Ritual Magic (36 page)

"Celeste, hold still, my dear." Tisha's
voice came across the curtain as I listened to her and Gabriel
exchange comments again. "We are trying to close the incision and
we need you to remain still."

"Oh, yeah, I forgot." I tried to clear my
mind as I stared at Leo from my position on the operating table.
"Right." This day didn't seem like it would
ever
end where I
got to hold my baby. I wanted to scream because of my frustration.
Get this over with already. I want to hold my baby!

Solomon chuckled down at me from his
position inches above my head. "Very convincing."

I narrowed my eyes on him as his ears lifted
again in response, stretching his mask. My mind could imagine he no
longer had that mask on and the butterflies in my stomach began to
swim around again.
Where the heck have you guys been?

"Almost there." Gabriel said reassuringly. I
was positive that he was getting an idea of what it was like to be
around me on a regular basis. I mean, he had been with us for the
duration of the pregnancy, so it wasn't a shock to me that he began
to pick up some survival skills from Solomon and Von. Valuable life
skills like
don't tick the hormonal queen off.

Suddenly an intense pain ran through my
stomach. "AHHHHHH! That HURTS!" I howled as the walls began to
quake and shudder. "I thought it wasn't supposed to hurt!"

Gabriel and Tisha began talking in quick
sentences, lowering their voices below my register of hearing,
Luckily for me, Solomon tilted his head to the side and lowered his
masked face to sit right next to my ear. His voice was a whisper
meant only for me. I tried to remain calm as he spoke.

"It appears that your body is reacting to
not having Cora in the womb any longer. Cora is two months
premature—highly unsafe for any baby, but it appears that, when she
was removed, she was the size of a full-term baby. Gabriel is
flabbergasted, but Tisha is not as concerned. Cora is a special
being—one of five different species, so it is expected that she
exhibits rare traits and abilities. The ability to grow at a faster
pace is just one of the many blessings for Cora. She will be able
to train faster and become adult much sooner." He paused and
listened intently as his eyes seemed to glaze over. "Hmmm, that's
interesting..."

"What?" I whispered as I turned my head
towards him, brushing his cheek with mine. My cheeks flushed as I
realized that we were touching, my body reacting unexpectedly to
the touch.

"What are you doing, Celeste?" Tisha's voice
sounded strained.

"Um, talking." I turned my head back,
removing the distraction of Solomon's cool skin. "Why?"

She was silent for a moment, whispered to
Gabriel and then said, "What were you doing just a second ago?"

"Ice skating. Why?"

"Well, just a second ago your magic was
emitting a blue light. Your whole womb area was consumed with it."
Tisha paused for effect. "I will ask it again. What were you doing
a second ago?"

My eyes cut to Solomon as his blue-green
eyes sparkled down at me and his ears were just about as high as
they could possibly get. I wished more than ever that I could see
his entire face hidden behind that annoying mask. For the first
thirty minutes it was sexy, but now it was just a distraction from
the true miracle that was Solomon.

"Umm, touching Solomon." My cheeks blazed so
fiercely that it seemed that my own surgical mask was going to
burst into flames.
How incredibly embarrassing.

"I see." Tisha's voice sounded amused as she
began to hum to herself. I listened closely and I unmistakingly
caught the tune
It Had to Be You.
I shook my head and smiled
to myself. She knew me all too well.

If my hands were free I would have been
fidgeting with something, anything. I needed something to distract
me from my incapacitated state, but turning to Solomon for help
with that would possibly be embarrassing, in more ways than one. I
closed my eyes as I concentrated on not freaking out.

Suddenly another fierce pain shot through my
womb again. "Ahhh, what the hell IS this? I'm not in labor
anymore!"

My body convulsed as the room quaked in
reaction. A moderate-sized crack began to meander its way along the
ceiling from the corner of the room all the way to me—directly in
the center of the room. It was as if I was its target and that
frightened me.

