Hooked [Complete]

70. Awaiting the Godling

Winter Solstice, Nine Years Into the New Wheel

"Where in damnation is he?" Lana hissed as she supported her massive belly with both hands and struggled to walk the length of the lodge deck. Maeve and Dru trailed dutifully alongside. Cernunnos had always said growing a godling was more difficult than a human pregnancy and he told truth. The last month especially, Lana was losing strength rapidly as the godling drew from her. They never left her alone, now.

"He'll be here," Dru soothed.

"Huh." Maeve said from the other side. "Sean's like his daddy. Conor was playing a gig in Chicago and missed you and Sean being born."

"Maeve, you know damn well Sean is going to make this birth. His flight landed an hour ago. He'll be here before breakfast. There's more than fifteen hours before the Solstice."

"Oh Lord, fifteen more hours of this," Lana leaned heavily onto the rail and surveyed her kingdom. What once was Hearne's Camp was now Hearne Academy for Alternative Education, a residence school for teen witches, pagans, and Roman godspawn troublemakers. Much of the base camp had been cleared. Now school buildings and residence halls sprawled in front of the lodge.

This was winter break, however, and all of the students were away. The campus was currently littered with the Mystic Mountain Huntsmen, who were ensconced under canopies and around grills and propane heaters and TV's hooked to satellite dishes, cooking breakfast for the crowd of witches and Hearne Academy faculty that remained for Solstice and the Joyous Event.

"Why in the hell do y'all think the birth of my child is a tailgate?" Lana yelled down to Martin Buchanan, Head Huntsmen. He just winked at her and raised his coffee cup, fully aware that Lana was now a goddess and could smite him as easily as spit at him.

"Because a new godling is a gift to us all, and a cause for celebration," Finn's calm but resonant voice preceded him from the lodge. He came to stand behind her, rubbing her back and kissing her neck. "You are so beautiful today. I can't wait to see the look on your face when you hold our baby for the first time," he said the tender words easily, completely unembarrassed by Maeve and Dru's presence.

Lana snorted. "There's a fucking lot that has to happen before that, James. Hours of agonizing pain, uncontrollable screams, flesh-ripping. Possibly cat claws and lamprey-like teeth tearing their way out of me. "

He reached around her and put his hands low beneath her belly, and Lana's strain visibly relaxed at his godly touch. "Now Lana, you know this godling is perfectly human in form. You're not birthing a Sir Kittyhart."

"Are you sure?" Lana asked anxiously.

"I'm sure," Maeve replied heavily for the hundredth time, and tapped her third eye. Dru marveled at Lana's weird, unreasonable anxiety that her child would take after the monster that had fueled Finn's godpower. Dru figured she had watched Alien too many times as a kid.

"The birth is going to be beautiful, Darlin'. There is no one as strong as you. And your mother, and Dru and the coven will attend you. And I'll be right by your side. We will all ease you, and keep you perfectly safe."

Dru rolled her eyes. Maeve shook her head and muttered something about, "Sappy newbie gods that hadn't ever seen childbirth but thought they knew everything about creation," to which Dru muttered a sassy, "Mmmmm-hhhmmm."

Finn ignored the two hardened witches who might have him on life experience but couldn't compete with his Divine Intuition. The birth was going to go well, and Lana was on the cusp of transformation. In the moment she held their baby, she was going to blossom into a goddess both more fierce and tender than even the Beloved Goddess had been. He smiled at the memory of Cerridwen, recalling the day that she had told him Lana deserved to know she loved a brave man.