“Too far away to help right now,” Lucian said grimly. “Help her.”
Valerie glanced to Leigh uncertainly and asked, “Is it all right if I examine you?”
“Just make it stop,” Leigh begged.
That was enough for Valerie. Shoulders straightening, she glanced to Anders and said, “Check the first-aid kit and see if you can find hand sanitzers, or wound cleaners or something.”
Anders nodded and moved to do as she asked, but his attention was on her as she then turned to Lucian and said, “Remove her panties and turn her to sit between your legs. You can support her back and comfort her while I examine her.”
Lucian did as instructed, quickly tugging down Leigh’s panties and then settling her on the blanket on the van floor between his legs. He then wrapped his arms around her gently, resting them over her stomach as he pressed a kiss to the side of her temple and murmured encouragingly to her.
“Anders, have you found anything I can use to clean my hands?” Valerie asked, as she knelt at Leigh’s feet and arranged her legs, setting her feet outside of Lucian’s legs so that her knees were bent and his legs acted like stirrups of a sort, keeping her from closing her legs.
“Don’t worry about cleaning your hands,” Lucian growled.
“But she could get an infection and—” Valerie paused and shook her head. “Right. Immortal. The nanos will take care of any infection,” she muttered.
Anders turned his attention back to the first-aid kit as Valerie began her examination. He rifled through the contents in search of anything that might be useful, but didn’t expect to find anything. Mostly, he wanted to give Leigh some semblance of privacy.
“The baby is sideways,” Valerie announced suddenly, her voice grim. “Christ, she’s bleeding badly. Where the hell is Rachel?”
“Get the baby out,” Lucian barked and Valerie jerked her head up to peer at him.
“She needs a cesarean section, Lucian. I don’t have the equipment to do that.”
“Can’t you turn the baby yourself?” Anders asked.
Valerie frowned. “Maybe if her water hadn’t broken, and I had the right drugs to make her uterus relax . . . and an epidural to ease her discomfort. But . . .”
“She’s already in agony, Valerie. You can’t hurt her any more than she’s already suffering,” Lucian said grimly. “And you have to get the baby out now if it is to live.”
“What?” Valerie stared at him in shock. “But he’s an immortal baby. I thought that meant survival would be a sure thing?”
“It usually is,” Anders said quietly, dragging the first-aid kit with him as he moved over to join them. “Fetuses with any genetic anomalies are aborted by the nanos during the first trimester, but after that, so long as the mother takes in enough blood, the baby is fine.”
“Well then—” Valerie began.
“She’s losing too much blood,” Lucian interrupted. “And if the nanos see the baby as a threat to Leigh’s well-being, they will attack and try to kill the baby. The baby’s nanos will fight back. If enough damage is done and the nanos kill each other off we could lose one or even both of them.”
When Valerie stared at Lucian with incomprehension, Anders said, “Think of it like a nuclear war inside the body. So long as no one launches, everything is peachy. But if the nukes are launched, or in this case, the nanos start attacking each other, no one gets out alive.”
“Jesus,” Valerie breathed, going pale.
“Can you get the baby out?” Anders asked quietly.
Valerie hesitated. “We could try a cesarean section, but I’d need a knife and—”
“That would increase the blood loss and raise the risk of the nanos attacking before you can get the baby out,” Lucian interrupted. “We need to turn the baby and get it out now.”
Valerie stared at him silently, but then said, “She’s fully dilated. I can try to turn the baby manually, but it’s risky and you’ll need to hold her still.”
Lucian nodded once.
Sighing, Valerie hesitated and then turned and crawled out of the van. Standing in the open door, she patted the floor of the van. “Bring her forward.”
When Lucian moved both himself and Leigh to the edge of the van, Valerie nodded and knelt in the grass, but before she could do anything, another contraction hit Leigh and she arched in Lucian’s arms, shrieking her head off.
“Help her!” Lucian shouted.
“I have to wait for the contraction to end,” Valerie said helplessly and they all waited. It seemed to Anders to go on forever, but finally, Leigh’s screaming ended on a moan and she passed out in Lucian’s arms.
“Spread her legs more and keep them open,” Valerie said at once and then set to work the moment Lucian complied.
