Ellida (51 page)

“Oh, we’re hungry, huh?”

I unbuttoned my shirt and unclasped the
nursing bra, guiding my nipple to Rosie’s open mouth. She expertly
latched onto it and started sucking hungrily, relieving the painful
pressure in my breast. I stroked her silky cheeks, singing an old
song to her softly. Rosie liked when we sang to her.

When she was done with both sides, I changed
her soaked diaper and put her back into her crib. She didn’t like
it, of course, and protested loudly. I took her out and we resumed
our position in the rocking chair.

d-e-c-C-G
, my phone hummed some time
later. Rosie turned her head toward the source of the sound.

“Your daddy, Rosie… Hello, gorgeous!”

“Hey, baby. The storm caught me half way
home. I’ll be at least one hour late,” Jack said.

“Don’t drive fast, Jack,” I said. “The
storm’s not going to last long, but nobody should be on the road
now, not even a blaidd.”

“I’m driving twenty miles per hour. I’d be at
home faster if I transformed and ran. Hey, have you practiced
today?”

“Yup. Grandpa James came this morning to
baby-sit so that I could go to the studio and sing. I’ve recorded
the first aria,
O zittre nicht, mein lieber Sohn
. It sounds
amazing!”

“I know it does, baby. Just keep
practicing.”

I smiled. Jack was as proud as if I’d gotten
a contract with EMI Classics.

I expected he would ask me more about the
aria I’d recorded today, but he steered the conversation to his
recent favorite topic—our wedding. I realized how much it meant to
Jack. And to me.

“Please, don’t change your mind,” he said in
a soft voice.

“I won’t. We’ll marry in September and have
our honeymoon in Palermo. I do want to marry you, Jack. I’m a girl,
I’ve been dreaming about my wedding since I was four… Now tell me
about my mother and Ahmed. How are Lydia and Lanni doing? Have you
seen them?”

“Lanni was working. I haven’t talked to her,
but Ella says she’s fine. I saw Lydia. She already has eighteen
students. She and Mike are getting serious.”

“He’s been smitten with her from the
beginning. You might soon be looking for a new deputy.”

“Well, Adam’s coming soon. I bet he wouldn’t
mind taking over. We’ll see. How’s my daughter?”

“She’s just eaten and now she’s resting. On
my breasts.”

“She can switch to my chest as soon as I get
there.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Maybe later I could rest
there. Rosie doesn’t mind if we share.”

The time when I’d blush having this sort of
conversation was a distant memory. “I’ll make sure you get your
turn, Jack Canagan, as soon as you come back,” I whispered back,
feeling a sweet ache between my thighs.

“Hold on to that thought, baby. I’ll be back
in no time.”

“You know, Rosie,” I told my daughter when I
ended the call, “you’ve already picked up some really bad habits,
but it’s not your fault.” I kissed her little nose, chin, forehead
and cheeks. “Your daddy and grandpa James are the ones to be
blamed.” Rosie made a compliant sound. “Why do we have all those
cribs strategically placed all over the house when you’ve already
figured out there’s something better than a crib—all those arms
ready to hold you? It’s easy to get spoiled when your family and
three quarters of the town are always ready to rescue you from your
cribs. Honestly, I think buying all those beds and strollers was a
colossal waste of money. Don’t you agree?”

Rosie’s little forehead frowned and I assumed
she hadn’t agreed this time. “Ah, I see. You inherited not only
your father’s good looks, but also his relaxed attitude toward
money. Okay, let’s change the subject. I’ll tell the story about
the day you were born…”

ROSIE WAS born on March 28, two weeks before
her due date. I’d been feeling funny all day, having low back pain
and irregular Braxton Hicks contractions that varied in length and
intensity. I knew I was close to labor, but not that close.

As Jack and I were getting ready for bed, a
sharp pain slashed across my back and moved around to the front in
a wave. I waited. Six minutes passed and another powerful
contraction tightened my abdomen, took my breath away.

Jack was taking a shower, singing aloud.

“Jack!” I yelled, “Better hurry up. I think
it’s time… Oh!”

“Time for what?” I heard him. “Why are you
yelling?”

At that moment my water broke.

“I’m in labor—”

“What do you mean you are in labor? You were
okay ten minutes ago… Oh, my God!”

