A boy!

"A son, my lord," said the old dame insouciantly, as if I had not already spied the evidence for myself — nestled betwixt my son's kicking legs.

I moved closer to the midwife's side, peering over her hunched shoulder, in a disoriented daze and watched as she measured a four fingered length of the babe's umbilical chord before severing it directly. Once my son had been bathed, in an odd concoction of milk and wine, he was dried and swaddled afore being swiftly conveyed to his grandmother's welcoming arms.

His tiny, red face, previously mottled in vociferous discontent, was now much altered; he lay peacefully enfolded against Anne's heart as she patted his little back. I betook myself swiftly to Aria's side to kiss her corrugated brow, for she was still in extreme discomfit.

Unexpectedly, she gasped and doubled over. My arms flew at once to her shoulders in a stunning display of animal reflex as my son, perhaps sensing his mother's pain, began squalling anew.

Alice, who had since moved to the kettle to rinse her bloodied linens, turned immediately and rushed over with an impassive frown marring her leathery skin.

"I believe our work is only half-way complete." There was finally a hint of excitement in my mother's statement, however, it did not soothe me; the second child's heartbeat had begun to grow faint.

"Work quickly, woman," I demanded of Alice. "The second babe has grown weak."

The old woman's eyes grew wide with surprise as she considered my meaning, her shrewd, milky gaze becoming decidedly ill at ease. There was an edge of disquiet steeling into her demeanor the while I studied her impatiently. She was doubtless wondering how it was that I knew what I claimed to.

How indeed.

"Now, mistress!" My mother's voice had also become vexed, but I understood that she, furthermore, wished to divert the old woman from the unsettled thoughts that I had spawned, with my irascible temper. And my worriment had like as not spawned hers.

Whatever she thought was like enough distressing to her; but the truth was far more terrible. She crossed herself again and busied those same hands with her patient after scooting an inch away from me.

As if that meager distance can afford you added safety. Had she not then sprung into action, I'd have throttled her for her already infuriating, and protracted, suspension of mind.

For the nonce all was much the same as before, save for the first-born's wailing. He lay straining against his swaddling, the young apprentice clutching her charge in a diffident grasp. As the women continued their placid encouragements, Aria pushed the second babe piecemeal from her straining body. She looked ready to faint from exhaustion.

At length the last-born slid fully from the warmth of its nest, white-washed and bloody with the mired remnants of the womb still glistening like a film of scum over its mottled flesh. The midwife wasted no time in hooking her crooked finger into the child's mouth and clearing away the mucus from its throat. That done, the babe was finally able to yowl its energetic greeting. I barely noticed the child for my eyes were keenly plastered to Aria, soiled with the remnants of her vigorous efforts.

Once the girl, Sarah, had cleaned the gore from Aria's flesh, as she sat weakly atop that odd-looking stool, I lifted her immediately into my arms and carried her to our bed. She was by now enervated and limp. I placed her gently onto the mattress, pulling up the counterpane as I kissed her flushed lips firmly with all the fidelity and admiration I could condense into that small and pitifully deficient contact. I noticed with satisfaction that the bed had since been stripped, perhaps when I had been exiled to the hearth, and now bore the welcoming scent of fresh linen.

"Lucian, come greet your daughter!" My mother's exclamation slammed into me like an ax to the gut.

What?! I mistook her, surely?!

I bethought myself of a faulty ear and so peered where I had not thought to, for it had been a forgone conclusion, on my part, that if the first was a male child, then so too would the second be. But I could see now that my assumption had indeed been a flawed one.

"A Daughter?" I echoed and looked on in awe as Alice repeated the process of washing and then swaddling my tiny daughter in linen strips afore placing her beside her brother who was now, finally, at Aria's breast being nourished for the first time.

"A girl..." I shook my head and leaned over Aria, placing my lips tenderly against her damp brow. "I love you, Aria," I uttered carefully. It was more a vow than a statement.

I thought for a moment that she had not heard my declaration, for her eyes were closed, but she smiled a moment before she slipped into the slumber that she was so absolutely deserving of! I slipped my hand into hers and stroked her silky skin with the rough pad of my thumb. The flush of exertion had left her and in its place had settled an ethereal paleness. I preferred that hue to the grayish waif she had become these last trying months. Her pregnancy had certainly been a difficult one.

My son had long since released the pink nipple that he had initially suckled so furiously. He lay slack-jawed, napping atop his mother, as his sister drank her fill. Erelong they were both asleep and I watched all three with a growing sense of possessiveness, my heart swelling with pride and love. It was a ferocious emotion, but softened by my deep affection. I was terrified suddenly of how intense the emotion overtook me and how fragile the three of them seemed. They were unmistakably the most precious dwellers of my unworthy heart.

"Let her rest, Lucian," My mother said softly as she gathered my children to her own bosom. When I looked at her askance she explained, "I wish to introduce them to their grandsire and the rest of their kin."

I had quite forgotten about my father and the others, but they were ostensibly awaiting news outside and thither did my mother go once I opened the door for her to pass, a babe nestled in each arm. Alice, meanwhile, gathered both the afterbirth and the umbilical chords as I watched her suspiciously, lest she abscond with the items and use them in her nefarious witchy worship, presumably to dance queerly around her forest fire in sky-clad derangement.

