Page 64 of Boundless
"I'm sorry you're so m-miserable, darling," he said, getting her hair sorted and settling behind her to cuddle. "If I could do this f-for you, I gladly would." He squeezed her tight, making more tears fall. "Just giving me this one child is such a g-gift. I d-don't expect you to give me any more. E-especially seeing how miserable you are." He traced her jaw with sweet kisses, nuzzling the tender skin just under her ear. "Can I take your pain away?"
She sniffled, cupping the side of his face to keep him near. "No, it's alright. I'm comfortable enough, and you're already worn out from the ceremony." She twisted to be able to kiss him, drinking in his sunshine and berry scent. "I just wanted to vent, I think," she admitted. "Are you...do you really not mind if we don't have more?"
He smiled, and she saw nothing but love in his big green eyes. "I didn't even think I'd get th-the one." He cupped her cheek, his thumb stroking over her cheekbone gently. "Ever since I met you all I w-wanted was to make you happy. So if this makes you miserable then I d-don't want it."
She sobbed, kissing him again. He was so utterly precious. "I love you. So much, Lenlethael."
He groaned, his lips so sweet on hers. "I l-love you too, Daega. With all my heart."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Drokas
LEN
AT ONEpoint during his vision ceremony, after he'd drunk the tea but before it kicked in and whisked him away, his father-in-law had clasped his shoulders and leveled a stern look into his eyes.
"Quite possibly the most important thing I can tell you, son, is to not let anything Daega says to you during the birth sink its teeth into your heart and hurt you. Bringing a child into the world is a kind of pain neither of us can even fathom, and it—well, I don't want to speak ill of my wife or yours. But it changes them. During. She'll likely be sucked into a whirlwind of feelings, and you'll need to let things slide off you."
If anything, his father-in-law had undersold it.
She'd woken just before dawn, sucking in a sharp breath and clawing at his arm. He'd used a thread of aether to check that all was well and had found his child free of his amniotic sack and preparing to enter the birth canal, his head pressing towards Daega's cervix.
He'd fetched Yollyn, since she was closest, his face going flaming-hot when he’d realized he could hear panting and moaning coming from her tent—one voice clearly Maleom's. It had almost sounded like the older elf was in pain, but—well. Len understood what it was like, being with an Istariin woman.
Yollyn had emerged, rumpled and flushed and limping a bit on her prosthetic, as if she'd shoved it on in a hurry and it wasn't quite sitting right, and followed him to the tent he shared with his wife.
She’d barked at a young man they'd passed on the way in Draka, telling him to summon the matriarch and warlord for their daughter's labors, then launched into a rapid round of questions for him. He’d been dazed, his heart racing and making him lightheaded, but he'd taken an elixir before heading to Yollyn's tent, and he’d kept his wits about him well enough to answer her questions about Daega and the babe and make it back to their tent upright.
Then all hell had broken loose.
"Sweet fucking Delenaa," Daega had groaned, pacing around the floorspace they'd cleared and dropped tarps onto. "Why do people do this to themselves? This is awful. Fucking shite licking—"
He’d trailed beside her, rubbing her lower back and her belly, stealing little sips of her pain with his magic whenever another contraction hit. Even just those brief flashes had made him quietly glad that he lacked the parts necessary to have this happen to himself, and vocally promising her she needn't go through it ever again. He’d felt unspeakably guilty, seeing her in so much pain, while he was stuck helping in the most minimal and ultimately ineffectual ways.
"Oh, I'm going to rip your cock off and beat you with it," she’d groaned several hours later, her hair wild, refusing to stay neatly tied back like he was trying to keep it, and her whole body dripping with sweat. "I hope you enjoyed it the last time you came, dove, because you willneversee your cock or balls ever again after this—"
Within a half hour of that proclamation, she’d been sobbing in his embrace, still pacing restlessly in between sitting on a pouf and cradling her belly. "I'm so sorry, Len," she’d keened, pulling away to clutch his face tight enough to hurt as she shook. He’d tried to take more of her pain, but he’d been fast reaching the limits of what his body could handle by then. "I don't know why I said that. I love your cock. I don't want to hurt you." Her chin had wobbled, breaking his heart. "I-I love you so much. Fuck..."
"I-it's alright—" he’d managed, his hands covering hers and trying to pry them off his face before she broke his jaw.
But within the span of a few more minutes, she’d been back to being angry, snarling at everyone in the room. "I'm going to rip this cunting bastard out of my body if he doesn't hurry along soon," she’d snapped, pointing at her parents, who'd been drifting in and out as they tended to camp business. "What kind of a monster are you to do this to the woman you lovefour times, you pile of rancid ass?" she’d spat at her father. "And why in the name of the gods did you let himlive?!" she’d added to her mother. To their credit, Kevothaen and Gayeh had taken the abuse with a great deal of grace and understanding.
Now it was time to push, and things were getting...messy.
"Oh hell, did I just shit myself?" Daega shrieked, trying to see around her huge belly. "Oh fuck, oh Len—" she sobbed again, loosing a wail equal parts desolation and fury. "You'd best start digging a grave now, because one of us isn't going to live to see the morning." He bit his lip, wiping her forehead and neck with a damp cloth.
"No, it was n-nothing, my heart," he reassured her, using the excuse of re-wetting the cloth to surreptitiously clean up the mess underneath her. He didn't care in the slightest that it was happening—she wasin labor, and he'd already known it was likely to happen, thanks to his apprenticeship. But he wasn’t about to tellherthat. "You're doing w-wonderfully. You're so strong, Dae. So beautiful."
"Shut up, you little liar," she snarled, squeezing her eyes shut as she rode out another contraction. She'd settled into a squat, her firm thighs shivering. A hoarse scream tore from her, her fangs bared in a fierce snarl. He took her hands, swallowing his own screams as she squeezed his hands tight enough that he felt the bones rub together somewhere in his abused flesh.
"Push, lass," Yollyn told her, kneeling on a cushion between Daega's spread knees. Her hand wasinDaega's cunt, feeling for the babe. Blood fell from his wife in a thin but steady trickle, her naked body soaked in sweat. It was just him, Yollyn, Yollyn’s apprentice, and Gayeh now.
"Iamcunting pushing, you old cow—HNG." Daega screamed again, her tail whipping wildly and her wings pulled in tight against her back, almost like she was squeezing them, too, and then with one last groan a round gray mound covered in wet, dark hair pushed at her spread vulva, stretching them impossibly wider, hovering there right at the entrance for a breathless moment, before sliding free into Yollyn's waiting hands with another rush of blood and fluid.
And there he was. Their son, mottled and filthy and quivering as Gayeh and Yollyn wiped him clean with soft rags, the latter using a little device to suction debris out of his tiny squashed nose. Once the worst of the fluids was cleaned from his pale dove-gray skin, they wrapped him, rubbing his chest until he began to hiccup, then cry.
He helped Daega settle onto the pallet they'd prepared for her, making sure the absorbent rags caught the blood and other fluids smeared and still dripping from between her legs as they waited for her to pass the afterbirth.
