Page 26 of Stripped to the Scales

Chapter Thirteen

Castor

The day of Caxlin’s birth I woke up with a horrible spasm in my back and thighs. I bit my lip not to cry out and wake up Axlin and Melon. She wouldn’t let Casimir sleep in the nest because her inner beast was convinced that he was too large, and might roll over in the middle of the night and squash the egg despite it coming up to his hip now. In a few short weeks my belly had continued to grow and so had their egg.

We had a meeting about the Other World gateways that day. So, I kept my pain to myself the best as I could. At least, I tried to. Axlin sat bolt upright as the pain coiled around me. He breathed heavy as he pressed his palms against the small of my back. It was a trick Izora had told us about that helped during some carriers’ labors. He pressed hard and I pressed back against him. Eventually, the muscles relaxed, and I panted out what was left of the pain. I downed two bottles of water and managed to sit upright. Caxlin was definitely ready to come out and greet the world. If I was honest, I was ready to meet him too. His tenancy inside my body was nearly over and I desperately needed relief from the bulk I hefted around for months now.

“I need to be at that meeting,”I said to Axlin over our mating link, glancing at the clock across the room.

It was only six in the morning. The rest of them were probably still out cold. First time live births could take hours, if not days, but I knew the pain wasn’t going to lessen over time. It would increase until I was nothing but pain and instinct. I needed my head on straight for the meeting.

“I’ll get Casimir up,”Axlin said over our link.“I’ll get him up and he can tell the rest of them.”

“I want some ice,”I said.“It’s hot in here.”

“Is that normal?”

“The dining room isn’t normally hot,”I shook my head.

“I meant is it normal for you to be hot right now?”

“I don’t know!”

“I’ll get Izora before Casimir then,”he said and climbed out of the nest.

I leaned back against the edge of the nest and closed my eyes. I tried not to remember how much it had hurt a second ago. I tried not to think about how much it was going to hurt when he actually came out of me. Instead, I imagined holding him in my arms. Building the Frost-damned Medwin 2 hurt as well. Days at the forge with a hammer left my whole body aching. If I could build a whole Frost-damned ship I could birth one little baby. He was probably about nine pounds. I carried thousands upon thousands of pounds of materials to build the ship that now housed us. I could do this. I could give birth to this baby. No pain lasted forever. Inside his inner sanctum my dragon rocked on his feet, soothing both himself and me. We could do this. We had to do this. Together we were going to get through the meeting and birth this blessed baby.

“Castor?” Melon whispered through the dark. “Do you want me to turn on the light?”

“Not yet,” I shook my head. “Sorry if I woke you up.”

“It’s your scent – the pain on it,” she said, leaning her elbows on the edge of her own nest.

“I’m okay. It’s not hurting right now.”

“It’s normal to be hot. I was burning up all day before my egg came. Couldn’t stand to be touched. Had to chase Casimir out because he kept touching me and it was too hot for all that damn affection. He meant well, but it was chase him off or eat him to feed the baby. I figured chasing him off was the kinder thing to do.”

“Probably,” I chuckled as Izora walked into the dining room and turned on the light.

My dragon squeezed his eyes shut. We both preferred the dark for this, but Izora might need the light for something. Melon tucked herself back down into the nest while Izora stole my pants to see how far along things were.

“You’re at the beginning, Captain,” he whispered to me. “Just a couple of centimeters.”

I nodded.

“We can have them move the meeting back. Axlin mentioned you were worried about it,” he said, covering me up with a blanket.

“No, I need to know what’s going on. Baby or no baby, this project has to get underway.”

“Well, my concern at the moment is you and the baby, not the meeting or connecting worlds together. The doors can wait. This baby will come when he wants to and you’re going to be in a bit of pain until that’s over.”

“I’ll live,” I said, gritting my teeth for another pain as Axlin came into the room followed by Casimir.

They both climbed into the nest and Izora moved back as they claimed either side of me. He told them that I was only getting started and Casimir shooed him off to tell the others to cook up something sweet because I’d need the energy. Izora grunted at being ordered around like a common intern, but he didn’t complain.

“We’re right here with you, mate,” Axlin whispered to me as my body tensed and coiled and tried to bend into a pretzel that my belly wouldn’t allow it to.

“I have candy,” Melon said as the pain abated. “It’s sweet and fruity.”

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