Adam sighed, losing some of his control. And suddenly she felt what he had been trying to hide, heat and sorrow filled her body. So strong it overwhelmed her.
She tried to withdraw, to filter it out, but his mind held hers fast, and he wouldn’t let her go. So much heartbreak, like an ache in her soul, a knife cutting through her heart. And then the pain dropped, shifting lower.
She must’ve cried out because Garrit came into the room. He was never far from her these days. “Abby?”
“No!” The baby kicked and then moved, and she felt the wetness of her water breaking. A true contraction made her double over in pain.
Adam released her immediately, and Garrit’s arms wrapped around her as she gasped from the shock. “Abby, what’s happened? What is it?”
Thunder rolled in time with her next contraction, though the sky was blue, and Adam’s presence disappeared completely from her thoughts. She could have sworn she felt something else, hard and sharp and burning fire, but then that was gone too.
It was an easy birth, as Eve had assured him it would be. Garrit sat on the edge of the hospital bed as she cradled the baby against her chest, dry and fed and sleeping.
“He’s beautiful.”
She smiled. “He looks like a DeLeon. I expect he’ll even have your eyes when he’s grown.”
Garrit stroked her hair back from her face and stared down at the sleeping baby. “Hopefully he’ll have his mother’s grace.”
“Who needs grace when they have DeLeon charm and good looks?”
He chuckled and leaned down to kiss her forehead.
The door opened and Mia peeked in, her face flushed with excitement. “Can we see, yet? Please, Abby!”
She smiled. “Quietly, please, Mia. He’s sleeping.”
Her sister closed the door as softly as possible and tiptoed across the room to peer down at the baby. “I can’t believe I’m an aunt!” She sighed. “I wish Ethan hadn’t missed this.”
Eve’s smile faded. Mia didn’t seem to notice, but Garrit did. He squeezed her hand, and she felt his reassurance. “You’ll just have to tell him about it,” she managed to say. “I’m sure he wouldn’t have gone if it weren’t important.”
Mia waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, I’ll live. It just means I get one more year of ripping open my presents like a little girl before I have to pretend to be dignified about it.”
“Ethan’s too, if you like,” Garrit said.
Eve frowned at him, but Mia laughed. “Serves him right for missing Christmas. Maybe I will. You’re so lucky, Abby. I bet Garrit won’t let those stuffed shirts he works for drag him away from you now.”
“Not for anything.” He smiled. “It’s my son’s first Christmas.”
“Oh!” Mia clapped her hand over her mouth when the exclamation came out louder than anything else in the room. “Oh no! We haven’t gotten him any presents!”
“I don’t think he’ll notice,” she laughed. “He barely even registers that anything exists beyond his own nose.”
“What are you going to name him, Abby?”
She looked at Garrit. His brow creased as he studied the baby thoughtfully.
“We hadn’t decided yet. I thought we’d have another week or two. A family name, I think. If Garrit will choose one.”
“Alexandre,” he said softly, and then he smiled at her. “Let’s call him Alexandre Ryam.”
She felt tears prick her eyes. Alexandre had been one of Adam’s names, when she lived as Helen. The name he had earned for his bravery, for a selfless act. Garrit couldn’t have known what he suggested, not really, but it seemed fitting, somehow, after Adam’s departure. “That sounds perfect.”
Mia touched the baby’s hand with a finger. Alexandre wrapped his little fist around it, even as he slept. “I’m going to be your most favorite aunt, Alex. You can come visit me whenever you want, and I promise I won’t make you do anything except play. And when you have brothers and sisters, I won’t make you share any of your toys with them. I’m going to spoil you rotten.”
“Why don’t you go get Mum and Dad, Mia?”
She sighed. “Do I have to?”
“Please?”
Mia left, and Garrit tore his gaze from the baby to look at Eve. “What happened to Ethan? In all the commotion I honestly didn’t think of him.”
“He left just before.” She fussed with the baby’s blanket as an excuse not to meet Garrit’s eyes.
The memory of what Adam had revealed to her was still raw. The way he had held her to his will in that moment, showing her the love which had overtaken him, though he knew she couldn’t return it. And even if she hadn’t been married, his awareness that she would have refused him, had no choice but to refuse him. It was a love laced with agony, and her heart broke for him.
“I would have sworn he was with us when I called the doctor, and we raced you to the hospital.”
She shook her head, looking up at him, her lips pressed into a thin line. He studied her expression for a moment, and she waited for him to understand.
When it came, he turned his face away, and the muscles along his jaw revealed the clenching of his teeth. “He knew you were going into labor because he was in your head. He was in my head.”
“I saw him drive off, and Mia was so upset.”
He was still stiff, and his eyes were dark with a mix of emotions. “Why did he leave?”
It wasn’t a question she wanted to answer honestly. “He said to give you his regards. That it was for the best that he go.” That he loved me. That he was leaving for me. For Mia, too, so he wouldn’t betray his love to her. To be faithful to both of us, she realized.
Garrit nodded. “If you speak with him again,” the words came out resentfully, “give him my gratitude.”
She dropped her gaze back to the baby, then her parents came into the room with Mia, and Rene and Juliette, and she was spared the problem of answering him.
Eve woke in the dark, gasping. The dream had not been this vivid since she had lived as Helen, and she pressed her hand against her womb, the phantom sword a fire in her belly. She reached to touch Alex, sleeping peacefully in his bassinet, to reassure herself he was still breathing and warm and safe. The doctors had insisted on keeping them overnight, to give her body time to rest, though how much of it was Garrit’s worry and how much a medical necessity she didn’t know. But Alex was well, his mind the pleasant susurrus of infant dreams, swirls of colors and impressions. Undisturbed.
“For the moment.”
The voice froze her, cold and hard, and the burn in her womb throbbed painfully. Michael stepped forward from the shadow, white wings folded neatly to his back, gleaming so brightly she wondered how she had not seen him until now. The Archangel laid a pale hand over Alex’s fluttering heart.
“But that can change swiftly, Eve. And I would not even need the sword to steal the breath from your son’s body.” The hand rose higher, hovering over Alex’s mouth and nose, but not quite touching. “Should I kill him for this treachery, to remind you of the risks you take? Evidently dreaming of the death that will come no longer suffices.”
“No,” she whispered, lurching forward and knocking the cradle away. “I haven’t forgotten! I need no reminder!”
“But you soften toward your brother.” Michael’s eyes met hers, glowing with blue fire.