Fortunately — for her — she carried the sanguinary detritus toward the hearth and cast the leavings into the purifying flames. It was the age-old counterbalance to the original sin of conception. The ritual was in and of itself preposterous for I saw no sin in the affirmation and creation of life; 'twas, on the contrary, one of my favorite pastimes: the act of love. I smirked lasciviously.

I daresay the midwife caught an inkling of what thoughts I now entertained, from the lecherous expression carved into my visage, for she seemed suddenly eager to inhabit a different, and thus inviolate, room than the one I currently occupied. After scurrying to collect her belongings she bobbed her head at my mother, who had by this time returned, and practically dragged her student, the unassuming Sarah, from my evil influence.

"What has got into her?" My mother frowned after the woman.

"The peasants have ever distrusted and feared us." My shoulders lifted in nonchalance as I released a disgusted snort. "Tis hardly uncommon knowledge that they will not venture where Nørrdragor's shadows can touch their feet." This had always been the case. Rumors, legends and nonsense abounded in all the villages that surrounded our demesne. They were a superstitious lot and I gave their wee minds no more thought.

My mother beheld me through a narrowed gaze as she made to settle the children into their large crib beside the bed. I stopped her afore she made to complete her task.

"Nay, Mother let me have them." I held out my hands as she placed a bundle into the crook of each proffered arm. "Leave us now. I wish to have a moment alone with my family," I whispered.

She nodded, her lip quirking up into a knowing smile. Once she'd placed a palliative tea on the table beside Aria's insensate form, I heard the door close. Carful not to waken either of the sleeping pair, I walked to the fire and sat cross-legged atop the furs, the smell of burning flesh still prevalent.

Why the harridan had not taken the afterbirth down to the kitchen fires, I did not know, but the thought was soon obliterated from my mind as I studied my children. My lips curled as I inhaling their infant redolence as if to imprint their scents onto my brain. They smelled utterly wonderful to me.

"They are beautiful, are they not?"

I turned to see Aria watching me with wonderment glazing her sleepy eyes.

"Thank you, my love; they are indeed beautiful," I replied.

"What shall we name them?" she asked, but it was customary, in the north, that the mother should name her offspring. I had peered up at Aria when she spoke quietly from the nest of furs atop the bed. "I have no relatives that I would wish to honor by bestowing family names."

"Then might I suggest we call our daughter Eyla."

Aria smiled wistfully and I saw that she approved. Her mother's second name had been Eyla and I thought it fitting that the name should be passed onto Cara's descendant.

"And this," I said chuckling, "is Renic. Tis an old Greyback name and I should like to resurrect it." Aria nodded affably and I directed my next words to Renic. "See that you do the name justice." As if in answer, I felt the babe pass wind against my hand and I smiled in admiration.

"Just so," said I with a wink and a chuckle.

I heard a noise at the window, the sound of wings beating against the morning air, but when I chanced to look there, I found naught but the somber rays of daybreak peering through the casement. Aria had heard it too.

When I made my way over to lay the younglings in their crib, she was yet staring through at the window. There was a queer expression on her face and the palliative tea was yet untouched on the chest beside our bed.

I leaned in to plant a distracting kiss, chaste though it was, firmly against her lips and she sighed happily as I pulled away, her eyes a smokey viridian in the dawning light. I knew very well that they were dimmed by exhaustion, not from desire, but the corner of my lips rose wickedly as I fixed her with a salacious grin.

"I know that look, Aria..."

She arched her brow. "What look?"

"Do you really think we ought to? So soon after..." I let the insinuation hang provocatively between us. "I know you cannot resist me, love, but I must insist you rest!"

"I hardly think..." She then narrowed her eyes, realizing quickly that I was in jest, and threw a pillow at my smirking face. "Beast!" She chuckled and shook her head.

"I am that!" I received the appellation with a smirk.

Once upon a time it might have angered and provoked me, but that word could no longer wound me. She had completely accepted my beastliness and countenanced me for who I truly was; I knew that now. Her beaming adoration left me in no doubt of her feelings and that saucy dimple, peeking adorably from her left cheek, bespoke volumes. 'Twas a language I now understood.

She had vouchsafed her heart without misgivings and I was, quite undeservedly, in possession of the love of a pure and extraordinary woman. My lot was now to bask in that lush bounty and endeavor the rest of my days to be worthy of her, impossible though it seemed.

There was neither a happier, nor a luckier, beast than I, but peace was not a luxury we could long afford nor expect, so I would enjoy this transcendent moment for what it was: fleeting and illusory.

My uncle lay waiting in the west; a dormant menace. This ephemeral tranquility I enjoyed was only a will-o'-the wisp that I had now to appreciate and to seize the perfection of this day without allowing the morrow to cloud it with caprice. I would as soon stay in this moment the rest of my life, but tomorrow would come, whether I willed it or no, and fate was a fickle mistress. My wishes were of no consequence to her. Our future was as uncertain as it had ever been...



🌟The end! But not quite ;) This story continues in Daughter Of Odin, but first we need to go to the beginning. First, we must know how the Curse Of Blood began.🌟

🌟I very much hope you enjoyed this saga. By the by I have an instagram account (authorjeaninecroft) that I think my fellow littérateurs might like. I hope you'll join me there? Love you guys! Thanks for the support!🌟