Kelley Armstrong - Broken

As I kissed his head, I remembered this wasn’t done.

“Better take him,” I said to Clay. “The first impression he gets of his mom shouldn’t be cursing and screaming. He’ll hear enough of that later.”

Clay took him, and juggled him around a bit, trying to figure out a safe hold. The baby only whimpered, eyes wide and unblinking, taking in his new world.

“Shouldn’t he be…louder?” I asked. “Squalling?”

“It’ll come, I’m sure,” Jeremy said.

Clay grinned. “And if it doesn’t, you won’t complain, right?”

“True.”

“Elena?” Paige said through the speakerphone.

“I’m still here.”

She laughed. “Good, because you’re only half done. Do you feel the other one coming yet?”

I did. And we started all over again. This time was better. The way had been cleared and I knew the end would come fast. In what seemed like minutes, I had another baby.

“A girl!” Clay looked over at me, his grin as wide as the first one. “We have a daught-”

His words were drowned out by a squall so loud even Jeremy started.

“I think you have your screamer,” Paige yelled over the phone as Clay passed our son back to me.

Getting this baby cleaned up and ready for presentation wasn’t nearly so easy as her brother. She screamed and kicked and flailed so much that I could tell Jeremy was worried something was wrong. But when he handed her to Clay, she fussed only a moment, as if getting comfortable, then snuggled in.

When she’d settled, we traded babies. Our son only wriggled a bit in complaint, but she howled, face red, enraged at the disturbance. Again, after she was nestled in-to my arms this time-she quieted.

As I held her, I bent to kiss the top of her head, and inhaled deeply. I blinked. Was that-? No, it shouldn’t be. The genes didn’t pass to daughters. I took a deep breath of room air, then tried again. There seemed to be…No, I couldn’t tell. It didn’t matter. Either way, it didn’t matter.

“Do you have names picked out?” Paige asked.

I looked up. “Um, pretty much.”

We’d decided if we had a girl, we’d name her after my mother. And yet, looking down at the baby in my arms, “Natalya” just didn’t seem to fit.

“Paige?” I said. “What’s your middle name?”

“My-? Um, Katherine…with a K.”

I glanced up at Clay. He nodded.

But there was still one more question. We hadn’t settled on a surname, not because we’d been arguing over it, but because neither of us really cared whose name the babies bore. As Clay said, Danvers wasn’t even his name, so if I wanted Michaels, he didn’t mind. And yet…

I looked over at Jeremy. Danvers might not be our name, but it was the name of this house and this family. Clay slid onto the bed beside me. I smiled up at him.

“Logan Nicholas Danvers and Katherine Natalya Danvers.”

KELLEY ARMSTRONGis the author of nine books of the Otherworld, as well as two Nadia Stafford thrillers. She lives in Ontario, Canada, with her family. You can visit her at: www.kelleyarmstrong.com.