A Kiss of Fire: A Kiss of Magic Book 2 (18 page)

He had to fight back the tears that threatened to expose him. He buried his face in her neck, gasping for breath and some semblance of control over his emotions. Her hands were in his hair and she was trying to pull his head back so she could see into his eyes. He couldn’t allow it. Not yet. Not until he had regained himself.

So he hid his vulnerability by kissing her along her neck and shoulder. He listened to the rasp of her breathing, let it ground him.

“I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely. “I should have waited for you.”

This time when she pulled his head back he let her. He met her beautiful amber eyes and hoped he had hidden enough of himself away.

“I take it as a compliment,” she told him with a sweet smile. “And I know next time you will do better.”

“And you know this how?”

“Because I’m beginning to know you. And you always strive to do better.”

“You are right about that,” he said softly.

He was still inside her and she was still inside him. He wondered that she couldn’t see it. Or maybe she did but was choosing to ignore it. He wasn't sure his emotions belonged in her world. Not yet anyway. She wasn’t ready to let them in.

That was all right.

He would wait.

Chapter Eighteen

“Dendri?”

Dendri looked up from the papers on his desk to see his wife in the doorway. He had been pouring over some estate records in an attempt at keeping his mind off the things pressing on him. He owned a large, self-sustaining villa and surrounding estate that included everything from dairy to vineyards to fresh produce. The winter was when everything slowed down and he was able to go over the accounts with the steward. The steward had left him to it about an hour ago, the hour having grown very late.

“Yes, love, what is it?” he asked, his attention half distracted by his work.

“I was thinking maybe you should try and get some sleep. You haven’t been sleeping well.”

That brought up his full attention and he surged out of his chair and crossed over to her.

“I’m sorry, love, have I been keeping you awake?” He reached her and pressed a gentle kiss to her lips.

“No the forty-pound weight sitting on my bladder keeps me awake. You I can handle.” She winced slightly and stretched out her back. “Although I do have a devil of a backache today.”

“That might be the forty-pound weight again. Let’s go to bed and I will massage your back.”

“Oh that sounds heavenly. Are you sure I’m not taking you from your work?”

“But you just said—“

“To
sleep
. That’s different than slave labor.”

He grinned at her and placing a hand at the small of her back he guided her out of his study.

“It’s a labor of love. Better I see you happy than anything else. That is my mantra in life.”

“Well far be it from me to interfere with your mantra,” she said with a grin.

He led her through the maze of rooms in the house and into their bedroom.

“Is Bess asleep?”

“Yes. We were up late talking. You know how girlfriends can get. Have I ever thanked you for letting her live here with us?”

“Only about a hundred times. I told you…your friends are my friends. And I hope the feeling is reversed.”

“I like your friends. Except for one or two. Well…one.”

“She is no longer my friend. Not since I heard what she said to you. She only comes here because she is Wil’s sister. Otherwise, if not for Wil, I would have barred her from the house long ago.”

“No. I’m glad you haven’t punished Wil for Olla’s cattiness. He’s a good man and a good friend. Why, just the other day he—“

Yasra stopped short. She gasped. Then she looked down at the ground.

“What is it?” he asked, following her gaze.

She was standing in a small puddle of cloudy water.

“What the hell is that doing there? Did you get your feet wet?” Dendri asked.

“I got everything wet,” she whispered.

“That’s all right. We’ll just get you fresh slippers.”

“Dendri…”

“I’ll have to talk to Tudman. One of the maids must have spilled something.”

“Dendri…it wasn’t one of the maids.”

“Then who was it?”

“It was me.”

“I don’t understand. If you knew it was there why didn’t you step around—“

Dendri broke off when she shot him an exasperated expression.

“Dendri,
it was me
,” she repeated.

Dendri’s eyes went wide and he sucked in a breath.

“Your water just broke?” he demanded of her.

She nodded vigorously.

He pounced on her, sweeping her up into his arms and hurrying her the rest of the way into their bedroom. He laid her down on the bed and would have left her, only she clung to him.

“Don’t leave me.”

