Page 30 of Eager Beaver
“Darion!C’est temps!” Fable shouted, loud enough to bring our neighbors’ attention all down the block, faces pressed to windows.
More than one person yelled “Bonne chance!” after us as we marched down the street, offering us luck, and I waved back at them.
No surprise, Darion had heard us coming and was waiting by his clinic door for us. “So, what approach would you like to take? Birthing ball? Water birth?”
Fable took a deep breath of the forest air. “It’s a lovely day for an outdoor birth, don’t you think?” he said, before his face scrunched up and he doubled over with a groan, hands pressed to his sides.
I was quick to grab him to keep from tipping over, and he leaned his full weight into me, grinding out a guttural moan. It was too fast, wasn’t it? I thought labor was supposed to take a long time, that it was supposed to start slow and gentle. “Is it supposed to hurt this much?” I asked Darion in French, hoping to avoid scaring my mate with the question.
The midwife shrugged, a deep crease forming between his eyebrows. “I’ve never known childbirth to feel good,” he replied as a non-answer that did nothing to calm my nerves.
“English!” Fable grunted as he managed to straighten up. “If you’re going to talk about me, then I should at least be able to understand it so I can decide how much trouble you’re in later.”
I chuckled. “Fair enough,cher. We will speak only English.” I saw it as a good sign that he was still joking—or at least I hoped he was.
Darion was prepared as always, and he had an entire outdoor set-up for laboring omegas. It wasn’t uncommon for shifters to seek comfort in the land of their lodge—or pack or flight or whatever their species called their group. The very soil beneath our feet contained a kind of magic, as old as time itself. I shouldn’t have been surprised that my mate felt this same need. With each passing day since we’d mated, he’d become more a part of my life—ofme. And while he wasn’t a shifter himself, you’d never know it to look at him. He had embraced every aspect of life in the lodge, and he wasthriving. So when he asked to deliver on lodge land, who was I to say no?
The back of the clinic faced up to the stream, the air filled with the relaxing sound of water burbling over rocks. There was a huge daybed set right there on the ground, piled high withcushions, and I helped to lower Fable onto the edge. He was already tugging frantically at his shirt. “Help me get this off. I’m too hot.” His skin was flushed and splotchy, sweat already beginning to bead along his hairline. He whined, driving my beaver into a tizzy. “Pants too. Hurry.” I rushed to oblige, until he was fully nude, showing that the red splotches continued down his chest. He was panting hard, rocking back and forth in search of a more comfortable position and finding none. A cool fall breeze picked up, and he sighed, tilting his head back as he basked in it. “That’s better.”
Was this normal? I shared a look with Darion, but he seemed almost as confused as I was. Beaver births were usually pretty straightforward, though often involved multiples. Darion had assured me there was just the one baby, using the brand-new ultrasound machine he’d ordered just for this occasion. That didn’t mean he couldn’t be wrong…
“Mon coeur, maybe we should—”
My words were cut off by his manic giggle. “No, it’s just me. I’m sorry, hun, I love you for trying to be with me on this, but there is nowe. There’s just me.” He looked up at me, his eyes wide with an expression I’d never seen before. “Don’t worry. I’ve got this.”
I didn’t doubt that for a second. My mate was the strongest man I’d ever met.
So, even when he moaned and whimpered and cried, I reminded myself of that fact. He had this. I was just the witness to his glorious determination. Forhours!
“I blame you,” he snapped, crouched down in the grass, squeezing my hands so hard that the bones creaked in protest. “You and your genes. It’s your fault this baby’s head is so big.”
I didn’t have an answer for that but to apologize. “I’m sorry,cher.”
“I don’t want your apology, I want this baby’s head to be smaller!” he said, before moaning, chin drooping to his chest in exhaustion. His hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat.
Darion knelt behind him, checking his progress. “You are very close now,” he promised. “One more big push.”
My beautiful, sweet mate showed off how much French he’d learned by using every single one of the swears he’d been taught, combining them in new and ingenious ways as he bore down, teeth gritted.
And just like that, as Darion promised, our baby came into this world. “Un garçon!” he told us, grinning, as he quickly took care of the baby, his reedy cry startling birds from the trees.
Fable sagged against me. “A boy? That’s whatgarçonmeans, right?”
“We have a son,” I confirmed, my vision swimming with happy tears.
Fable wasn’t able to shift in order to heal after the delivery, so with great care, I lifted him and carried him over to the bed and laid him down. Darion brought our son to us, cleaned and swaddled. “What will you call him?” he asked.
Fable and I grinned at each other, as we’d already picked names. “Patrick,” I told Darion, “after the great hockey player, Patrick Roy.” We had a theme going, after all.
“Take a moment, but you shouldn’t stay out here too long, since the weather is about to turn,” the midwife said. “Can’t you feel it?”
Now that he mentioned it, I could. I’d been so focused on my new family that nothing else had penetrated, but now, I looked up at the sky and saw that dark clouds had rolled in. “In a few minutes,” I told him. “We have time.” And I didn’t want to rush a single moment of it.
We curled up together on the daybed, and Darion brought a blanket over to keep us warm. Fable fed our son his first meal,and just as our son began to drift off, bow-shaped lips relaxed, a single snowflake floated down from the sky to land on Patrick’s forehead.
“Welcome to the lodge,” Fable whispered, kissing his forehead in the same spot.
Epilogue – Fable
