HIS BREEDING FARM

THE QUEEN'S BIRTH

by DevotedSub

Chapter 41 — "The Queen's Labor"

Elena wakes to warmth spreading under her.

Not the familiar warm — not sweat, not the slick of arousal that has soaked these black sheets a thousand nights. This is different. A gush, sudden and unstoppable, hot between her thighs, pooling beneath her hips in the dark. Her body does it without asking her. Her body knows something she does not yet know.

She lies still for one breath. Two. Her hand slides down over the great round curve of her belly — thirty-six weeks and five days of Damion's son, heavy and low and ready — and she feels the next one coming even before it arrives. A tightening. A deep, rolling wave that starts in her back and rolls forward like weather.

"Oh," she whispers to the dark.

Beside her, Damion is already half-awake. He always is, when she moves wrong. Six feet three of coiled calm, dark hair wild against the pillow, grey eyes opening in the dark like a wolf's. His hand finds her belly before his mind is fully awake. It has done that every night for nine months.

"Daddy," Elena says, and her voice shakes with something that is not fear and not quite joy, something older than both. "Daddy — my water broke."

He goes utterly still. Then he is moving — not fast, never panicked, but with the terrible deliberate precision of a man who has waited his whole life for this exact moment and will not waste a second of it. The lamp clicks on. Candlelight is better, but the lamp is faster, and his eyes sweep her — the soaked sheets, her nightgown clinging, her hands cradling the mountain of her belly — and his face does something she has never seen it do.

Damion does not cry. Damion worships. And what crosses his face now is worship stripped of every defense.

"It's time," he says. Not a question. A vow.

· · ·

The farm wakes the way it always wakes for Elena: all at once, and gladly.

Damion carries her himself — one arm under her knees, one behind her back, her belly huge against his chest, her arms around his neck — down the hall of the main house to the birthing room. It has been ready for three weeks. Vivian saw to that. The big bed stripped and remade with clean dark linens layered over oilcloth, the way Vivian taught them. A low fire in the hearth though the night is warm, because Vivian says a laboring woman must never be cold. The rocking chair pulled close. The birthing stool Damion built with his own hands, sanded smooth, waiting in the corner.

Vivian is already there. Of course she is. Thirty-four years old, tall and wide-hipped and serene as deep water, she has done this before — has carried and borne and nursed, has buried the fear of it long ago and kept only the reverence. She takes one look at Elena in Damion's arms and nods like a general receiving the signal she has been waiting for.

"Put her on the bed, on her side," Vivian says. "Elena, my queen — breathe with me. Good. Good."

Then she turns, and her voice goes out through the house like a bell.

"Mara — water. All the pots, hot as you can stand it, and every clean cloth in the house. Tessa — candles. Every candle we own, and the lanterns, I want this room golden. June — you stay with your queen. You do not leave her side unless I tell you. Roxy—"

Roxy is already in the doorway, blonde hair wild, eyes huge. "The babies," Vivian says, before Roxy can ask. "Wren and Cassian. Take them to the Quarters, keep them warm and fed and quiet. This house belongs to your queen today."

"On it," Roxy breathes, and she is gone, already moving — wild Roxy, insatiable Roxy, and today she is the farm's fierce guardian, because that is what queens are owed.

Mara's red hair flashes past the doorway at a run. Tessa's soft voice is already murmuring prayer in the hall. June comes to Elena's bedside and takes her hand in both of hers, brown skin warm, eyes shining, and does not let go.

Damion has not put Elena down yet. He stands beside the bed holding her, her weight nothing to him, her face tucked into his neck, and he looks at Vivian over her head.

"Tell me what to do," he says.

Vivian's smile is soft and absolute. "You already know. Don't leave her. Breathe with her. When the pain comes, be the wall she leans on. When it goes, remind her who she is."

He lays Elena down gently on her side, the way Vivian said, and climbs onto the bed behind her, and folds himself around her — chest to her back, one great arm under her head, the other curved over the mountain of her belly, his palm spread wide over the skin where his son is turning, dropping, coming.

