The Brightest Night (Origin 3)

Pressing my forehead to his, I hoped for once he was listening to my thoughts when I said, I love you.

Illogical as it was, I thought I heard him whisper, I know, but I knew he couldn’t, because his lips were busy with mine once more.

My fingers tightened in his hair, and his hand was slowly tracking northward, reaching the satiny material—

I felt the strange buzz along the base of my neck at the same moment Luc froze above me. He rose, looking over his shoulder, toward the door. Before I could share what I felt, he spoke.

“It’s Dee,” he said, and a moment later, there was a knock—a pounding.13There was absolutely not a single thing about giving birth that remotely appealed to me.

Sure, babies were cute when they weren’t competing with your insides for lodging, and the whole circle of life was a miracle in itself, but—

Another scream tore through the night sky, followed by a litany of the most impressive combinations of the F-bomb I’d ever heard in my life. Most were directed at Daemon.

I winced.

Actually, all the curses had been directed at Daemon.

Poor Kat.

There should be some sort of cosmic law that required men to feel everything women felt while giving birth.

I really had no idea what time it was. I had dozed off at some point, before the whole screaming thing jarred me awake. Someone had draped a colorful fuchsia-and-turquoise patchwork quilt over me. I didn’t think it had been Luc, since I figured he would’ve woken me up.

According to the last update given by Dee, which had come hours after she’d showed up at the house, everything was going “typically.”

How typical could it be when Daemon had called for Luc, and I hadn’t seen either of them emerge from the inside of the house? And it was now well past midnight.

Luc would’ve definitely checked on me if he were able to, and while I hadn’t seen Dr. Hemenway with my own two eyes, the old gas-powered vehicle that reminded me of a dune buggy was still parked just beyond the carport. Zoe had told me the all-terrain utility vehicle belonged to the doc and that there were several like that scattered about Zone 3, used by humans who didn’t have the handy ability of running with supersonic speed.

Worry pecked on my shoulder. I didn’t know a lot—okay, I didn’t know anything—about giving birth, but I was thinking something not so typical was going down.

I didn’t really know Kat, and Daemon would probably rather see me anywhere other than where I was, but I hoped with every fiber of my being that both the mother and child came out of this whole and healthy.

They had to.

Kat was a hybrid, nowhere near as weak or prone to death as a human. Plus, if medical intervention failed, she had Daemon, his siblings, and also had Luc, who could harness the Source into a healing energy.

Kat and the baby had to be okay.

That’s what I kept telling myself as I sat on one of the brilliant blue cushions of the wicker couches seated under the twinkling warm white light of solar string lights hanging from the top of the carport. I watched the breeze toy with the canopy, alone at the moment. Zoe had left with a young man I’d pegged as a Luxen before he’d even parted the canopy. Cekiah had sent him for Zoe, and I apparently wasn’t privy to why.

I glanced down at the quilt. If she had been the one to bring the blanket, where was she now? I guessed it could’ve been anyone. People had come and gone throughout the evening and into the night. Luxen and hybrids I’d never met and humans who sometimes accompanied a Luxen. I kept feeling that weird cobweb-type sensation, but at the moment I was too tired for the brain energy required to truly consider it might be the Source inside me recognizing it in others … or the possibility that I was continuously walking through actual cobwebs or lying in a giant one.

If it turned out I was covered in cobwebs, I’d set myself on fire. For real.

Anyway, all of them quieted when they saw me. Not a single one approached me as they stopped by to see how Kat and Daemon were doing and if there were any news or anything they could do. Only a few brave people sent a tentative smile in my direction, which I returned, probably a little too eagerly.

There was such a sense of community here. I doubted Kat and Daemon were best friends forever with all who stopped by, but people cared enough about them to show up, and I thought that said something amazing about both Daemon and Kat and those who came by.

I knew that Nate and whoever else was in the city would be welcome here, cared for, and would have access to all the food they needed. They would be accepted, and I just hoped I was given a chance to convince the kid of that.