Steal the Night (Thieves #5)(164)

“You should stop talking now, Dev,” Sarah said with a knowing smile. She was sitting on a stool at the end of the bed where I was giving birth to twins. Sarah had served as my midwife/confidante for the duration of my pregnancy. I was willing to listen to her. Felix and their sweet little Mia were in another room of the condo with our entire strange family waiting for news.

“I’m supposed to coach her,” Dev insisted.

“You were supposed to get me drugs when they would have worked, *,” I snarled at him.

“I told you to get her an epidural,” Daniel said from the back of the room. I forgave him for not standing too close. The blood would get to him.

“She said she didn’t want one,” Dev replied. “She didn’t want to go to the hospital. She told me to deny her one because she wanted the birth to be natural.”

“And you were stupid enough to believe her, Your Grace.” The Fae healer who was overseeing the birth laughed. Miria had sent the woman herself. So far she’d merely watched over and approved of everything Sarah had done. She was also heartily amused at the way I was giving Dev hell.

I groaned as another horrible wave hit me and I bore down.

“It’s too late now.” Sarah clapped her gloved hands together. “Here we go. Zoey, you’re crowning. I see the first one’s head.”

“Oh, god,” Daniel moaned, putting his hands over his eyes. “That just sounds horrible.”

“You shut up,” I yelled at him. “You might be smarter than him to stay out of my range but I can get you later, vampire.”

Then I was done talking. Grunting, crying, and screaming were my preferred mode of communication for the next few minutes. I pushed harder than I ever had in my life. I held on to Dev and, despite my words from earlier, I was so grateful to have him grasping my hand.

“He’s out,” Sarah said happily. “Oh, Z, he’s so beautiful.”

She quickly cut the cord. She passed my first son to the Fae healer, who cleaned and wrapped him carefully and handed him to Dev. He seemed shocked to be holding a small bundle of life in his hands.

“Congratulations, Your Grace,” she said.

Suddenly the blood wasn’t so daunting to Daniel and he moved in to take Dev’s place because I wasn’t done.

“Don’t kill me, Z,” he said, his voice breathless.

“No promises.” I squeezed him every bit as hard as I had Dev.

Our second son was born two minutes after the first. The healer cleaned off the second boy carefully and gave him to Daniel, who took him with shaking hands. He and Dev shared a glance as they moved in close to me.

“We have babies,” Daniel said as though he was trying to make it real in his head. “Which one is which? Didn’t Bris say they weren’t identical? They look pretty alike to me.”

I held my shaky arms out and took the first boy from Dev. I smoothed back the downy bit of fluff covering his little head and he opened his eyes for the first time. I knew exactly who he was.

“Hello, Lee,” I said as he fastened his chocolate eyes on me. The brand new baby yawned as though the birthing process had been a tiring one. Then he opened his mouth and let loose with a yell.

“I think he’s hungry,” Sarah said with a smile.

“Then that one is definitely Lee,” Dev agreed.

I pulled down my gown, exposing a breast. I was prepared for breastfeeding to be hard, but this baby was a natural. He latched on and sighed as he started to suck. I cuddled him to me and he was safe and warm. I had told my husbands of the brief time I spent on the Heaven plane. They had been very interested, but I think they thought I’d had an odd dream. They’d been fine with me naming one of our sons Lee, however.

“Well, Rhys has my eyes,” Dev said, proudly looking down at the baby in Daniel’s arms.

“Let’s hope he has my intelligence,” Daniel said with a goofy grin. He was fascinated with the child he held in his big hands. “Then he’ll know to stay out of his mama’s way when she’s yelling like that.”

“I wasn’t that bad,” I said because the yelling seemed like it had happened to another person. Now there was just peace and a great sense of relief. They were here.

“You threatened to cut off my balls with a pair of rusty scissors at one point,” Dev said. He looked at Daniel. “Let me hold Rhys. I haven’t gotten to hold him yet.”

Daniel held him carefully to move him to Dev’s arms. “Hey, watch it. You’ve got to support the head.”

Dev held Rhys close to his body and gave Daniel a dirty look. “I’m a fertility god, Daniel. I think I know how to hold a baby.”

“No,” Danny replied smugly. “You know how to make ’em. You practically slept through our childcare class.”

It had been an interesting couple of days. We were the only ones there as a threesome. We had coyly refused to answer questions and, much to the boys’ dismay, the consensus had been that I was a surrogate for their infertile love. I had not corrected that impression.

“Stop fighting,” Sarah said. “Now, go. Show off the baby who isn’t nursing. Zoey needs to rest.”

Dev looked down at me. “Thank you, my goddess. Our sons are beautiful.” He kissed me soundly and I had no desire to let a pair of rusty scissors get anywhere close to him now. “I have to go inform my brother that I have two sons to his one.”