The room shuddered again with groans and
moans as my eyes scanned the walls to decide if we were going to be
buried alive. My heart pounded in my ears as I counted the number
of cracks that were immediately beginning to appear along the walls
and ceiling. Every crack on the ceiling seemed to be racing towards
the center of the room as if it held the brass ring.

Solomon straightened from his position
crouched next to me and laid his hand across my collar bone. He
turned around, assessing every minute detail, deciding what to do
next.

"We cannot stay here—it is becoming too
dangerous in this particular location." His voice had taken a
formidable, military tone. He was the queen's general now—-he was
taking charge.

Oh my gosh! SEXY! Shut up, hormones! Eat
some chocolate!

"Normally, I would agree with you."
Gabriel's voice clipped out from the other side of the curtain.
"But moving Celeste in this condition could be disastrous." The
ceiling plopped a piece of plaster onto the ground near where
Gabriel's voice had come from. "But...options will be
considered."

"Teleportation? Can Leo shadow us out of
here?" Tisha's voice offered. She sounded weak and worried—not my
favorite tone of voice from Tisha.

"No." Leo shook his head over the curtain,
leaning in towards Tisha's voice. "I have sealed the shadows so
that the shadow demons cannot travel through the castle. Everyone
here must travel by walking and use the doorways just like a normal
human. We would have been overrun by now if I hadn't taken matters
into my own hands by doing so."

My head spun. It was almost impossible to
process just what Leo was saying. He was strong enough to
close
the shadow portals? What kind of a demon
was
this guy? Was he the Hercules of demons? What he just claimed to do
seemed like a monumental task—it almost seemed epic. My eyes
surveyed Leo as he rocked Cora in his arms and I saw him lean down
to kiss her.

My heart fluttered as I realized just how
loved Cora and I were, and I was immediately more attracted to Leo
than I had ever been in the past. But of course, it was nothing
compared to how I felt about Solomon. I turned my eyes guiltily
toward Solomon to see, with a rush of relief, that he wasn't
looking at me at all—he hadn't caught the guilty expression that I
probably had in my eyes right at that moment.

Clear your mind, Celeste. Get with the
program.

We were finally settled back into my room,
but we now had a hospital baby bassinet sitting next to the left
side of the bed, away from the window. The idea of the baby
anywhere near where the shadow demon had appeared earlier was
fiercely disturbing to me, but that didn't matter because Von had
pushed her over to the other side without a word. In fact, he
didn't want to have the bassinet as close to the bed as I did
because he wanted her in the corner, as far away from all activity
as possible. It looked like his protectiveness was already kicking
in.
Good. He needs to show a little protectiveness for someone
in his life.
Ouch.

I had been moved in gently and propped up on
a mountain of pillows until everyone was sure that I
had
to
be comfortable. Being pampered was actually kind of a nice change.
Every man in the room jumped at any word that I would say. Well,
all except for Gabriel. Gabriel would just lift his head, chuckle,
and then go back to looking at charts and scribbling notes. He was
taking the doctor role seriously, but what could he have been
writing down that took so very long?

I narrowed my eyes on Gabriel as my mind
focused solely on him.
He is trying to avoid being a part of the
family. Hmph, well he is just going to have to make nice and eat
turkey with the rest of them. I want pouty little baby faces,
cooing noises and silly made-up baby languages. That is it—he's
going to pay in one cruel way or another.
I glared over at him
as he continued to scribble and chuckle underneath his breath.

The atmosphere was quiet and comforting as
Jack walked over to a wall panel and pushed it in gently. "Leo says
that this room is wired for stereo. Let's see how it sounds."

Gabriel's head popped up a he threw daggers
at Jack's back. "None of the crap that you played on the plane,
please. The baby deserves not to have her ears assaulted by that
garbage."

"You obviously wouldn't recognize good music
even if it walked up to you and gave you a huge hickey on your
forehead in the shape of Jimi Hendrix's guitar." Jack narrowed his
eyes as turned sharply to face the huge digital stereo system
hidden behind the panel, tapping his bottom lip with his pointer
finger. "Now, let's see...grunge, classic heavy metal, acid rock,
death metal..."

