And waited.
And waited.
"This baby is not coming out," Astrid ground out. "I will be pregnant for a thousand years." Her breath came out in spurts and she cried out when it became too much.
"Oh my God," Gemma said. "Does it always hurt like that?" Her face was ashen and she clung tightly to The Kev.
"I just squatted in a field and they fell out," Pam informed the room.
Her announcement was greeted with appalled silence.
"Everybody in here. NOW," Astrid demanded. "If I have to go through this, you do too."
The men held back, but the women rushed forward.
"Guys, come up here by my head," she instructed as she stiffened and groaned. "I have no problem with nudity, but I'm fairly sure Ethan will lose it if everyone gets a peek at my hooha. Ladies, I don't care where you stand, but watch out. If he ever comes out, he's liable to eat all of us."
"Get your shit together, asshead," Pam said as she lovingly pushed Astrid's hair from her face. "You ain’t the only woman in the world to blow out a baby."
"Yeah? How many women do you know that blow out eight-headed babies?" she grunted and tried to punch Pam in the nose.
"I thought it was six heads," Mother Nature added unhelpfully.
"It's twelve," Gemma chimed in, and then ducked as a vase of roses came flying at her.
"It's ten heads," Astrid snapped, and then screeched in agony.
"Darling niece," Satan said calmly as he approached the bed. "You can take down armies. I don't really see the problem here."
All the women in the room gasped and went for cover.
"He does have a point," Grandpa backed up his son. "Pam said she squatted in a field and dropped it right out."
"Should we take her outside to a field?" Ethan's father inquired politely. "Maybe if she stood up and jogged around a bit it would fall out."
"Outstanding point," The Kev agreed.
"Get out." Astrid's voice was murderous. "If you don't leave right now I will magic a fifteen-headed baby into the stomachs of all the penis-owning bastards in this room."
I'd never seen men move so quickly in my life.
"Not you, Ethan," she hissed at her mate as he tried to make his escape on the tail end of the exodus. "You will experience every joyous moment with me."
"Of course," he mumbled as he slunk back in the room.
"He's coming," she wailed as her grip on the bedpost snapped it in half.
We gathered around my cousin as she pushed with all her might.
And he came.
"Sweet baby Moses in a mesh tracksuit," Pam squealed as she took the baby and cleaned him. Ethan cut the cord and Pam placed the screaming child in his hands. His look of astonishment and joy brought tears to my eyes.#p#分页标题#e#
"What?" Astrid asked. "What's wrong with him?"
"Nothing," I said as I gazed at the small perfect bundle in his father's trembling arms.
"How many heads?" she demanded.
"One head, my love. One beautiful head," Ethan whispered reverently as he gave the little baby boy to her.
Astrid was silent for once as she gazed at her child. Her lips quivered and her magic swirled through the room. "He's ours?" She spoke in a voice so soft I barely heard her.
"He's ours," Ethan replied as he sat on the bed next to his mate and child.
"He has one head," she murmured as she traced the tiny lips, toes and fingers of her child.
"That doesn't mean he won't sprout a few more in the next couple of days." Pam snorted as she kissed Astrid and then the baby. "Put that little son of a bitch on your boob. He's gonna be hungry," she instructed.
"Vampyre-Demons can nurse?" Astrid asked, surprised.
"No clue, dumbass. Try it and see," Pam said.
Vampyre-Demons could nurse. The baby suckled with delight from his mother and Ethan watched rapt with a dreamy expression on his handsome face. He stroked the back of his child's head as the boy drank from his mother.
"What shall we call him?" he asked.
Astrid looked down at the baby and sighed happily. "Samuel. We will call him Samuel."
Samuel stopped drinking for a brief moment at the sound of his name, looked up and smiled a gummy baby smile.
"Did that just happen?" Myrtle asked, shocked.
"Yes, it did," Mother Nature said knowingly. "This is no normal child. Samuel will. . ."
"Stop," Astrid cut her off. "I don't want to know. Right now I have a perfect one-headed baby boy and I love him more than I thought possible. I can feel he is special and different, but I just want to hold him and be with him. I don't want to know his future. . .yet."
"Come on, let's leave them alone," Gemma said as she ushered us out.