He materialized in front of me, traces of
shampoo foam still in his hair. The water was dripping from his
body, forming a pool around his legs almost as big as the one from
my ruptured amniotic sack. His face was bloodless.

“Are you okay?”

“Are you?” I said, before another contraction
made me grab the bedpost and sit down. “Our baby’s coming fast,
Jack! I need to go to the hospital right now. Call Tristan!”

By the time we reached the Clinic, our Red
Cliffs family was already there. “Your mother and Ahmed are coming
in about one hour. Can you wait that long?” Uncle James said.

As labor progressed, I could hear more and
more familiar voices: Mom, Ella, Peyton. Ahmed was talking to Livia
and Ingmar, Mike Kowalski stopped by to check on my progress, Eamon
was informing Maggie and Darius somewhere on a rig in the Northern
Sea about the latest news from the delivery room, and in spite of
the terrible pain and contractions, my heart swelled with love for
that wonderful, noisy bunch that I had the privileged to call my
family and friends.

“I want my epidural!!!” I yelled at Tristan,
who had taken over from Ahmed as my prenatal caregiver. “Don’t you
dare not give it to me, you hear me, Tristan Blake!?”

“No problem, Princess. But you know what? You
went through all those terrible changes without any pain killers.
Why do you think you need it now?”

“I didn’t need it before! I blacked out,
remember! I need it now, damn you!”

“
No, we don’t, Ms. Spock
,” I heard
Louise’s voice say.

“How would you know?” I snapped. “You’re not
a doctor, I am. Nothing’s wrong with the epidural.”

“I beg your pardon?” Tristan said,
shocked.

“I’m talking to Louise. My wolf.”

“
It’s great for those who need it, but we
don’t,”
Louise said. “
Too late now. You should have asked
for it an hour ago. Just keep pushing, Rosie’s almost
here.”

“Give her something, for Crissake, Tristan!”
my always-supportive Jack shouted. “She’s a doctor, she knows what
she’s talking about!”

“I’m okay, Jack. I don’t need it.”

Tristan glanced at Jack. “It looks you might
need something. Sit down, man, you are going to collapse. Astrid’s
fine. Come on, Princess, a few more pushes… Jack, ask Ahmed to come
in.”

My mother came in with Ahmed. He gently
massaged my abdomen and lower back, easing the pain to a tolerable
level. Mom held my hand. After twenty minutes, Tristan moved his
wheeled stool aside and asked Jack to come closer.

A few minutes later, Rosalie Elizabeth
Lucilla plopped out of my womb and into her father’s cradled
hands.

“THE NEXT day Daddy and I brought you home,”
I said, lowering my voice to a whisper. “Grandpa James threw a
very
big party. Many people came to see you and wish you a
good life and happiness, among them the two mysterious blaidds from
Winston. They honored your birthday in their own way: all night
long they could be seen standing on the highest peak of Red Cliff
Mountain, howling at the moon. Red Cliffs celebrated for three full
days.”

ROSIE’S BIRTH was the happy conclusion of a
journey that had started one evening, over fourteen months ago,
when Jack and I had met and fallen in love with each other.

Jack had shown me the power of unconditional
love that made everything else that followed possible: to leave
behind the only life I’d known and come here to become the clan’s
Ellida. I’d learned how to embrace my wolf. I’d found my mother and
her love. I’d fought with Seth and won the battle. I’d found my
best friend, and even fulfilled my dream to be a singer. I’d become
a wife and a mother, and a part of our wonderful big family and
community.

As for Jack, our love had also taught him a
thing or two. Older and wiser, he was at the same time the most
honorable man I’d ever known, empathetic and open-minded. Thanks to
the bond, he’d learned to trust me absolutely, to deal with his
over possessiveness and jealousy, to accept his duties and
responsibilities as a clan leader. He’d become not only my husband
and lover, but also my best friend and my partner. A father to my
child. The best son and brother, a trusted friend and leader, who
always put the needs of others before his own. He’d become an
Einhamir as great as his father and stepfather had been.

Tristan was right: the bond is a gift and
privilege, and Jack and I should be proud of how we used ours.

I smiled, hearing the familiar sound of
Jack’s truck entering our street. Lux, a four month-old German
Shepherd, my present to Jack, heard it too. He lifted his head and
sniffed the air, waking up Blueberry, who’d been napping snuggled
up beside him. A minute later I heard the driver’s door slamming
and Jack’s long steps hurrying toward the house.

