Cursed at Birth

MADDIE

As soon as the elevator doors pinged open, I stalked down the hall of the casino’s office level in my combat boots.

Sure, these weren’t the kitten heels of your everyday executive.

But I wasn’t your everyday executive.

The only place I’d ever studied was the school of hard knocks, which made me perfectly suited to run a palace of sin and excess.

I knew what people wanted. I knew the dark desires of the depraved soul, and how to make it shell out cash.

No one was better at running a casino than me, and I was going to make sure everyone knew it.

No one was going to pull ~my~ business out from under my steel-toe.

Especially not my uppity CEO mates.

We weren’t in Requiem Tower anymore. We were in Req City’s industrial wasteland. ~My~ turf.

And before the casino reopened in a few days, I needed to make sure my voice was heard.

So when I paused before the meeting room in my form fitting pencil skirt and saw not two, but ~three~ suited men sitting around the table, my blood began to boil.

I wrenched open the glass door. The three dragons turned to me.

Onyx was about to greet me with a big smile, but I shut him down immediately.

“How ~funny~ it is to see all of you here,” I began, dropping into a swivel chair and putting my feet up on the paper-strewn table.

“Madd—” Hael warned. Or tried to.

“I take it this is a dragons-only orgy?” I asked. “Humans aren’t allowed this time, no?”

“Watch yourself, mouse,” Hael growled.

I smiled devilishly at the men, who were staring at me with something close to fear. No one knew what I would do next.

“I’m not sure what you think this is,” Onyx added, looking genuinely confused.

“I should be the one ~running~ this meeting,” I said. “And you three neglected to even invite me.”

“We were discussing the budget for reopening night, and I sincerely thought you had more important things to do.” Onyx looked at Loch and Hael suspiciously.

My mates were sitting silently, jaws locked, giving me a glare cold enough to freeze any mortal’s blood but mine.

“Well, in fact I do,” I replied.

I stood up and pushed my chair back into the wall.

“I have a meeting with the ~rest~ of the staff,” I informed them as I left the room.

Even if my mates didn’t acknowledge that I was the boss, I would make sure everyone else did.

LOCH

When Maddie slammed the door of the meeting room, I banged my fist down on the table.

Her disrespect knew no limit.

Despite every lesson my brother and I had given her, she somehow never learned.

From Hael’s hardened expression, I knew he was thinking the same thing.

Hael

That little rat…

Loch

Always the same shit.

Loch

She always forgets her rightful place.

Hael

Beneath us.

Loch

Well, I guess we’ll just have to show her again.

Hael

And I know just how to do it…

ZAYDA

I dipped in and out of consciousness as the contractions wracked my body.

Memories came and went as if my life was flashing before my eyes.

~Getting ready for prom in the hotel room with Maddie and Thea. Back when our lives were so easy.~

~Xythor on our first date…~

~In his bed, that has become our bed, holding me after we made love.~

The contractions subsided and I gasped in the night air as wind whipped across my face. It smelled fresh—not damp and musty like the labs at Xander U.

I was lying atop a flying dragon, and Summer’s hand was wrapped around mine.

“You can do this, Zayda. We’re almost there. We’re almost at the healing pool.”

Her words floated to me as if from a dream.

The only thing real was my pain. My tortured body, moving forward with its cursed task.

My baby was coming more than a month too soon.

But all along, my pregnancy had bucked convention. It had been a pregnancy from hell.

I could only hope that the baby would come from somewhere other than my…

The pain began again, an awful combination of crushing tightness and tearing open. My womb was preparing for release.

In the dark night sky, I saw red, and in my delirious state, I knew it was my blood boiling.

When I emerged from the contraction, I was on the floor of the forest.

“Is there something…you could do…about the pain?” I panted to Summer, whose hair was plastered to her face with sweat.

“I’m doing everything I can,” she replied.

~This is with her help…~ I thought to myself. ~Without her, I would die.~

The reality of my weakness in the face of my baby’s strength sunk in just before another contraction took hold.

“…to the healing pool.”

Summer’s voice floated up to me once more.

The cool moss beneath my legs gave way to the summer evening air.

Dane and Aneurin were carrying me. Animals of the night filled my ears—crickets and bats and bullfrogs.