“I have to go get the doctor!”

“Get Tudman up and get him to do it. Come back to me.”

He pressed a hasty kiss to her cheek then hurried out of the room. Yasra got off the bed, changed out of her wet gown and slippers and cleaned herself up a little. She had just put on her fresh nightgown when she felt the first twinge of pain crossing from her lower back around to her front near her navel.

She took a deep breath and tried to focus past the pain. Her heart was pounding and she wanted Dendri back. As if conjured, he suddenly appeared, a bedraggled Bess in tow.

“Oh you needn’t have woken Bess,” she said in dismay.

“Get back into bed,” he commanded her, ignoring her completely.

“Dendri, we have time yet. The midwife told me first labors can take hours. Sometimes days.” Yasra didn’t know what to wish for. Quickly or slowly, he would be leaving two days after the birth.

She didn’t want him to go. But she understood there was no choice to be had in the matter. Ariana’s safety was paramount. The good of the country rested on what Dendri was able to do.

Another pain took her breath away and Dendri saw her grimace. He swept her over to the bed and laid her down in it.

“Stay with me,” she begged him, pulling him down beside her.

“I’ll go get you some water. Is there anything else you would like?”

“No. Not right now.” Another pain came, this one quickly on the heels of the last. “Oh my,” she said, rubbing her belly.

“Turn off the pain centers of your brain,” Dendri encouraged her as Bess left the room all in a haste. After all, Dendri and Yasra were a Gestalt couple. This meant that they had access to all of the houses of majic. Dendri had been training her in the nuances of Aspano majic, for, when he was not connected to Yasra by touch, this was the only house of majic he had access to. In this house he was a master at a level far beyond others. It was because of this that the triumvirate wanted him on this mission so badly. It also meant that he could sink into Yasra’s mind and help her to divert her pain. The pain itself quickly became too much to allow for her to concentrate on doing it herself, so she left it to him to aid her.

By the time the doctor came she was relaxed in bed, feeling the contraction almost as if it were happening at a distance.

“You’re going to need a little of that pain back come the end,” the doctor said when she explained she was feeling no pain. “It will tell you when it’s time for you to push.” He examined her with Dendri sitting in bed next to her.

“Well, she’s progressing rather quickly,” he remarked just as the midwife arrived. The household butler, Tudman, hovered in the doorway anxiously.

“My lord,” the doctor said, “you may not want to remain—“

“I’m going nowhere. I am in control of her pain. I cannot do that from a great distance. No. I will be by her side for the entire duration of her labor.”

“That is highly irregular,” the doctor fretted a moment. But one look in Dendri’s coldly determined eyes silenced him on the matter for the rest of her labor.

Her labor progressed rapidly, all things considered. The doctor sent everyone, including Bess, out of the room, leaving only Yasra, Dendri, the doctor and the midwife. Dendri only left the bed when Yasra did. She got up frequently to walk through her contractions, the doctor having told her it would help move things along.

When she began to feel the urgency of the need to push, Dendri withdrew from her mind and let the pain come naturally. It came as a shock to her at first, having been relatively pain free up until then, but she pushed through it quickly. She was drenched in sweat, her nightgown having come off at some point in the proceedings, and now lay in bed pushing her heart out. Or that was what it felt like. It felt like she was trying to push her pounding heart out of her body.

Dendri kept hold of her hand as the doctor suddenly cried, “Stop pushing!”

“What? I can’t!” She panted hard as the urge to push swamped her once again.

“The baby is breech,” the doctor said. “Your baby has not turned properly, Yasra. I must push the baby back, reach inside of you and turn her into proper position.”

“Well hurry!”

Dendri soothed her, leapt into her mind and eased her pain and dulled her perception of her contractions. The doctor reached into her body and turned the baby in a process that would have been excruciating for her, had it not been for Dendri in her mind.

“There! Now we begin,” the doctor said.

“Begin! What room have you been in these past few hours?” Yasra snapped at him. Dendri chuckled as he eased away from the pain centers of her mind and allowed her to feel her full labor once more. The urge to push was tremendous.

