“Callie!” Lucas speeds over, taking me in his arms. “What’s wrong?”
I open my mouth to tell him that I’m fairly sure I’m dying but can’t get the words out. Michael’s hand lands on my shoulder, and I grit my teeth, unable to bear the pain. My knees threaten to give out, and Lucas holds me upright.
“Something is wrong,” I finally spit out. “It feels like fire inside me.” I press my fingers into the quartz countertop so hard my nails scratch against the cold surface. “It’s like she’s—oh, it stopped.” I let out a ragged breath and straighten up.
“Are you sure?” Lucas doesn’t let me go.
“Yeah. I’m not in pain anymore.”
“You need to lie down.” Lucas picks me up and takes me into the living room, laying me down on the couch. I push up on my elbows and look at my stomach, able to see Elena pushing against my uterine walls hard enough to make her movements visible. “Can you heal her?” he asks Michael.
My father, who looks just as concerned, kneels down and holds his hands over me. “There’s nothing wrong.”
“She’s in pain,” Lucas barks. “Something is wrong.”
“I feel okay now,” I lilt, unsure of what the fuck is going on. “I was in pain, but I’m not anymore.” I put my hand on my stomach. “It was weird, like the baby was…was…” I trail off, shaking my head because it sounds crazy even to me. “It was like a contraction, I think. But hot, temperature hot.”
“We should go back to the hospital,” Lucas rushes out, and Kristy agrees.
“Wait,” Michael says, tipping his head. “Did it feel like the baby was a quickly expanding ball of fire?”
“That’s oddly specific, but yes. That’s exactly how it felt.” I push myself up into a sitting position, and Lucas takes a seat next to me, wrapping his arm around my shoulder.
“Your mother said the same thing about you.” Michael smiles, getting a distant look in his eye.
“Did it make her go into early labor?”
“No, what you’re feeling isn’t contractions. It’s your daughter using magic.”
“Magic?” I echo, turning my head so I can look at Lucas, needing to be sure he heard the same thing I did. “She hasn’t even been born yet. Witches don’t manifest their powers until—” I cut off, unable to keep the smile from my face, though the truth should terrify me. “She’s using angel powers.”
“Yes,” Michael says, smiling as well. “She is, and since you have angelic powers yourself, she’s feeding off of yours.”
“That, uh…that makes her sound like a parasite,” I mumble, slowly running my hand up and down my stomach. “I noticed something the other day but didn’t want to test the theory. Every time I use my angel powers, I get hit with that same pain. When we were at The Taproom, I used my angel powers to push the demon into the mirror. I got hit with the same pain right after that.”
“And when you were in Hell,” Julian continues. “You used your archangel side and then needed to sit down.”
“The family genes are strong,” Michael says. He’s still smiling, looking off in the distance at something I cannot see, no doubt thinking about how much he loved my mom. He blinks it away, but the loss of my mother hits me all over again. How different would things be if she had survived my birth? She would have raised me as a witch, no doubt, and I would have grown up understanding why I was different from the other witches and warlocks at the Academy…if that was even the school I attended.
Everything spirals from there. If my mother were still alive, I wouldn’t have lived with the Greystones. Evander wouldn’t be one of the best friends I could ever ask for, and I probably wouldn’t have Kristy in my life, either. Which means I wouldn’t have met Lucas, because the only reason I walked into his bar was thinking I was a Martin and my failed attempt to drive by Abby’s house several weeks before Penny’s birthday party.
It’s too much to think about. I miss what could have been, but I love what I have. Life rarely goes according to plan, and focusing on the what ifs rob you of the what is. It’s crazy to think how one single event causes such a large ripple effect.
If my mother didn’t die during childbirth, I wouldn’t have Elena.
“Is this why the baby’s growth has accelerated?” Lucas asks.
“Yes, the same thing happened with you,” Michael tells me. “Carrying a divine baby is hard on the human body. By the time your mother found out she was pregnant to the time you were born, only seven-and-a-half months had passed. Yet you were considered full-term and a healthy baby.”
“So she might not have actually been pregnant for nine months?”
“I don’t believe so. In the end, it was clear her human body couldn’t handle much more, and things progressed quickly. It’s why I asked Lucifer for help,” he admits. “We thought we’d have more time.”
“You didn’t think that would be helpful information to share back when you first learned you were going to have a grandchild?” Lucas growls.
“I didn’t think it would be relevant,” Michael chides. He’s not afraid of Lucas, and something tells me he likes knowing that the vampire married to his daughter is overprotective like this. “Callie developed quickly after it became clear her mother was unable to carry her any longer. Being half archangel, you have the ability to heal yourself.”
“Wait.” I hold up a hand. “So you’re saying unborn-me knew enough to speed up my growth but I can’t figure out how to heal a freaking papercut?”
“You did heal yourself,” Lucas reminds me. “After you were attacked by vampires. You were bleeding and then the wound healed over in front of me. I saw it with my own eyes.”
“That wasn’t me.” I shake my head. “I was pretty unconscious then, and I don’t know how to heal. I’ve tried.”
“Then you’re doing it wrong,” Julian states matter-of-factly.
“You are,” Michael adds. “You said you were unconscious the last time you healed yourself, which allowed you to tap into a side you weren’t yet aware of. Your mother helped will you into existence, Callie. She wanted you to live more than anything.”
“So you’re saying she guided me as an unborn baby to use my angel-powers so I could quickly develop my lungs so I could be born?” I ask slowly, each word sounding more and more ridiculous than the last.
“Yes,” Michael answers simply. “Self-preservation is a basic human instinct. When you add in the powers of an archangel, it shouldn’t come as a surprise.”
“Uh-huh,” I say, nodding yet not processing anything. “So every time I use angel-powers, the baby is feeding off of them and it’s helping speed up her growth?”
“Yes. Your human side is struggling, weakened by the burden of pregnancy,” he says like that’s supposed to clear things up.
“It does make sense.” Lucas splays his long fingers over my stomach. “You’ve been run down since conception. You’ve felt sick, and you’ve been under a lot of stress lately.”
“So Elena is growing herself because she doesn’t want to be in me anymore?” Forget that it took a curse from an evil necromancer to turn Lucas human enough to get me pregnant in the first place, this is just too much to wrap my head around.
“Self-preservation,” Julian echoes what Michael had said. “Your child knows the best chance at survival for both of you is to be born.”
“Okay.” I nod. “That kind of makes sense. So the more stressed I am, the faster she’ll grow. Cool.”
“I don’t think it works that way,” Lucas says slowly. “She’s more human than you are.”
“Right,” Michael tells us. “You are half archangel. Your child is not. Though this means she has more divinity in her than expected.” His proud-dad look turns into a proud-grandpa look, but it quickly goes away and his face goes slack. He meets my eyes but doesn’t have to say what he’s thinking.
If Elena has more divinity in her than we thought, then she’s going to be sought after by angels and demons alike, just like me. But unlike me, she’s a defenseless baby.