Page 33 of A Drink of Destiny
“What about giving him meat broth? Dad suggests that a lot for babies his age.”
“Maybe,” Preston grinned at me. “I can’t wait to be home, Mori. I love Crilus but I want to be surrounded by bears and our parents again.”
“Me too,” I said, giving him a one-armed hug. “Me too, brother.”
Chapter Twenty
Alvis
Moonscale London
It seemed I didn’t have to go far to find a vampyric midwife after all. Though, I shouldn’t have been surprised. If there was a vampyric drive-thru fast food place, of course, the same community would have a midwife clinic. I tapped my fingers against my legs when we pulled into the parking lot of Little Fangs Midwives Clinic. I had an appointment with an old vampire named Ophelian. His website claimed that he had delivered over ten thousand babies with over fifty percent of them being vampires. While Raiel questioned the number, I believed him. Vampires lived a long time and throughout our history most of our births weren’t officially recorded.
Arrick’s first question to me when I told him he was once again going to be an older brother was if I wanted to disappear for a while so that the Moonscales wouldn’t have a record of the baby just in case the tides turned against the vampires again. I almost said yes out of habit, but Raiel and I already had a backup plan. We’d go to his cats, and they would protect us. All we needed was an Other World gateway and those were common enough.
Inside the clinic was red and black with photographs of beautiful little vampire babies with their fangs showing as their only teeth as they rested against their carriers’ chests. We checked in at the front desk which asked for no proof of identity or anything more than our names and the password that was set up over the phone. It was nice that they took security and privacy as seriously as I had. We waited only a few minutes before being taken back through the long black and crimson corridors.
Inside there was a blood red robe for me to change into before hopping up on the examination table. Raiel guarded the door as if the midwife wasn’t going to get an eyeful of everything I had to show off sooner or later. Still, his protectiveness was sort of doing it for me at the moment. It was nice to know he’d haul the midwife out if he upset me.
A knock sounded at the door and Ophelian swept into the room. His long hair was pulled up into a high red ponytail and his sparkling green eyes were friendly. He held a clipboard in one hand and shook mine with the other before he acknowledged Raiel.
“I’m Ophelian. Ophelian or Doctor will do just fine,” he said, glancing down at his clipboard. “It says here you had a positive pixelated baby a few days ago.”
“Yes,” I said, trying not to glance at Raiel. I didn’t need to see him to know that he was staring a hole through the midwife already. Ophelian wore black scrubs and had a red corded stethoscope around his neck. He had also doused himself in pheromone blocker spray at some point which was common practice in medicine these days. His smelled like blood piña colada which was sort of mean if you asked me. Pregnant carriers weren’t supposed to drink.
Ophelian launched into all the questions I expected about possible due dates and heat cycles. He asked about my previous pregnancies. All of them were bearable with various levels of morning sickness usually quelled by drinking fresh warm from the vein blood. Yes, Raiel was in fact my current donor.
“That won’t be a problem,” he assured the midwife when he asked if we planned to continue that throughout the pregnancy.
“Then we’ll want to check your levels too. Just some bloodwork,” the midwife said.
“No blood from me,” Raiel shook his head. “I know how much my blood is going for right---”
“Not because he thinks you sell blood on a regular basis,” I said before my mate shoved his paw any further down his throat. “He’s a saberlion and several research facilities have made offers.”
“Oh,” Ophelian said but their expression gave me no clue what that ‘oh’ meant. “Well, you can go to whatever doctor you like for that. If you skip the bloodwork, we have no way to be certain if you’re providing all the nutrients your mate and baby need. Will you be subbing in bloodshakes or the like, Alvis?”
“Yes,” I said quickly, trying to move the conversation along.
I grabbed Raiel’s hand and pulled it to my chest. I’d forgotten all about donor bloodwork or I’d have prepped both of them for it ahead of time. Thankfully, Ophelian took the hint and moved things along. We talked about my family history and he asked if I was involved in any violent feuds or occupations. I gave him the short story about my involvement with Sharon Claudis and Raiel assured him he would be doing the fighting while I was pregnant. Ophelian grinned at that one and I fought off the urge to roll my eyes. Having a bun in my oven didn’t stop me from fighting my own battles but Raiel sitting on me or locking me in a tower just might.
Eventually, the midwife was satisfied that he asked enough questions to have a wider view of what supports I might end up needing and it was time for the ultrasound. I kept one hand in Raiel’s, trying to keep his lion soothed enough not to strike out at Ophelian. His eyes were already shifted into his cat’s and he didn’t take the slits off the midwife as he turned on the monitor and retrieved the small device that would take a look at the baby inside me – if there were a baby at all. I knew more than one vampire who had a false positive from a pixelated baby test.
“Watch the screen,”I told Raiel as I untied the robe revealing the flat plane of my stomach. Soon it would swell with a baby. Soon I’d not see the tips of my toes when I was halfsitting/half laying like this. Another little life would spring forth from my body, a crying red creature, demanding everything we’d give and give we would because it was impossible not to love a baby. Hell, sometimes I felt that familiar swell of emotion when I passed a baby on the street. Such a little life. A new little life here in the big ole world.
“Ready?” Ophelian asked and I nodded.
I squeezed Raiel’s, who was not watching the screen hand, but instead staring the midwife down. If the vampire noticed, he didn’t react. He concentrated on his job and a moment later a little jellybean was up on the screen. I elbowed Raiel twice until he took his eyes off the midwife long enough to take a peek. He reached out to touch the monitor but stopped short.
“You can touch it,” Ophelian said. “It’s touch screen, though. So everything will move around. It’s more fun once the baby is a little bigger. You can see all sorts of angles. For now, what we see is a well-formed and well-attached embryo. A good beat to it too. It has attached itself to a very nice blood supply. The next question would be what combination of your genetics are we dealing with? We might be able to determine that through bloodwork but it’s impossible to say.”
I didn’t push Raiel to give blood that day. Eventually, I’d find a lab that he trusted enough to run the ordered tests and nothing else but today wasn’t the day I was going to shove him into it. I knew better than most the power that lay within our blood.
“Can’t you just like prick my finger and taste it to see what’s going on?” Raiel asked when the midwife was about to leave.
I grabbed both of his hands and pulled them inside my robe. That was my blood flowing through his veins. If anyone was going to drink him it was going to be me!
“The probability of my estimating correctly is high, but blood drinking is a very intimate exchange. If you were more versed in our world, I’d say you were flirting with me. I’m lettingthe request slide this time but please refrain from offering blood to medical personnel and from upsetting your mate.”
