Page 61 of A Touch of Chaos

“Are you sure you can do this?” she asked.

“Of course I can do this,” said Dionysus as the elevator doors slid open. “How hard could it be?”

“Okay,” she said in a rather singsong voice that made him think she didn’t believe him at all. He glared at her back as they stepped inside the lift. They were pushed into a corner as several more people piled inside.

“You think I am not capable,” Dionysus said.

“I did not say—”

“You said it with your face.”

Lilaia sighed and then she looked up at Dionysus. “I don’t think you’re prepared. There is a difference.”

“I think I can pull off an abduction,” he snapped. “I have done it a million times.”

Several heads in the elevator turned toward him in that moment, and Lilaia managed an awkward laugh, giving him what looked like a playful shove but was actually a hard nudge in his ribs with her bony elbow.

“I know you can pull off aninduction,” she said loudly, and then she lowered her voice and spoke through gritted teeth. “It’s what comesbeforethat worries me.”

He started to speak, but the elevator stopped on the third floor and emptied. Dionysus followed Lilaia. To their left was a waiting area, and to their right was a locked door that led into the labor and delivery suite.

Lilaia used her badge to enter. They did not need to look at room numbers to know which room belonged to Phaedra. They could tell because only one had a guard.

He was facing them as they approached, thick arms crossed over his chest.

“You’re late,” the man said. “Lord Theseus isn’t gonna be happy.”

“Lord Theseus can suck it,” said Dionysus. “His wife isn’t the only patient I have in this hospital.”

Dionysus was proud of that retort.

The man—Tannis, Dionysus recalled—slammed his palm against Dionysus’s chest, halting him in his tracks. The god met the man’s beady-eyed gaze.

“Watch your mouth, Doctor.”

Dionysus pushed his hand away. “How will your boss feel when he learns you delayed me further?”

Tannis scowled at him but took a step back.

Dionysus gave him a hard look as he entered the room, only once he was inside, he very much wished he’d stayed outside.

Phaedra lay on a bed in the middle of the room. A nurse stood between her legs, pushing them back, her knees almost to her ears. Lilaia pushed past him and hurried to Phaedra’s side, helping the other nurse hold her leg, as if she had donethisa million times before.

What the fuck was happening?

He looked at Lilaia, his eyes wide. Is this what she meant by “what comes before”? An actuallivebirth?

“Dr. Phanes,” said the nurse—the one who was supposed to know what she was doing. “The baby’s crowning.”

“C-crowning?” Dionysus repeated.

“Your gown and gloves are on the table,” said the nurse.

Dionysus hesitated, and Phaedra moaned, her head rolled back, her face glistening with sweat. She looked a lot like Ariadne, and the resemblance made him uneasy for several reasons, but most of all because Lilaia and this nurse were asking him to deliver her baby.

Why did that seem like an invasion of privacy?

“Doctor! There is no time.” The nurse’s sharp tone brought him back to reality.

---