I had existed in the sterile silence of the lab for so long that the real, natural world overwhelmed me.

Was it calling to me? Was it taunting me? Here I was, a woman about to perform the oldest, most common and sacred task a woman could.

I was about to become a mother.

In my delirious state, I felt that the world was rejecting me.

I had given my body over to a magical beast, and then I had lived in his lifelessness. Now, I was fated to bear his cursed child.

The noise around me rose dramatically, assaulting my ears the way the fetus inside me was assaulting my womb, my spine…my whole body.

The next thing I knew, the sounds came to an end.

I was underwater, the warm and bubbling pool closing over my head, sealing me off from the world.

In that brief moment, submerged in the pool, I felt a warm rush of calm.

But it lasted less than a second, because I bobbed to the surface once more.

I felt Summer’s hands on my face, the strength of the contraction pinching the nerves of my spine, and her words reached me in my unending, hell-dream of labor.

“Stay with me, Zayda,” she pleaded. “Because we have to deliver this baby ~now~.”

SUMMER

A guttural, animal-like noise left Zayda’s throat as her hand grasped mine with the inhuman strength of her suffering.

Though there was no time to waste, I closed my eyes for a moment, reaching deep into the pool beneath me.

~Support~, I requested silently. The pool was deep, and I couldn’t keep Zayda afloat while I delivered her child.

Underwater roots began to grow beneath us, forming a platform. It floated up to Zayda and me. Zayda reclined against the natural bed, and I found my footing.

“Breathe in…”

I did the same, getting into sync with Zayda just as an awful scream escaped her mouth.

Her huge, round stomach, glowing white as the moon, began to distort. As the child inside kicked, her skin extended unnaturally.

I couldn’t deny my sinister feeling. This was no normal child.

Zayda was out of her depth, and so was I.

I moved to look between Zayda’s legs, where I could just make out the top of the child’s head.

“You’re crowning,” I gasped before regaining my composure. “Zayda, now is the time. You have to push!”

My friend’s eyelids fluttered as she gritted her teeth. The pain was making her delirious.

She nodded faintly and struggled to remain conscious. I knew she was fighting, but her skin was sallow and transparent in the light of the moon.

She looked weak, and every contraction was making her weaker.

Her cracked lips fluttered, and I moved toward her to make out her words.

“What if it kills me?” she asked, though it was no more than a whisper.

In her eyes I saw the fear of the dying.

“I’ll save you,” I told her, loudly, with confidence I didn’t have.

“Push!” I ordered.

Zayda shrieked into the night as she followed my instructions. She crushed the bones in my hand before going slack, her strength used up.

“You’re almost there. One more time, Z,” I went on, hoping she couldn’t sense the panic in my voice.

~I’ve helped countless women give birth.~

~Women have been bearing children since the beginning of time.~

But as much as I repeated these truths, I knew they couldn’t help me now.

Zayda’s bulging stomach thrashed in the night as the child fought to make it out.

~But once it was here, would it even be a child?~

I couldn’t think of that now.

“Stay with me, Zayda,” I ordered. Zayda summoned the last of her strength. “One…two…three…”

With a scream that could curdle blood, Zayda gave birth to her child.

As if in a dream, I scooped the newborn from the water and cradled it in my arms. Zayda’s cries had been replaced by the baby’s, and the sound rang in my ears.

But at that moment, I was focused on Zayda.

Immediately, she lost consciousness. Her head dropped into the water as her blood began to discolor the pool.

~No.~

I held the screaming child in one hand, and placed the other on Zayda’s stomach. I used the last of my ~own~ strength to pull from the deep.

~Mother Earth, help me save one of our own.~

I pleaded. With my eyes closed, I wept. Tears spilled down my cheeks for Zayda, for her difficult task, bound by fate.

“Summer.”

I opened my eyes to see Zayda, weak but alive, and relief flooded my body.

Now that I knew my friend was okay, I finally looked down at the child.

And the moment I laid eyes on its face, screwed up and covered in tears, my blood ran cold.

I had thought, finally, that everything had turned out all right.

But I knew in my heart I had been wrong.

Nothing was okay.

Zayda’s child was…a monster.