Anders held his breath as he waited behind the couple. He knew exactly what Valerie was doing, she was using a technique he’d seen used ages ago on a mare in trouble. She was physically easing her hand in to try to turn the baby’s head down so it could be born. He also knew that if another contraction hit Leigh while Valerie’s hand was inside her . . . well, immortal muscles crushing down around a mortal’s bones was never a good thing, Anders thought grimly and then glanced past her when Mortimer appeared.
“Justin’s just pulling— Whoa!” Mortimer interrupted himself and turned abruptly away as he realized what he’d walked up on.
“See if they have blood,” Lucian barked and then turned his attention to Valerie when she frowned and said, “There’s something pressing down on . . .”
“Pressing down on what?” Anders asked, when she paused a semi-perplexed look on her face. In the next moment, her eyes suddenly widened and she exclaimed, “There’s a second baby pressing down on the first. It’s why the baby couldn’t turn.”
“Twins!” Mortimer exclaimed, forgetting himself and turning back, only to turn green and swing abruptly away. “I’ll fetch the blood if they have any.”
Valerie’s face was scrunched up with concentration. “I think I can—that should do it,” she muttered and leaned back slightly.
“What did you do and did it work?” Anders asked. Valerie didn’t bother to answer, Leigh’s sudden shriek would have drowned it out anyway. In the next moment, Lucian and Leigh’s first child was lying silent and still in Valerie’s hands.
“Is he all right?” Lucian asked anxiously, cradling Leigh and rocking her gently from side to side as she sank back against him.
“She’s alive,” Valerie said, holding her to her chest and rubbing her back until the baby coughed and began to breathe normally, her little arms beginning to wave now.
Anders saw the relief on Valerie’s face and knew the baby’s stillness had worried her.
“I need something to cut the cord,” she said.
“I can help with that,” Rachel announced, appearing behind her and frowning as she peered at Leigh.
“Valerie, this is Rachel,” Anders announced, reaching past Lucian’s shoulder to take the blood bags she was holding out. He passed the first one to Lucian, and held the second one while Lucian popped the first bag to Leigh’s teeth. She didn’t even appear to be conscious, he noted.
“Nice to meet you, Rachel. If you have something to cut the cord, we should do it quickly,” Valerie said. “I don’t think the second baby is going to wait long to join us.”
“Twins?” Rachel asked, a smile claiming her lips. But she didn’t react at once to Valerie’s suggestion. Instead, she watched Lucian tear the now empty bag from Leigh’s teeth and replace it with a fresh one. Anders didn’t know what she was looking for, but after a moment, she relaxed and turned to gesture to someone Anders couldn’t see. Etienne, he realized when the man appeared in the opening, a large duffel bag in hand that he opened for Rachel to dig through. After a moment, she turned back with surgical scissors and clamps.
Valerie held the baby as Rachel made quick work of the umbilical cord, and then offered, “I can take the baby if you want to take over here.”
Rachel grinned, but shook her head. “Are you kidding? You’ve done all the hard work. This is the fun stuff. I wouldn’t take that away from you,” she said, taking the baby and using a wet nap to clean her up as much as possible before wrapping her in a blanket.
Valerie watched silently, but turned back to Leigh when she groaned around the blood bag in her mouth.
“Bear down, Leigh,” Valerie ordered. “Push.”
Within moments, the second baby emerged to join the world. This one began to squawl and wriggle about at once, arms and legs flailing as Valerie sat back on her heels with it in her hands.
“A boy,” she announced and met his gaze with a smile.
W
hen canine whining roused Valerie from a deep sleep, she eased one eyelid open and scowled at the furry face in front of her.
“You’re kidding, right?” she muttered with disgust. “You couldn’t let me sleep in this one time? Just this once? I mean it was only four
A.M.
when I finally crawled into bed last night. But you can’t let me sleep?”
Roxy whined again, shifting on the spot, and Valerie sighed.
“Fine,” she said, pushing herself wearily to her hands and knees to get up. She then froze as she took note of the man in bed beside her. Anders. Damn. He wasn’t there when she’d crawled into bed last night. He hadn’t even been at the house. Once the second baby was born and Leigh had been fed three or four bags of blood, they’d deemed it time to move and everyone had come back to the house. Well, everyone but Mortimer, who had taken the rogue back to the Enforcer house to be locked up. He’d returned later with Sam, though, so she could see the babies.
