Top Ten Midwife Tricks You Didn’t Know—
“Is that fucking YouTube?” I cried.
Gemma threw up her hands. “Am I supposed to do this without guidance?”
“I can help with that.”
My blood froze at the voice. I thought I was losing my mind. I lifted my head off the sand, and I saw him—them.
Grim Reyes, like a mythical being pulled from a painting, with the wild night wind his backdrop.
Grim smiled at Gemma. “This is a mighty big favor, Rich Girl.”
Sixty-One
STORY
“Gemma Crowne, midwife,” Grim drawled. “Did hell freeze over?”
“I don’t know,” she bit. “You tell me. You live there.”
In a hoodie and leather jacket, tattoos vining up his neck, Grim tilted his head, studying Lottie and me. He was completely at ease, totally undisturbed by two women giving birth on the sand. It was off-putting—but that was Grim Reyes.
Head of the Horsemen, king of the underworld, someone whose smirk belied secrets to all the dirty corners of the world, to questions you wouldn’t ever think to ask.
“Why is he even here?” I groaned, looking away from his obsidian glare.
“When Lottie said you needed to get out, well, there aren’t many places my grandfather doesn’t touch in Crowne Point. So plan A was getting you out of Crowne Point. This was plan B.” Gemma thumbed to Grim. “Well…I guess plan A was this not happening. So is this plan…Z?”
“I am not having my child with the fucking head of the Horsemen watching.”
A slight smirk lifted his lips. “I’ve seen worse.”
Gemma and Grim’s voices faded to a low murmur; above me the stars blurred into the black sky. I got lost in an ethereal world of pain and loss.
Grayson wasn’t here. West was dead. We lost.
“I think you’re supposed to push now,” Gemma said.
“Fuck you,” I groaned.
“Seriously, push.”
I rolled my head to the side, the cool sand feeling nice on my sweaty head. I found Lottie, and our eyes locked. She wasn’t pushing either.
“I won’t do it,” I whispered. “I can’t.”
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I can’t deliver my baby on sand, with Gemma fucking Crowne as my midwife. While the Horsemen stood watch. While the love of my life was captive. While West du Lac was dead. I can’t, I fucking can’t—
“This isn’t how it was supposed to happen,” I said.
I’ll be there for you, Snitch. I’ll hold your hair back. I’ll get you ice chips. Let you scream and hold my arm until you break the skin.
Grayson was supposed to hold my hand.
He was supposed to push the hair out of my eyes.
He was supposed to be here.
“Push or your baby is going to fucking die. Do you want to be the reason your baby dies?”
“Worst midwife ever…” I mumbled.
He promised he would be here.
“He said he wouldn’t miss this.”
“Story, look at me,” Lottie said. “Look at me.”
I found Lottie’s warm brown eyes again. “None of this is how it was supposed to happen.”
She gripped my hand.
“Okay. YouTube says when I see a grayish sac…ew what? Oh, this is for a dog birth. Oh. Oh…”
“Fucking hell,” Grim growled. “Move aside. You’re going to kill them.”
“What do you know about delivering babies?” Gemma snapped.
“More than you. I delivered my sister.”
Grim has a sister?
Grim got to his knees in the sand, his dark black hair falling across his eyes as he went for my thighs.
I tried to shove him off. “I changed my goddamn mind. Grim is the last person I want delivering my baby.”
He ignored me, my efforts to remove him barely jostling him. I was so tired. I could barely feel my legs. It felt like all my adrenaline slipped out of my body.
Through my suddenly foggy vision, I could see he’d taken off his jacket and pushed up his hoodie to his forearms. Black ink wrapped around muscular, caramel skin disappeared between my thighs.
Tattoos—the hands used to seal bloody contracts were now being used to deliver my baby.
That can’t be good.
“It’s time to push,” he said casually, bored, as if his head wasn’t between my legs.
“No. He said he wouldn’t miss this. He promised.”
Lottie squeezed my hand.
“I’ll do it if you will,” she whispered.
Hot tears fell down the corner of my eye.
“I don’t want to,” I said. Not without him. Not here. Not when I was so unsure if this baby would ever have a father.
Not with the king of the underworld as my midwife. What would he ask for in return?
Tears fell down her cheeks. “Me either.”
But holding each other’s hands, we pushed.
“They’re doing it!” Gemma said. “Fucking finally.”
For a split second, the world was beautiful and right.
“What’s happening?” Gemma’s voice sounded warbled and off-key.
Something felt wrong.
Very wrong.
Just do one thing for me. Survive. Survive.
Grayson’s earnest plea was the last thing I remembered, and then it all faded to black.
Sixty-Two
GRAY
I have all the luck in the world, but none of it belongs to me…
I’ve lived a lucky life. A spoiled, selfish, lucky life.
I wrote that line in my journal the first time my grandfather yanked at my strings. When he broke my nose and first forced me to choose Crowne Industries over love.
With my arm swung off the side of my bed, I trailed my fingers along the cold floor.
Back and forth—my hand slammed into something hard, beneath my bed. I rustled around until I could get a grip, bringing it up.
A book?
Made of worn leather and pressed paper.
I have searched under every poem at Crowne Hall. There is no coin here, at least, not buried under any famous poem. I tell my dad there is still hope…but I think she is the key. It keeps me up at night, why did he want her to go to Scotland?
My blood went cold. Not a book, a fucking journal. West’s journal.
When the fuck did he put this here?
The cobblestone walls of Scotland are marked with Story’s poetry. When she slept, I went down to where the songbirds gather to search. When they spotted me, they started to sing. There it was, buried in the cobblestone wall, beneath the inscription: Put my heart in a cage and treat it like a songbird.
I slammed the journal shut at the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs, sliding it under my pillow. Every day, my grandfather visited me in my wing, trying to win me back to his side. Every morning, I stared out at the ocean, wishing I had some word of Story.
I think no word was good, though.
If my grandfather didn’t know, then that meant she was somewhere out of his reach.
“Are you ready to stop moping?” My grandfather leaned against the railing. “Aren’t you even the slightest bit curious what I’m using these on?”