“What’s so funneeee!” she demanded of Dendri as she pushed through her words. “You wouldn’t be laughing if it was you here instead of meeee!”

“Save your breath,” the doctor scolded her. “Keep it for pushing. You can yell at everyone later.”

She angrily told to doctor to do something that was anatomically impossible.

“It’s a good thing Tudman isn’t in the room. He would have had a stroke to hear such foul language from you,” Dendri said, his eyes not as bright as his humor. He was worried about her. Worried that something else might go wrong. He could help with her pain, but otherwise he felt completely useless. He had maneuvered himself behind her, so that her back was pressed to his chest and she lay between his thighs. Each time she pushed, he leaned her forward into it, as if he were pushing right along with her.

“There’s the head now!” the doctor said. “Good work. A little bit more…that’s it. A few more pushes should do the trick.”

Yasra dropped back against Dendri’s chest, her head lolling on his shoulder. “I can’t. I’m too tired!”

“Yes you can,” Dendri urged her softly. “You’re the strongest woman I know. Certainly strong enough to birth our little troublemaker into the world.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” she panted. Then she whipped up tight into another contraction and screamed out as she pushed.

“Good girl,” Dendri praised her.

“Go away!” she cried. But he knew she didn’t really mean it. He knew because she grabbed up his hand in hers and nearly crushed the bones in it as she pushed yet again.

Finally, as she screamed again the doctor cried out triumphantly, “The head is out!”

It was a short business after that. The child slipped from Yasra’s body on just a few more pushes and then the doctor and the midwife were hovering between her legs, cleaning off the baby, cutting the cord and tying it tightly with a string. Yasra was weeping and gasping for breath as the doctor wrapped up her child and handed it to her.

“It’s a girl,” he said, acting as proudly as if he were the father.

However he could never have equaled the pride radiating from Dendri even had he tried with all his heart. Dendri was proud of how well Yasra had done. He was proud of how beautiful his daughter was. His hand was shaking as he reached out and touched the damp black down on the top of her head. She had been born with nearly a full head of hair.

She was surprisingly quiet. She had not screamed out upon entering the world. She had merely fussed enough for the doctor to know she was breathing properly. Now she lay with her squished up face wrinkled in sleep, the mottled pink and white coloring of her newborn skin glowing in the gaslights.

“She’s beautiful,” Dendri whispered against his wife’s ear.

Yasra nodded. She was choking back tears. Eventually she just let them loose. Dendri hushed her and soothed her. The midwife then reached to take the baby and Yasra tried to hold her tightly.

“You have to deliver the afterbirth,” the doctor explained to her. “And the midwife can continue to clean the baby up.”

Yasra nodded and finished her delivery without her baby in her arms. But no sooner was she finished then Yasra was demanding she be returned to them.

When Yasra was settled in a clean nightgown and a bed with clean sheets, she sat curled up with Dendri, their baby in her arms. Dendri couldn’t stop kissing his wife all over her face, forehead, ear and lips. Every time he turned his head he pressed a kiss on her.

“Thank the One God it’s over and you are both all right,” he said. He exhaled a shaking breath and Yasra looked at him.

“You were scared,” she said. It wasn't a question. It was clear she knew his mind…just as she always could.

“Terrified,” he admitted breathlessly. “But that doesn’t matter now.”

“No. What matters now is that you will be leaving us soon,” Yasra said quietly.

Dendri looked at her.

“I can refuse to go,” he said softly. “Just say the word and I will refuse to go.”

“No. No, they need you. You heard what Mason said. Only you can pull this off. You go…but you hurry back. Your daughter and I need you. And please, stay safe.”

“I don’t want to leave you,” he said, his voice tight with emotion. “I don’t want to miss out on a second of her life.”

“I’ll write everything down. I’ll write letters. I know you can’t receive them, but I’ll keep them here for you.”

“Yasra…I love you,” he said softly.

“I love you just as much…if not more,” she said. She smiled. “And to think…there was a time when we were both afraid to say that to each other.”

“That was so long ago it seems. And it feels like it was two very different, very foolish people.”