Page 69 of The Blind Hordesman

“This is nothing like transition,” Kiki shouts. “This is not like anything. A male would never survive this.”

I would. But I don’t say that for fear for my life.

My Queen fed me an antidote to the imposter's venom. I recovered much faster than I would’ve on my own, provided I could have recovered on my own at all. My uncle Tayseer tells me the antidote ritual was banned many years ago, and he absolutely doesn’t want anyone to know there’s a way to make antidotes to a male’s venom, which is why he’s taken Kiki’s grandmother to a remote area of the Sewa region and placed a permanent Collector army to guard her. That Omega is a dangerous creature.

Kiki is also dangerous, but she is mine. I tell no one that she recently collected Raven’s venom and made the antidote. Just in case, she’d said. She’s protective of me, and I can’t deny that experiencing how hard Kiki loves me is a beautiful feeling.

Kiki screams, and I jump out of my seat.

“Push, push puuuush,” the doc says.

I expect her to throw something at his head too.

Instead she says, “I am trying.”

“Try harder,” he shouts.

“Woo, hey, don’t raise your voice at her.”

“Out out out, get itoutof me,” she says, her voice a demonic sound I never thought she could produce. After the sound comes a moment of silence, and my ears twitch.

My baby wails, and cheers erupt from behind the door. The Telean doctor moves around the labor room. Other staff handle the baby as I keep listening.

“He stopped crying,” Kiki says.

I scoot closer and take her hand. “You spit out a baby.”

“I know.” Kiki chuckles, then she’s quiet. “Seer?”

“Yeah?”

“Is it a Regha baby boy?”

I sit here hoping my boy can see. She lies there worrying if the boy is human and therefore unable to hold the throne. Kiki was made, not born, and Telean research showed all sorts of genetic possibilities. We didn’t allow probing the baby. “I haven’t seen him yet to tell if he’s human.”

Kiki laughs and places a hand on my cheek.

The Telean doctor announces the weight, and we know the baby is a Regha Alpha. No human baby weighs that much.

Kiki starts crying.

My dad starts banging on the door, demanding to see the baby.

Next to him, I hear my mother, my aunts, my uncles—everyone wants inside the room.

I kiss Kiki’s forehead, then turn in my chair. “Bring him.”

People shuffle around, and I hear Kiki’s hysterical crying. I smell clean soap and the scent of a male I can’t identify. That must be my son. “Dreikx?” I think to the Telean.

“Are you ready?”

“Born ready. Hit me.”

Inside my head, Dreikx projects an image of a redheaded woman and a baby. Tears fill her eyes, but she smiles as she looks at the Regha baby boy, then at me. We lock eyes, and she gasps, pressing a hand over her mouth. I hold her gaze as the pressure inside my chest expands. Then I smile. “Hey, you,” I say.

“Hey,” she whispers. “What’s going on?”

Kiki has a birthmark at the corner of her temple. Her nails are painted red. “We have a baby.”

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