"I'm here," he murmurs into her hair. "I'm not leaving this bed, Elena. Not for water, not for air, not for anything. You hear me? I am here."

Another wave takes her. She feels it gather — the deep tightening, the pressure rolling forward — and her fingers dig into his forearm, and she breathes the way Vivian taught her, the way he taught her with his voice low and steady in her ear: in, my queen, slow, that's it, good girl, let it move through you, I'm right here.

It passes. His lips find her temple. Then her cheek. Then he shifts, careful and huge around her, and presses his mouth to the curve of her belly where it rises beside him, and breathes her in — sweat and milk and the sweet copper scent of a woman about to bring forth life — and whispers against her skin, "You're doing beautifully. You're my strong queen. You're bringing me our heir."

Between contractions, he worships her. That is the only word for it. His hands never stop moving — slow circles over her belly, thumbs pressing gently into the small of her back where the ache lives, fingers carding through her sweat-damp dark hair. He kisses her shoulders. He kisses the nape of her neck. He kisses her belly, over and over, murmuring to the child inside as much as to her: come on, little king, come meet your father, your mama's doing all the work, you just come on down.

Elena laughs through the next contraction — actually laughs, breathless and wild — and then it crests and she groans, low and deep, her whole body bowing around the pain, and Damion holds her through it like a cliff holds the sea.

"Good girl," he breathes. "That's it. Ride it. I'm here. I'm here."

· · ·

Morning comes golden through the windows, and the room is golden too — Tessa has done her work well. A hundred candles burn on every surface, and the lanterns glow, and the air smells of beeswax and clean linen and the iron-sweet scent of Elena's body working.

She walks. Vivian says walking helps the child drop, so she walks, and Damion walks with her — her arm around his waist, his arm around her shoulders, her enormous belly leading the way like a ship's prow. They circle the birthing room, past the hearth, past the rocking chair, past the window where the pasture lies green and endless in the morning light. With every contraction she stops, and he stops with her, and she leans her whole weight into him, her forehead against his chest, her hands fisted in his shirt, and he holds her up like she weighs nothing at all.

"Tell me again," she gasps, when one passes.

"Tell you what, my queen?"

"How — how I look." Her brown eyes find his, wet and fierce. "Tell me I'm still — that you still—"

He cups her face in both hands, this man who has worshipped her body through every stage of its swelling, and looks at her like she is the only created thing.

"Elena. You are the most beautiful woman who has ever lived, and right now you are the most beautiful you have ever been. You are round with my son. You are doing the bravest, holiest thing a woman can do. When I look at you I don't see pain. I see a queen building a kingdom with her body." His thumb brushes her cheek. "And when this is over, I'm going to spend the rest of my life showing you what you did to me today."

She kisses him — hard, desperate, tasting salt and love — and then the next wave hits and she cries out against his mouth, and he swallows the sound and holds her, holds her, holds her.

Mara comes in with the water, pots steaming, cloths folded over her arm, and stops in the doorway watching them. Filthy-mouthed Mara, the competitor, who has never once been soft about anything — and her green eyes are wet. She sets the water down quietly and comes to Elena's other side and presses a cool cloth to the back of her queen's neck.

"You're doing it, mama," Mara says roughly. "You're fucking doing it. That boy doesn't stand a chance — he's got you for a mother."

June has not left Elena's hand. She walks on the other side now, holding it, and when a contraction takes Elena she squeezes, and whispers, "Breathe, my queen, breathe, God's got you, he's got you both," and Elena squeezes back hard enough to hurt, and June just smiles through her tears and holds on tighter.

Tessa kneels by the hearth, feeding the fire, her auburn hair glowing in the candlelight, her own round belly — twenty-three weeks of Damion's child — brushing her knees. She prays without stopping, lips moving, eyes on Elena, and every time a contraction passes she whispers, "Well done, my queen. Well done."

They are all hers. Every one of them. And she is theirs. And he — he is the center they all orbit, and he has eyes only for her.

· · ·

Noon. The sun stands high and the room is warm and Elena's hair is soaked, plastered to her neck, and the contractions are coming hard now — close together, deep, the kind that make her cry out before she can stop herself.