It seemed like half of Toronto had arrived at the house last night to see the babies. Valerie had been introduced to at least two dozen new people, all related in some way or another to Lucian and Leigh. And those people had stayed hours, trying to help as Leigh and Lucian had debated on the babies’ names.
It seemed Leigh had refused to pick names before the baby was born. She’d miscarried a previous child and had gained some superstitions from the loss. One of those superstitions was a fear that if she picked names before the baby was born, it wouldn’t be born. Or they wouldn’t, since the baby had turned out to be two.
No decisions had been made, though there had been a couple of suggestions Leigh and Lucian were considering. The party had finally broken up at four
A.M.,
when Lucian and Anders had decided it was time to go question their rogue.
Before joining everyone at casa bambino, Mortimer had tried to get answers out of the man as to where Laura, Billie, and Kathy were, or if they were even still alive, but the rogue hadn’t been very forthcoming, refusing even to give his name. So after relaxing for a bit, and enjoying his new family, Lucian had decided it was time to get those answers. Anders, Mortimer, Sam, and Justin, as well as a couple of the other men, had gone with him.
Much to Valerie’s relief, everyone else but Rachel and Etienne had left then. But the doctor and her game-creator husband were going to stay for a day or two to help Leigh with the babies, so Valerie had felt it was all right to finally find her bed. It had been an extremely long day and she’d been exhausted, so after letting Roxy out to take care of business, she’d tripped upstairs, stripped off her clothes and fallen into bed. Alone.
Valerie stared at Anders now, taking in the fact that he was fully clothed and on top of the blankets. But when Roxy whined again, she shushed her, and eased carefully out of bed.
Rather than hunt around in her drawers in the dark room or risk turning on a light and waking Anders, Valerie felt around for her clothes from the day before and then tugged them on one at a time. She was so tired, she didn’t even care if they were on inside out. She also didn’t bother brushing her hair or teeth and simply led Roxy out of the room. Valerie had every intention of climbing back into bed the minute Roxy had eaten and done her business. Two hours of sleep just was not enough for her system to function with any kind of clarity. Besides, she deserved a sleep in. She’d bested a bad guy and delivered two babies the day before.
The thought made her smile. The babies were adorable little bundles, and Lucian had been strutting about like the prize bull at the fair as everyone had fawned over them last night. As for Leigh, once she’d been given a couple more bags of blood at the house, all signs of the “off with his head” woman had vanished. She was back to her sweet laughing self. Valerie had been rather relieved by that.
Speak of the devil, Valerie thought as she entered the kitchen/living room and spotted Leigh by the island with one of her little bundles of joy. Baby girl, she realized, noting the pink baby blanket.
“Feeding time?” Valerie asked as she approached.
“Burping time,” Leigh corrected wryly. “Feeding time ended fifteen minutes ago, but she hasn’t burped and won’t settle.”
Valerie nodded, but frowned. “Should you be up and about already? Do you want me to take her?”
“I’m fine,” Leigh assured her with a laugh, and then added wryly, “Immortal, remember? Half a dozen bags of blood and the nanos fixed me right up. I’m good as new.”
Valerie raised her eyebrows. “Impressive.”
“Yeah.” Leigh smiled.
“But you must be tired,” Valerie said.
Leigh shook her head. “We can do without sleep if we pump up the blood consumption.”
“Really?” Valerie asked with amazement and not a little envy.
Leigh nodded. “Of course we try not to do that much. It means more blood, and it’s always best to be conservative on blood use. But sometimes, like now, it’s hard to avoid.”
“Hmmm. Well, that will make motherhood a lot less painful. The lack of sleep is the thing most new mothers and fathers complain about,” Valerie commented and then glanced down to Roxy when she nudged her hand with a wet nose.
“You can let her out,” Leigh said, smiling at Roxy. “I turned off the alarm when I heard you moving around upstairs.”
“Thanks.” Valerie moved to the French doors and opened one to let Roxy out, then closed and leaned against it as she asked Leigh, “Decided on names yet?”
“No,” Leigh admitted with a sigh and cuddled her little girl close briefly. Easing her hold, she admitted, “I really didn’t think it would be this hard. Shouldn’t you just look at them and know what their name should be?”