Anne Bishop - Twilight's Dawn

Marian leaned back enough to look at him. “You’ve never worried about that, have you?”

He brushed her hair away from her face. “No, but that’s you and me. It’s not going to be as easy for Daemon to trust.”

“That’s not fair to Surreal.”

“No, it’s not, but that’s how it is.”

Marian hesitated. “Have you ever wondered . . . ?”

He sighed. Then he nodded. “I don’t know if Jaenelle wasn’t able to have children or if it just never happened for them.”

“I think there was a concern—a fear—that she wouldn’t survive childbirth,” Marian said quietly. “Nothing was ever said; I just had that impression the couple of times her moontime was late. It seemed like Daemon was relieved when the moon’s blood started.”

“Could be. It would have destroyed him if she had died that way.” He huffed out a breath. “Maybe that’s why it never happened. Hell’s fire, I was able to make myself infertile for centuries and did it so thoroughly I know I never sired a child until the night we made Daemonar. And Daemon had suppressed his sexuality and fertility even more than I did for most of his life.”

“He wasn’t unreceptive to having a child,” Marian said. “At least, not until Jaenelle got hurt.”

“Not until Jaenelle’s body was healed and remade through a tangled web,” Lucivar corrected. “After she came back to him, he had a hard time dealing with her being in any kind of pain—and took care of whatever was causing the problem.” And maybe had taken care of more things than he’d intended to.

Lucivar kissed Marian’s forehead. “Doesn’t matter why things happened the way they did. Today we focus on helping Surreal get through childbirth without killing her husband.”

Marian froze for a moment, then looked at him with wide eyes. “Someone did remember to take away all her knives. Don’t you think?”

Lucivar released his wife and headed for the birthing room door. “I think I’ll slip in and take a quick look around.”

She felt frightened, feral, and more than a little possessive. Ignoring Helene and the Healer’s assistant as they cleaned her up, Surreal kept her eyes on the man who stood too far away from the bed, cradling her child in his arms. She wanted to tear the baby out of his arms—and tear off his arms in the process.

“Drink this,” the Healer said, holding a cup to her lips. “You need to drink this now.”

“Trying to drug me?” She flicked her eyes to the woman’s startled face, then focused again on the man who wouldn’t even look at her .

“It’s a tonic to provide you with some quick nourishment. A couple of swallows is all. Your body will use it all up; it won’t get to your milk.”

Milk. The baby needed milk.

“A couple of swallows, Lady,” the Healer said.

She took the cup and drained it.

“There,” Helene said as she smoothed the bedcovers. “You should be able to rest easy now.”

The man immediately looked up, looked at her, and she realized he hadn’t been ignoring her; he’d been giving her privacy while they cleaned her and the bed. Now he watched her as she watched him, but there was wariness in his eyes.

What had she done to make him so wary?

Warlord Prince. Husband. Daemon.

With each word that identified who he was, her head cleared a little more and images and sounds flashed by in memory, jumbled and distorted—the pain, the Healer’s encouraging voice, a male voice promising it wouldn’t hurt much longer, the thin cry of a baby, the man lowering her to the pillows and moving toward the child a woman lifted from between her legs, and her sudden attack to keep him, and everyone else, away from her baby. Hands holding her down while she fought and screamed—and the woman, the Healer, rushing to the far side of the room and handing her baby to ...

Surreal raised a hand, touched her shoulder, and flinched.

“You’re going to have a few bruises,” the Healer said quietly. “Prince Yaslana wasn’t trying to hurt you, but you had to be restrained for your own safety and the child’s.”

She stared at Daemon. “Was anyone hurt?”

“No,” he said quietly. “But we all learned some things about the Dea al Mon side of your nature.”

He was lying. She could feel it. Someone had gotten hurt, but she knew he wouldn’t tell her if she asked him. At least, not right now.

“I’ll be back in a little while to answer any questions you may have,” the Healer said. “For now, why don’t the three of you get acquainted?”

Helene and the Healer’s assistant left through the outer room while the Healer went into the adjoining room, no doubt to report to Lucivar and Marian.

“I guess I must have gone a little insane?” she asked.

“Something like that.” He sat on the edge of the bed near her knees, still wary of her and ready to move out of reach. He also had a shield around himself and the baby so she couldn’t touch either one.

She scraped her fingers through sweat-damp hair. “Hell’s fire, Sadi. What do you want me to say? Things got fuzzy toward the end.”

“Sometimes you’re a scary woman, Surreal.” Daemon studied her. “Still feeling fuzzy?”

“No.” Now she felt scared as she realized how badly she’d unnerved him. He was keeping the baby away from her. Was he going to take her child? Had she done something that made him think she would hurt the child? Mother Night. “The baby?”

“She’s fine.”

She. Daughter. “She has the right number of fingers and toes?”

He smiled. “Yes, she does. I didn’t have a chance to look at everything, but I saw that much.”

We’re both afraid , she thought. Both afraid of being shut out by the other. And I don’t know what I did to make him so wary of letting me near my own baby.

“I hadn’t decided on a name for a boy, but I know the name I’d like to give our daughter—with your consent,” she said.

“Unless it’s outlandish, I doubt I’ll have a problem with any name you choose,” he replied.

“Jaenelle Saetien. I would like to name her Jaenelle Saetien in honor of two people who meant a great deal to me.”

Shock. Pain. And then, gratitude. “Are you sure?”

Surreal smiled. “I’m sure.”

She watched his shoulders relax as he studied his daughter.

“Jaenelle say-tee-ehn,” he said, pronouncing the name as she had. Then he gave his girl a loving smile. “Hello, witch-child.”

The right choice, Surreal decided as she watched Daemon relax enough to unwrap the blankets and get a better look at his baby. She wanted to touch them both, and she couldn’t until he trusted her enough to drop his shield.

His eyes wandered leisurely over that small body that had come from hers. Then he studied the head and his expression became bemused.

“Her ears are pointed,” he said softly.

Suddenly self-conscious, Surreal pulled her hair over her own delicately pointed ears.

Daemon’s smile turned soft and silly. He shifted position, moving up so that she could finally see her daughter and share this discovery.

She reached out to move the blanket to get a better look—and couldn’t touch it. He tensed, but he dropped the shield. When she did nothing more than touch the blanket, he relaxed and shifted his body to include her.

“Look,” he said, sounding enchanted. “Her little ears are pointed. She’s going to be beautiful, like you.”

A prick of tears. She blinked them back before he noticed.

Jaenelle began crying. Surreal saw Daemon change in a heartbeat from a soft man to a predator ready to protect his own.