She is on the bed again, on her knees, leaning forward over the great mound of pillows Damion has built, her belly hanging heavy and low. Damion is behind her on the bed, his legs bracketing her hips, his chest against her back, his arms wrapped around her — around them, her and the child — and he is breathing with her, loud and deliberate, so she can hear him through the roar of it.

"In," he commands, low and iron and tender all at once. "Slow. In. Good girl. Now out — let it go, let it move, don't fight it, let him come."

"It hurts," she sobs, and hates herself for saying it, and says it anyway because he is the one person she never has to be brave for.

"I know." His voice breaks on the words — actually breaks — and his arms tighten, and his lips press to her sweat-slick shoulder. "I know, my love, I know. I'd take it from you if I could. I'd carry him out of you with my bare hands if I could. But you're stronger than me right now. You're doing the thing I can never do. So let me be your wall. Lean. Lean on me."

She leans. The wave crests, and crests, and breaks, and she screams — a raw, primal sound that shakes the candles — and his hand covers her belly, feeling his son surge downward, and he groans with her, with her, sharing it the only way he can.

When it passes, she collapses back against him, shaking, weeping, and he turns her gently in his arms and holds her face and kisses her — her forehead, her eyelids, her tear-wet cheeks, her mouth — soft, reverent kisses, worship-kisses.

"You're my queen," he whispers. "You're my good girl. You're my goddess. I'm so proud of you I can't breathe."

Vivian checks her — gentle hands, experienced, unhurried — and nods. "Seven. Moving fast now. He's coming, my queen. He's really coming."

Elena looks at Damion, and through the exhaustion and the pain, something fierce and triumphant flares in her brown eyes. "Did you hear that, Daddy? He's coming."

"I hear." He presses his forehead to hers. "Our heir. Our son. You did that, Elena. You and me. Forever."

· · ·

Mid-afternoon, and Vivian calls for the tub.

It is copper, wide and deep, hauled in by — Elena never learns who; her world has narrowed to the next wave and the next — and filled with Mara's steaming water, tempered with cool until Vivian pronounces it right. The candles reflect in it, a hundred golden ripples. Tessa strews dried rose petals across the surface because, she whispers, the queen deserves beauty even in battle.

Damion lifts Elena into the water himself, and she gasps at the heat of it closing around her — around her aching back, her swollen ankles, the great low weight of her belly, suddenly buoyant, suddenly bearable. She sinks with a moan that is almost pleasure, and the water takes her weight the way he has taken everything else today.

He kneels beside the tub. He does not get in — someone must be the anchor — but he rolls his sleeves to the shoulder, and Vivian hands him the oil, warm from the hearth, scented with cloves and orange. And he worships her.

His big hands slick over the mountain of her belly, slow and reverent, tracing the stretched-tight skin, the dark line running down its center, the silvered stretch marks she once wept over and he kissed one by one until she understood they were his writing on her. He oils her breasts too — heavy, aching, the nipples dark and swollen, already beading the first drops of colostrum — and she arches with a broken little cry that has nothing to do with labor and everything to do with him.

"Daddy," she whispers.

"I know, my queen." His voice is wrecked and tender. "I know. Your body knows what comes next. It's getting ready to feed our son." He bends and presses his mouth to one beaded nipple, gentle as a prayer, and tastes the first salt-sweet drop of her milk, and groans. "Fuck, Elena. You're perfect. You're perfect."

She cups the back of his head, holding him there, her fingers in his wet dark hair, and for one suspended moment there is no pain — only his mouth on her, the water holding her, the candles, the love.

Then the wave comes, and she bears down against it in the water, and he holds her shoulders, and Vivian kneels on her other side, and coaches her through it — "breathe, my queen, let the water hold you, good, good" — and it passes, and Elena sags back, panting, and laughs weakly.

"I want — when he's here," she gasps, "I want you to — to breed me again."

Damion goes still. Then his hand slides down her belly, under the water, between her thighs — not entering, just cupping her, possessive and reverent, feeling how swollen and ready she is, how her body has opened itself for this day.

