Page 103 of Beauty's Beast

“I want Erik.” She clasped Edith’s hands in hers. “Please, I want Erik.”

Edith sent the two silent women from the room. “Bring him,” she told her husband. “If it will ease her mind to have him here, then bring him.”

Caddaric shook his head. “How can you suggest I bring him here? We know not how he will react to her cries, or to the scent of blood.”

But as the hours passed and Kristine’s labor grew more intense, when she writhed helplessly on the bed, crying Erik’s name, screaming Erik’s name, the wizard relented. A wave of his hand brought the wolf to Kristine’s bedside.

Erik rested his head on the edge of the mattress, eyes closed as Kristine’s hand moved restlessly over his head, clutched the fur at his neck as another contraction ripped through her. It grieved him to see her in pain, to hear her soft cries. He damnedCharmion for the hideous curse she had placed on him, railed at the fate that had transformed him into a beast, making it impossible for him to hold his wife’s hand, to speak words of assurance and comfort to her, to promise her that all would be well.

Mute, he stared at her, at the perspiration that dampened her brow, at the lines of stress and pain around her eyes and mouth, and wished he could endure the pain in her place.

Fear engulfed him as he recalled the last time he had watched a woman labor to bring forth his child. Kristine’s whimpering tore at his heart, reminding him of Dominique’s last, heart-wrenching cries.

Lifting his head, he howled his frustration, felt Kristine’s hand stroke his head.

“It will be all right,” she said. “I will not leave you as she did.”

Whining low in his throat, he licked her hand, howled again as she cried out in pain.

After another half a dozen contractions that he was sure would rip Kristine in two, the child was born.

The scent of the blood, the afterbirth, filled his nostrils and he backed away from the bed, watching as Edith bathed the child, then wrapped it in a soft blanket and laid the babe in its mother’s arms.

He growled, drawing the wizard’s attention.

“‘Tis a healthy girl,” the mage said.

A girl. As Charmion had predicted. Erik padded toward the bed and placed one paw on the edge of the mattress.

Kristine blinked back her tears as she lifted the child so Erik could see his daughter. “I shall call her Erika, after her father.”

Erika. She was tiny and perfect, with dark blue eyes and thick black hair. Rising on his haunches, his forelegs resting onthe mattress, he breathed in the child’s scent, then gently licked one tiny dimpled hand.

“She is beautiful, isn’t she?” Kristine murmured.

“You should rest now, daughter,” Edith said.

Kristine nodded. “Erik … ”

“I’ll look after him,” Caddaric said.

“Let him stay.”

“Kristine, he’ll be safer back in the dungeon.”

“No. He doesn’t like being locked up.”

“It’s for the best.”

“No.”

Caddaric took a deep breath, prepared to argue as long as necessary, when there was a knock at the door.

“Yes?” Edith called. “What is it?”

“A message,” Nan replied. “From Lady Charmion.”

A low growl rumbled in Erik’s throat at the mention of the witch’s name.

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