With a sleeping Rosie in my arms, I walked to
the door and open it wide. Jack stepped in. “I’m home,” he said and
closed his arms around us.

I WAS halfway home from Copper Ridge when
the storm started. It was a messy mix of rain and snow, a farewell
gesture of retreating winter.

It was slowing me down and I cursed under my
breath. I didn’t have a particular reason to be in a hurry, except
that I longed to see my Astrid and Rose.

A vivid memory of the night we’d met flashed
through my mind, and in an instant the familiar warm tide washed
over me, penetrating the last fiber of my body and every corner of
my soul, as strong as it had been when her fingers touched my skin
the first time.

I immediately relaxed.

Shocked as I had been, I’d never tried to
fight our bond. Astrid had, but more because the very notion of
bonding was in collision with her ethical principles. “I wanted you
to like me because of who I am,” she’d said, crying, the night I’d
told her about the bond, “not because some random power threw me in
your path.”

I did love her for who she was, but I’d also
be forever grateful to the cosmic power—random or not—that had
brought us together.

At the beginning, I’d often felt guilty for
turning Astrid’s whole life upside down and uprooting her from her
world. But she’d loved me and trusted me enough to come to live
among us and become our Ellida.

She had brought harmony and balance back to
our world, although she was refusing to take credit for that.
“Jack, people were ready for a change. I was more sort of a moral
support,” she often said. “I’m here to present the opportunities,
but it’s up to other people to take action.”

“So then how do you explain so many babies,
for example?” I’d asked her.

She chuckled. “Collective psychology. People
have started believing it was possible.”

“How about James and Betty’s bond, then? They
weren’t bonded before.”

She’d thought for a moment. “I have an
explanation. I think the bond was always there, but it was hidden.
In order to experience pure, absolute love, James had to learn how
to forgive. The anger and unhappiness he felt held him back. The
moment his heart forgave Rowena, James was ready for that kind of
love.”

I shook my head. “And that of course, has
nothing to do with you?”

“Not much, really. He had to do that
himself.”

That was her
logical
explanation, but
I knew better. Astrid had a rare gift to effortlessly bring out the
best in people, and the evidence was overwhelming: Peyton, Ingmar,
Ahmed, Darius, Maggie, Eamon, her patients, all those women and men
who came for advice and support… No matter how hard she tried to
minimize her contribution to recent events, the results spoke for
themselves: Red Cliffs’ war with Seth had been won without any
casualties except Seth and his guards, Red Cliffs thrived, and
peace and prosperity had come back to Copper Ridge. None of it
would have been possible without Astrid.

She had magically touched everybody’s life
and changed it for good. Mine more than anybody else’s. I had loved
before, but Astrid had shown me the
ultimate happiness
of
loving and being loved. I’d never doubted or questioned her
feelings for me. I trusted her absolutely. She had cured all my
insecurities.

Without her, I’d have never admitted to
myself and to the others that I actually wanted to be an Einhamir.
James had been so good in that role that I’d convinced myself it
wouldn’t be right to take it from him. My father, too, had been a
great leader. I thought I would have never lived up to Red Cliffs’
expectations. But Astrid put that into perspective, and soon it’d
become clear to me not only what I wanted, but also how much I
could do. Now I felt equal to my mighty predecessors.

I grabbed my phone and called Astrid.

“Hello, gorgeous!” she said, sending pleasant
shivers down my spine.

“Hey, baby. The storm caught me half way
home. I’ll be at least one hour late.”

After she warned me to drive carefully, I
asked her if she’d practiced singing today.

“I’ve recorded the first Queen of the Night
aria,
O zittre nicht, mein lieber Sohn
. It sounds
wonderful!”

God, I loved when she talked in German! “I’m
sure it does, baby. Just keep practicing.”

I didn’t want her to become suspicious, so I
changed the topic to our wedding. Astrid must’ve thought I’d become
totally obsessed with putting a ring on her finger. The truth was,
I didn’t care when we were going to get married—tomorrow, next
year, next decade. It didn’t make any difference to me. We
were
husband and wife, married or not. But the timing was
essential for the wedding present I wanted to give to Astrid.