A Kiss of Fire (A Kiss of Magic #2)(67)

“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.