I giggled as I watched each musical style
mentioned make Gabriel cringe—it looked like he was being slapped
with each word Jack threw at him.

"Could we please have classical, Jack?
Mozart if you could swing it." I smiled over at Gabriel as he
looked up at me in relief and a tiny bit of shock. "What? I
love
Mozart. He was a rock star in his time." I winked at
him as a smile spread across his copper-toned face.
Wow! I
actually got to see some teeth on that handsome smile.
He
really should smile more—it added so much more to the boring
stick-in-the-mud that he usually was.

Leo walked over from the corner of the room
that was closest to the fireplace. He had been poking the logs in
the roaring fire, making sure that the room was the right
temperature since there were a lot more bodies filling the room
than usual. Straightening back up, he turned towards the bed and
swept across the room like he was the leading man in an old 50's
movie, coming to stand by the bed with a sexy, steamy-eyed grin on
his face.

"My dear, I would like to present you with a
gift. A small reminder of how grateful I am that you have allowed
me to be a part of your and Cora's life." He reached into the front
breast pocket of his black-as-night suit and pulled out a four inch
by four inch black leather box.

I was instantly nervous by the sight of the
box. My heart began to pound and slowed down slightly when I
realized that the box was much too large to house a ring.
Thank
goodness! Miracles do happen!

Reactively scanning the room for signs of
Camela, my eyes skipped across every dark surface just to be safe.
That demon woman would probably scratch my eyes out just for
looking
at the box, much less accepting the gift inside. I
didn't need that kind of drama at the moment.

My eyes finally flicked up to Leo's as he
grinned down at me seductively. We both remained there for a moment
before he winked and led my eyes toward the box held comfortably in
his hands. My heart sped up at just the sight of it. It was beyond
frightening to consider what sat inside. It could be almost
anything.

Leo paused for a moment and then chuckled
lightly underneath his breath, making sure that I knew he
could
hear my heart fluttering underneath my shirt.
How
embarrassing!
He was enjoying the experience way too much.
Reaching down with his right hand, he lifted the lid open on the
box while his left hand held it out toward me as if he was
revealing a gold medal.
And the award for the most messed up
life in an action-thriller goes to....

I couldn't help but be enthralled as Leo
opened the creaking box to reveal a monster-sized blood-red ruby
pendant on a thick braided yellow gold chain. It seemed a bit over
the top for anything that I would wear, but it would have gone
great with the red slinky number that Leo had me dressed in the
first time that I had '
visited'
the demon castle. The ruby
was an oval the height of a golf ball and half the width. My heart
stopped as I noticed that there were oval diamonds surrounding the
ruby, giving it an even more striking appearance.

Leo beamed down at me as he began to pull
the necklace from the box, setting the box on the table beside the
bed. "Pigeon's blood."

"What?" I was probably turning a couple
shades of green as I looked down at the enormous ruby.
Could he
have had a bunch of pigeons killed to
make
that bloody
thing? Soo...going...to...hurl...if he did.

Leo smiled down at me. "That is the name of
the color of ruby—it is considered absolutely the highest quality
with this clarity and cut." Wow, the demon was teaching me
something about jewelry, but a man that knew more about jewelry
than I did was sort of
not
a turn-on.

"Okaaaay." I smiled up at him, hoping that
he caught on that I did not like being schooled by a demon about
jewelry. I was going to accept his gift graciously, though, and act
like I appreciated that monstrosity.

He nodded down at me as he held the clasps
of the necklace. "May I?" He leaned forward without waiting for a
response and laid the heavy ruby on my chest, pulling the chain
around for him to clasp at the back. I had to lean forward to give
him room to do it, but it was a strangely familiar feeling to have
someone place jewelry on me.
Maybe, just maybe, men put jewelry
on me all the time and I just don't remember. Am I
unconscious?

I looked up at Leo as he pulled away to
admire his jewel on my chest, the ruby dangling between the v-shape
of my pajama shirt.