told him that Hull was dead. He was too weak to manage more than muttering,  You took a stupid risk,
Elena.
Then Jeremy explained what they d done to his arm, that some of the muscle had been damaged. While
he d have plenty of physiotherapy to undergo, he d never get his full strength back in that arm.
He took it all in, unblinking. I tensed, waiting for the dismay, the rage that this had happened, all because
of a letter I d insisted we steal. As he turned to look at me, I steeled myself for what I d see.
He met my gaze.  Ready to go home, darling?
News
TWO WEEKS LATER,I WAS SITTING ON THE WEIGHT BENCH in the basement at Stonehaven
reading the Toronto papers Jeremy had brought me. Clay was battling the punching bag, starting the long
process of training his brain to favor his left arm. I was reading the news aloud at Clay s request. Not
that he cared about the aftermath of events in Toronto, but my reading distracted him.
As Jaime and Robert had predicted, once the portal closed, things had started getting back to normal in
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Toronto. It wasn t instantaneous no magic-wand solutions there either. But the city s efforts to clean
the water had begun working, and the rats though still infected had stopped rampaging. Like Clay,
the city had begun the long road to recovery.
As I reached for theNational Post, I rubbed my abdomen.
 Still bothering you? Clay said, stopping.
 Just uncomfortable.
I d been  uncomfortable since last night, unable to sleep and restless, an intermittent dull ache in my
groin. Since our adventure in Toronto, I d been feeling the pregnancy more weighed down, tired and
generally ready to get it over with. Nothing alarming, but Jeremy and Clay panicked every time I
mentioned a stray twinge& so I d stopped mentioning them.
I opened the paper.  ThePost is blaming the provincial Liberal government for 
A sudden gush of liquid between my legs made me jump up, those horrible miscarriage dreams zooming
back from their hiding place. No, probably just another bladder leak I d been experiencing the joys of
mild incontinence all week. Yet I hadn t laughed or sneezed or any of the other things that normally set it
off. When I inhaled, I smelled something that wasn t blood or urine& something I didn t recognize.
 Shit! Clay said, turning so fast the ricocheting bag hit him in the back.  Your water broke.
 My ?
I looked down at the wet stain down my legs, and was still staring, not quite comprehending, when Clay
started yelling for Jeremy.
So it began.
When I d first become pregnant, Paige had offered to be my midwife. She d done it several times when
she d still lived with her Coven. Yet when Jeremy had suspected, early that morning, that my labor had
begun, he d put off calling her. Savannah had started school, and Lucas was out of town, finishing that
investigation they d been on last month, as he tried to find the shaman a local lawyer to handle his legal
case.
So Paige couldn t throw together a bag and leave for what could be a false alarm. Jeremy postponed the
call until he was sure. By then though, judging by my dilation, the babies would be here before Paige
would, meaning we had to settle for a long-distance midwife.
My  discomfort solidified into recognizable contractions. They were intense, but a few minutes
apart hardly debilitating. While Jeremy prepared tea from the brew Paige had sent, I prepared for our
new arrivals.
We d cleared out Malcolm s old room, but hadn t started decorating yet, so my room would stand in as
a temporary nursery.
I put bottom sheets on the bassinets, shook out baby blankets, gathered sleepers and opened the
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package of diapers. Clay kept trying to figure out my next move so he could beat me to it. He got in the
way more than he helped, but I didn t even snap at him. That hour seemed almost surreal, me calmly
laying out tiny diapers and bath towels, unperturbed by Clay and later Jeremy as they tried to
persuade me that none of this needed to be done now. When a contraction hit, I d just wait it out,
breathing deeply, then carry on. Maybe it was a sudden nesting urge, but I was probably in shock.
Then, all of a sudden, the contractions progressed from  that s not so bad to  holy crap!
When it came to childbirth, being a werewolf gave me a few advantages. First, I was used to going
through  holy crap! pain, the kind that makes you vow never to do something again. As with Changing,
this pain had a reward at the end, so I concentrated on that. And when that promise of reward no longer
worked, well, the guys were used to seeing me in a cursing, shouting temper, so they handled it
remarkably well.
Jeremy acted as midwife while Paige coached over the speakerphone. When the time came, I started to
push. Baby number one slid into position& then I realized, with sudden clarity, that I was about to shove
a baby out of a hole usually used by something much smaller. I panicked, and I was about to scream,  I
can t do this, when I couldn t help giving a last push and&
 We ve got& a boy! Clay said, grinning.
He was about to come to me, then stopped, as if uncertain where his attention should be. Jeremy
finished cutting the umbilical cord, then passed Clay the baby wiped down, but still bloodied.
Clay handed him to me and for a second, I was lost in those big unfocused eyes. I nuzzled the top of his
head, inhaling the scent of him, a new smell with the barest whiff of the scent that marked him a werewolf.
It didn t smell the same as a mature werewolf, but I expected that Jeremy said it would be subtler.
As I kissed his head, I remembered this wasn t done.
 Better take him, I said to Clay.  The first impression he gets of his mom shouldn t be cursing and
screaming. He ll hear enough of that later.
Clay took him, and juggled him around a bit, trying to figure out a safe hold. The baby only whimpered,
eyes wide and unblinking, taking in his new world.
 Shouldn t he be& louder? I asked.  Squalling? [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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