Page 50 of Keeping His Mate

Ava keeps counting, but at that news, she lets out an excited shriek.

I look up from the screen pad in my hands to see Jo whispering something into Chloe’s ear. Then, Chloe’s pupils dilate, and her face turns as beet red as she pushes harder.

“Ten!” Ava yells.

“Breathe, now,” Kaiva tells her.

Chloe cries out in relief as she flops back onto her pillow. She only takes a single deep breath before Kaiva tells her to push again. “The child is coming. You will need to push until it is out.”

“Hard as you can, Chlo. Come on!” Ava cheers.

“You’ve got this, Chlo!” Kate adds. “Squirt that little weirdo out!”

I peek over Kaiva’s shoulder just in time to see a small golden head emerge from Chloe’s vaginal canal. “Oh my god,” I mutter to myself.

Then come the shoulders, and the little arms and hands, with four fingers instead of five.

“Chloe, it’s coming! It has gold skin like Varrek, but a tuft of dark hair like yours,” Ava says as tears fill her eyes.

Next, I see the round squishy belly, followed by–

“It is a female!” Kaiva yells, pulling the rest of the baby girl out, followed by the umbilical cord wrapped around the baby’s chubby ankle.

She and Ava wipe the child clean and suck out any fluids or mucus from her mouth before wrapping her in a towel and placing her on Chloe’s chest.

The baby lets out a long, angry wail, and Chloe just laughs as tears stream down her face. “Hi, sweetheart,” she coos.

Varrek gently caresses his daughter’s misshapen newborn baby head as Chloe kisses her cheek. “She is here,” he says, his eyes wide with awe and glistening. Then he looks down at his mate with fierce admiration. “You did it.”

“I did,” Chloe replies with a wide grin.

Ava hands a pair of surgical scissors to Varrek and he cuts the cord.

My gaze travels from the baby to my screen, confirming that both of their vitals are normal, or at least haven’t drastically changed.

Nalba tosses a face cloth aside before pressing a new, cold one to Chloe’s forehead.

“Um,” I hear Kaiva murmur.

“What is it?” Ava asks, nervously.

“Elle-noor, take the child and continue cleaning her,” Kaiva commands, her tone wary, but firm. “Aye-vah, get me the binnup tongs, the cvilki tilfr, and a dose of the xiy for Cloh-ee.”

“What is happening?” Varrek asks as he anxiously watches me take his daughter to the other side of the room.

“It is fine, my son,” Kaiva replies calmly. “Cloh-ee is still losing blood. But we will stop it.”

Chloe looks between the baby in my arms and Kaiva. “What, wha—”

Ava hustles over with the items Kaiva requested, and they get to work. I sneak peeks between wiping the wiggly newborn with a damp cloth. Ava adds something to Chloe’s fluid bag, I’m guessing a drug, as Kaiva snips and ties and puts pressure on the area to stop the flow of blood.

“Am I going to be okay?” Chloe asks as she lets out a loud sob.

Varrek’s face turns a pale shade of yellow, and I worry he’s about to faint.

Ava hands Kaiva another tool, and it looks like she’s pulling something out of Chloe. Then I see it. Her placenta. “Of course, you are,” Ava tells her confidently. And whether she’s telling the truth or not, I believe her.

The bucket of dirty towels is now full, so Kate quickly swaps it with an empty one and runs the dirty towel bucket outside to Zohma.

---