I’m panting, my pink hair is plastered against my forehead, and my red wings keep popping in and out.
“This. Fucking. Sucks!” I yell through clenched teeth.
I stop walking as yet another contraction hits, leaning over until my face is smashed against Ronak’s arm. When it gets particularly painful, I open my mouth and bite down on Ronak’s arm with a scream.
A pained grunt escapes him, but that’s all. The poor guy doesn’t even try to get his arm away from my teeth. He just takes it. That’s strength right there.
When the contraction ends, I finally release his flesh and lean back up. “Oh gods. That was a bad one. I kinda hate you all right now. So much. I wanna punch you. Also them. Oh, you’re bleeding.”
Ronak and I look at his mangled skin. There are very clear teeth marks decorating his forearm, with blood beading up.
“Sorry,” I say guiltily. “I love you. I d-didn’t mean to hurt you!” Now I’m sobbing.
Ronak shakes his head. “It’s okay, little demon. You’re in pain.”
“I know b-but I don’t wa-want you to b-be in pain, too!” I cry.
Then another contraction hits.
“Oh, shit, shit, shit!” I cringe, squeezing my eyes shut tight as I brace against Ronak again. “I swear to all the freaking shits in all the fucking fae realm, I hate you and your perfect stupid fucking dicks!” I yell. “I will tie your cocks into a noose and hang you all if you ever try to have sex with me again!”
My entire body clamps down like I’m having three million period cramps combined at one time and, yeah. “I’m pretty sure I’m gonna die.”
“You’re not going to die, my beloved,” Okot tells me, and I feel him petting my sweat-drenched hair. “Would you like to bite my arm next?”
“Aww, you’re so sweet,” I gasp.
“And her contraction is over,” Evert smirks, the amusement evident in his tone.
I straighten up from my hunched position, and the midwife immediately fusses over me. She just plops a squat right between my legs where I stand, lifts up my nightdress, and checks things down under. I don’t even care. She already saw everything there was to see when I gave birth to Amorette. I pretty much lost all modesty once she rifled through my whiskerwallet and helped stretch out my lovelips. There’s just no coming back from that.
“Drink this,” she says, passing me another tonic of who-the-heck-knows-what mixed with those damn poppleberries.
“These stupid poppleberries don’t help at all,” I complain, right before I down it all in one swig.
“It does help,” she tells me sternly. I want to rip her eyebrows off.
She blinks at me and covers her brows. Oh. I guess I said that out loud.
Before I can apologize, another contraction takes over, and I’m right back to cursing, screaming, and unintentionally inflicting pain on my mates. When the pain gets so bad that I start hissing through my teeth, I take the glass cup and hurl it against the wall. I hear a very satisfying sound of glass shattering.
When the haze of pain ebbs away at the end of the contraction, I open my eyes and blink over at the broken glass. “Whoops.”
“It’s alright, my beloved,” Okot assures me.
“It was a good throw,” Ronak says behind me, looking oddly proud. Weird alpha male.
I realize that I’m now being supported by Evert and Sylred. The guys keep tagging out. I notice that Ronak’s arm is now bandaged. So is Okot’s finger. And Sylred’s cheek. Wow. I really do a number on these guys.
But I can’t be held responsible. Not when it feels like my body is trapped in some cruel version of a Chinese finger trap.
“Oh gods, it hurts. It hurts!” I groan, shifting my weight from side to side as I brace against the wall. Someone is rubbing my back. Too softly. Way too softly.
“Harder!” I snap.
Hands start kneading into my knotted and tense muscles, as I try to breathe in and out. “That’s too hard!” I complain at the massaging hands. “Stop touching me wrong!”
The hands immediately go away.