"When you're healed," he says, low and iron. "When Vivian says your body is ready. I will lay you in our bed, my queen, and I will worship every inch of you, and I will fill you so deep you'll feel me in your soul, and we will start the next one." His grey eyes burn. "This farm is never done growing. You're never done being mine."

"Promise," she breathes.

"I swear it on our son."

Roxy slips back in then — quiet for once, almost reverent — and leans down to Elena's ear. "Babies are out cold in the Quarters," she whispers. "Wren's got her thumb, Cassian's got his fist, both snoring like tiny drunk uncles. The farm's got them. You just do this."

Elena catches Roxy's hand and squeezes it, too tired for words, and Roxy squeezes back, and her wild loud mouth trembles, and she kisses Elena's wet forehead and goes to stoke the fire.

June sings. Softly, under her breath — an old hymn, half-remembered, her warm voice threading through the candlelight. Tessa joins her, hesitant, then Mara, rough and low. Even Vivian hums. Elena floats in the golden water, her husband's hands on her belly, her sisters' voices around her, and dozes between the waves — two minutes, five — and each time she surfaces, Damion is there, his forehead pressed to hers, whispering her back.

"Rest, my queen. I've got you. I've always got you."

· · ·

Afternoon bleeds into evening. The light through the windows goes amber, then rose, then deep gold, and the candles take over, and the room is a temple.

Transition. Vivian says the word quietly to Damion, where Elena can't hear: transition. The hardest part. The part where the pain stacks wave on wave with no rest between, where the body does something enormous and the mind can't follow.

Elena can't follow. She is somewhere beyond words now — a place of pure sensation, pure effort, her body a vessel for forces older than language. She shakes. She weeps without knowing she's weeping. At one point she pushes Damion's hand away — "don't, don't" — and he goes still, stricken, and Vivian says gently, "That's the pain talking, not her. Stay," and he stays, and a moment later Elena is clawing for him, sobbing, "Daddy, Daddy please don't leave me," and he gathers her up and holds her so tight she can barely breathe, and that is exactly what she needs.

"I'm here," he says into her hair, fierce and broken and absolute. "I will never leave you. Not in this. Not in anything. Never."

"I'm scared," she whispers. It costs her everything to say it. "Damion, I'm scared—"

"Good." He holds her face, makes her look at him, his grey eyes burning into hers. "Be scared. And do it anyway. That's what queens do. That's what my queen does." His voice drops to a rumble she feels in her bones. "Elena. Listen to me. You were made for this. Your body was made for this. For me. For him. Every curve of you, every inch — made to carry my children and bring them into the world. This is your throne room. This is your crown. And I am right here, and I am not moving, and you are going to bring me our son."

She stares at him. Breathes. And something settles in her — the fear doesn't leave, but it kneels. It kneels to him, the way she does, the way she always has, and finds its place.

"Yes, Daddy," she breathes.

He kisses her — deep, claiming, hers — and she tastes salt and iron and devotion, and when the next contraction comes she rides it like a queen rides into battle, screaming her defiance at the pain, his arms the walls of her fortress.

Vivian checks her again. Goes still. Looks up — and her serene face is radiant.

"Elena," Vivian says softly. "My queen. The head is coming. I can see him."

The room goes electric. Mara drops her cloth. Tessa's prayer stops mid-word and becomes a sob of joy. June squeezes Elena's hand so hard their knuckles whiten, laughing and crying at once.

Damion looks at Vivian. Then at Elena. And his voice, when it comes, is the voice of a king receiving his kingdom.

"Push, my queen," he says. "One more push — and I hold our heir."

Chapter 42 — "Darian"

"Push, my queen."

Elena bears down, and the whole farm holds its breath.

She is on the bed, propped on the mound of pillows, knees drawn up, Damion behind her — his chest to her back, his arms around her, his hands gripping hers. Vivian kneels at the foot of the bed, calm as deep water, hands ready. Mara holds one of Elena's legs, Tessa the other, June pressed to Elena's side with a cool cloth, whispering prayers against her temple. Roxy stands at the head of the ...