The Angelus Brothers Chronicles - The Golden Hind

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Gabriel opened the french doors in the drawing-room and was surprised to find Raphael sitting on the patio carving.

"What are you making?" He asked as he walked out of the doors.

"A crib." Gabriel stopped mid-stride caught out by both his brother's matter-of-fact tone and the answer he'd given.

"What?"

"A crib." He repeated and held up the wooden crib he was carving more deer into. Gabriel's eyes widened as he looked at it.

"You know?"

"We all know. Have done it for weeks. We can hear the baby too, remember?"

Gabriel rubbed his face as he drew closer and saw the beautiful ornate crib his brother was making for their baby. The head and foot boards were both ornately carved with stags, does and pine trees.

"Raph it's..." he trailed off.

"Gave me something to do while waiting for you to decide if we're going after that Oracle of yours or if I can take Rouge back to the Isle."

"Raph, I never meant to keep you here. You know you're free to go back anytime you want."

"And leave you to get your arse kicked when you do finally give up on waiting for orders like a good boy and go in anyway. No chance." Gabriel didn't know how to respond to his brother as he stood there silently and watched him draw images out of the wood like some kind of sorcerer.

***

"Kaia, sweetheart we need to talk."

"What?" She asked a worried look coming over her face as she tried to hide the terrible mess she was making of the knitting Marie had helped her start under a cushion.

"No, I just thought you should know. Everyone knows about the baby." He sat down opposite her on his armchair and watched the frown appear on her face.

"Marie told them?"

"No sweetheart. I can hear the baby's heartbeat. So can my brothers."

"Oh. I hadn't thought of that." He chuckled.

"Honestly I've been so caught up in being able to myself I never considered they could. They've been waiting for us to tell them." He decided not to tell her about the crib and to let Raphael surprise her.

***

Rouge had been so excited for Kaia and hugged her till she was worried she might harm the baby. The men had politely smiled like they were hearing the news for the first time. Laying in bed with her hand on the slight bump that was her belly now she imagined what it was going to be like to be a mother. In some ways, she was terrified as she'd never had a mother herself so didn't know what one did.

Marie had confided in her that when she was human she had been married to a good man and they had a son named Peter. She had told Kaia she would be a great mum and that no one knew how to be a mother. They just had to learn as they went along. When Kaia asked where her son was the wolf's face had been so sad it nearly made the pregnant doe cry. All Marie had said was the war took him, it had broken Kaia's heart to think the kind and loving wolf would have had a son only to lose him. It made her want her baby never to be born so she could always protect it safely inside her.

"Are you ok?" Gabriel climbed onto the bed next to her.

"Did you know Marie had a son?"

"No?" Inquired Gabriel.

"She said the war took him. I took that as he died." Gabriel nodded and looked down at her hand on her belly.

"We won't lose our child." He said, placing his hand over hers.

"I don't think Marie would have expected to lose hers." Gabriel wrapped his arms around his bride and pulled her into his lap to hold her and stroke her hair.

"Try not to worry, my love. We will always be there to protect our baby. I will never let anything happen to either of you as long as I live.

***

Marie was curled up on her bed cradling the dog-eared photo of her son. It was all she had left of him and was the most precious thing she owned. Duncan walked in and seeing how she was laid knew what she was doing. It crushed him that he couldn't take that pain away for her. Never having had a child of his own he couldn't know what the pain she suffered was but knew it must be soul-destroying. As soon as Marie had told him Kaia was pregnant he had known it would be difficult for his loving motherly mate. He wished he could take the pain from her or at the very least give her another child. But thanks to the barbarians who'd raped and tried to kill her it seemed couldn't do either.

Without saying a word the huge wolf climbed onto the bed and spooned himself around his tiny lover, enveloping her in his huge arms and burying his face in the back of her neck. They laid like that for hours before Marie finally reached out to put the photo back on her bedside table and turned in his arms.

"What would I do without you Mon amour?" He kissed her nose and gave her a gentle squeeze. She buried her face in his huge chest and sighed. What she would give to have this man's child growing in her, to feel his love for their baby. Her husband hadn't been a bad man but their marriage had been more one of convenience than love. As a doctor herself it made sense when the older doctor asked her to marry him to say yes. He'd been her mentor and helped her progress in her career. But there'd been no lasting love there, not like she had with Duncan, it had been affectionate, but, not love. Marie hadn't known what love was until Peter was born. He'd been perfect, with his black hair and grey eyes. He was funny and smart and had become her whole world. She'd even given up her medical career, the thing that had meant the world to her, so she could be his full-time mother.

The memory of hearing the sirens outside and the cold prickly feeling that gripped her whole body still haunted her. Somehow she'd known as soon as she heard them her son was dead. A stray mortar had hit the church in which all the women and children had been hidden. It was only Marie's medical experience that had meant she hadn't been there to die with her son. She'd been told about the casualties and ran to help, leaving Peter with the other children playing.

A part of her had died that day with her son and she had joined the war effort as a doctor the day after his funeral. But it had never mattered how many bodies she'd seen, how badly they had been mutilated. Nothing she saw ever took away the image of her own son's body lying in the rubble. She'd clawed at that rubble for hours with the other survivors trying to get to the trapped women and children. Slowly one by one what few cries there had been had stopped. It had taken them too long to dig through the rubble. The ones who'd survived the blast and church falling in on them had succumbed to their injuries before they could be gotten to.

She could still see Peter laying in the rubble if she closed her eyes. A huge stone lay on his poor little crushed chest, his black hair matted with blood. His skin had turned bluish before she'd found him. She'd already known he was dead, like some sixth sense, but seeing it was another story. That reality had destroyed her. As he had many times before Duncan held his tiny mate to his huge chest as she cried silently for her lost child and for the fact she may never have another. He understood that she felt so much guilt for wishing she could have another child. He knew she felt like she craved to replace her child even though she knew another baby never would.

The huge wolf would never tell his mate but he had prayed many times to Artemis to place an infant in her ruined womb and let it grow. He knew the goddess would never answer his prayer. Marie's womb had been run through when the German soldiers he'd found raping her had pinned her to the ground with a bayonet. But he couldn't stand the helpless feeling of not being able to give his mate the one thing she wanted or being able to take her pain away. He still hoped the damage had healed when she became a wolf and in time they would have a child of their own. After all what use was a wolf who couldn't protect and provide for his mate's needs?