Beauties and Beasts

Chapter 51: brought to you by the classical almost die

To make up for not keeping up with my update every 3 days, for the next 3 days I shall update EVERY day. Yay! That should get us all caught up.

We now return to your usual program.

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More babies! Neara gives birth to lambs and they were not cooked for a big fat greek wedding. Also, not entirely sure the human birth canal was shaped for, uh...sheep...

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Loud thumping on the door woke Shay with a start. Baby snakes rained down from her head as she sat up, rubbing her face hard. Since the first snows, she and Ryan had taken to sleeping by the fireplace in the mainroom. Ryan got up a few times a night to restore the wood on the fire, leaving the room with a gentle, amber glow.

Before Shay had finished her first, incoherent mumble, Ryan had stepped over her and to the door. Her mumbles turned to hisses as a thin stream of biting cold slipped in. Instantly she called for her babies, which zipped beneath the covers. At least, all but the largest, who simply dug deeper into her hair from around her neck.

"Neara needs Shay," gasped the familiar tenor of Theo.

"At this hour?"

"She's in labor. She's scared."

Shay perked up, fighting to get her eyes open. Waking up was always a laborious task for her.

"Whatty whatty?"

"She's gotten the message. I'm going to close the door now."

Shay couldn't see how Theo responded, but the door closed, the cold stopped, and the thick warmth of the fire took over once more.

Ryan returned to her side, though she saw his eyes flicker to the baby about her neck. When he had first met the baby snakes, he had a moment of sheer terror that turned his dark skin grayish and his body rigid. Then, after a few moments of closing his eyes and breathing slowly, he'd come forward and introduced the back of his hand to the flickering tongues of the babies to recognize his scent. Though Shay told him he didn't need to push himself, that seemed to be the only thing Ryan knew how to do.

Even now, she could see the hidden desire in his eyes to rip off the baby from her neck and throw it as far as he could--and that he hated himself for feeling like that.

"It's okay," she said in her half awake state, easing off the sleeping boy from her neck. "It's okay to be scared."

"Even before snakes became part of my family, it wasn't okay," he said lowly, closing his eyes and breathing slowly. "Your friend is waiting. I'll get Parker to watch the babies."

"No, wait," and tugging him back down into the nest, she lifted the baby, which had just lifted his head in confusion, and set the baby on his lap.

Ryan stiffened, but did not pull away, as he always did with the babies. He never stopped himself from touching them.

"They know your scent. Right, Lazy Boi?"

The baby, the very same one whom she had helped out of his egg, twisted about as though to return to her, the few blue spots on his back looking green in the firelight. Before his head could reach her wrist, she dropped him in Ryan's lap. For a moment, the snake froze, just as still as Ryan, then probably realized he was too tired to care and curled up.

Shay crawled out, lifting the blanket, where the other babies not trying to cling to her hips, waited.

"They won't hurt you. They know you."