“I’m working, Felix,” I whispered so I wouldn’t disturb the techies, the other operatives, or the Elders hustling around us, everyone wearing headsets and talking to our group of Mysticals currently in the heat of battle. “Leave.” I put a bit of my Shifter power into the command. I needed him to go away so I could focus on not collapsing on the floor of the tent we were in.
He stiffened. I could tell he didn’t want to go. Felix was wanting an affirmation I was all right, which I could not give him because with his Shifter nose he would scent the lie. I ignored him, grabbing a set of papers one of the techies gave me on the current coordinates of our people versus the Coms inside the air force base as the battle raged on. Felix eventually backed away.
Flicking through the sheets, I swiped my forehead, amazed at what I was feeling, the block of ice I had become having been chipped away these past five hours as the pain of the labor had intensified. Right now, I wasn’t the arctic Queen I had become. I wasn’t the way I needed to be. The way I had to be to keep me sane.
After listening to Commander Lyons ask for my opinion on field position, I responded, “Sweep the north end. Elder Farrar,” ah, there was the ice, a breeze sweeping through my veins, “is to the west; his team is minutes from entering the target. I want you to hold the north for any Coms that will more than likely flee in that direction.”
“Hostages?” Commander Lyons asked with a chuckle.
I felt nothing. Just saying the name of Antonio, Elder Farrar, the man I thought of as ‘Dad’ once upon a time, shot ice water through my veins. “Do a spell to find their highest ranking official before they get to you. Take their leader as hostage, so I can interrogate him or her,” I heard Commander Lyons chuckle again quietly, “and kill the rest.” I snapped the paperwork closed, a contraction shattering the ice, heat flooding my system so hard I shivered as I placed a bracing hand on the desk near me. “These are the bastards that lined up and shot the hostages they had acquired outside Southport.” Their hostages were a group of Mysticals that had only included two elderly grandparents trying to flee with their five grandchildren — after the children’s parents had been hanged on flagpoles by the Com army here as a blatant ‘fuck you’ to our forces that were kicking their asses. “We need to show them what a ‘fuck you’ really is.”
Quiet, then dead seriousness. “Understood, Queen Ruckler.”
My lips pinched as I felt a sudden heaviness between my thighs. “Commander Kester will be taking over the relay with you.” I pressed my legs together, feeling a need to squeeze my thighs together to keep from pushing, the baby was pressing so hard. I glanced at Bindi as I leaned heavily on the table, barely able to see her because my vision was so blurry. No answer came over the headset. “I need an affirmative that you heard me, Commander Lyons?”
“You’re leaving command? Right now?” he finally asked, sounding bewildered.
He probably was, since I never left during a battle. “I have to take care of something. Here’s Commander Kester.” I tugged the headset off, thrusting it against a surprised Commander Kester and telling him, “It’s Commander Lyons on the north end, waiting for stragglers. You’re now his relay.” I left it at that, slowly turned, and began walking as gently as I was breathing so I didn’t faint. I was no stranger to pain, having been shot and stabbed multiple times, but fuck, my vision was now blurring to pinpoints. This raw, agonizing pain was on a whole other level. A whole other stratosphere, if I was honest with myself. I never cried over pain anymore, having decided my tear ducts had frozen over along with my mind, but right now, I wanted to drop in the middle of the floor and bawl like a goddamn baby. Though I trembled, wobbling, I still managed to brush off Felix by letting my wolf take voice, growling at him.
Bindi was instantly next to me, grabbing my arm, and gently but firmly leading me outside the black tent into the camp, away from the few individuals who had taken notice of my incoherent state. I wore a charm around my neck that Antonio had made, hiding my pregnancy from all eyes but his and Bindi’s, and the added heartbeat inside me from Vampires’ ears, but I still must have looked like shit because those who had eyed me had worn expressions of worry. I hardly remembered what worry felt like. Only pain and numbness and anger had been my shifting emotions since a spelled mind sweep had been done on me.
All because I, Lily Ruckler, Queen of the Shifters had at one time had sex with a Vampire.