Psy & Changelings 10 - Kiss of Snow

hour.
    “What?” Tammy and Lucas asked at once, acute concern in their voices.
    “The baby’s decided it wants to stay right where it is.” Sascha could feel its anger at the current circumstances clear as day. “It is not impressed by all this squeezing and jostling about and could we please stop.”
    Tamsyn’s eyes widened. “Wow, everyone knows babies must feel like that, but you actually know . Since you do—you’re going to have to convince the little darling to come on out. Your body is ready.”
    Sascha touched her babe’s mind. It’s warm in my arms, too, she cajoled. Your papa’s waiting to kiss you, pet you. Don’t you want that?
    A vocal negative, for all that their child had no words yet.
    “Come on, princess,” Lucas murmured in his deep voice, stroking Sascha’s abdomen with strong, loving hands as she lay with her back to his chest, “you know I’ve been waiting a long time for you. How am I ever going to hold you if you stay in there?”
    The baby wasn’t convinced, but Sascha felt a slight hesitation. “Keep talking,” she said, continuing to reassure their child with her own loving murmurs until another contraction bowed her back.
    The baby was shocked, scared.
    You’re safe. You’re safe. She wrapped it in a warm blanket of love. I’ve got you, my baby.
    “This time,” Tamsyn ordered, “push.”
    “Hear that, princess?” Lucas whispered, pressing his lips to Sascha’s temple. “Help your mama out.”
    Their child still wasn’t sure they knew what they were talking about, but it was ready.
    Just in the nick of time.
    The next contraction almost lifted Sascha off the bed. She forgot all about funneling pain, all about doing anything but pushing, her grip on Lucas’s hand a steel trap.
    “One more time,” Tammy’s encouraging voice. “Come on, sweetheart.”
    As Sascha shuddered, tried to breathe, Lucas tangled his fingers with those of her other hand, too, bent to press his lips to her ear. “I’ve got you, Sascha darling.”
    Those were the last words she heard before she pushed one final time, and suddenly, her child was no longer inside of her, its angry screams filling the air. Our baby. Her heart clenched, and she felt Lucas stop breathing. “Go cut the cord,” she urged him, knowing he was torn between the need to hold her and cradling their baby. “Go.”
    Sliding out from behind her with care, he followed Tammy’s directions to cut the cord. The wonder on his face as he took their squalling child into his arms was a gift for Sascha’s heart, a moment she would never, ever forget. “Hush, sweet darling.” A deep murmur that washed over mother and child both. “Papa’s got you.” When he looked up, those wild green eyes shimmered with such protective love that she knew their child would never, for one single minute, feel unwanted, unloved.
    Fingers shaking, she opened the top buttons of her maternity smock. Lucas moved to lay their baby skin to skin against her without a word. Tears rolling down her face, Sascha held their baby’s fragile body while her mate cupped her cheek and touched his forehead to hers. “God, I love you.”
    Her laughter was tear wet. “Even now you’ve gotten your little princess?”
    Lucas’s smile creased his cheeks, brought the cat into his eyes. “I told you it was a girl.”

Chapter 25
     
    SIENNA FELT AS if she’d burst out of her skin when she heard the baby’s first cry.
    The bedroom door opened what seemed like years later to reveal Lucas holding a tiny—so tiny —bundle wrapped in a soft white blanket. The sentinels and their mates, all of whom had arrived over the past two hours, crowded into the cabin.
    “I’d like you,” Lucas said, his smile touched with a fierce tenderness, “to meet Miss Nadiya Shayla Hunter.”
    Dorian peered at the baby. “Can I hold her?”
    “Don’t flirt,” Lucas said as he handed the baby to the blond sentinel, who was immediately surrounded by his mate as well as the mates of the other men. Stealing the newborn for a cuddle, the women finally handed her back to a scowling Dorian before slipping in to see Sascha. Laughter drifted out of the bedroom soon afterward.
    Deciding to take advantage of the lower number of people between her and the baby, Sienna made strategic moves around the room until she ended up next to Mercy—who’d stolen Nadiya from Nate, who’d stolen her from Clay, who’d stolen her from Dorian.
    “Here,” Mercy said, “you want to hold