Jason’s knees gave out then, and he found himself kneeling beside Vale as Urho passed off their blood-covered, plump, and screaming child to them. Vale took the sweet thing into his arms.
“Look, baby alpha. Look what we made.”
Jason burst into tears. Vale kissed Jason’s head, and then the baby’s, and then Jason scented them both. All three of them huddled close, damp, slick, and full of emotions too raw to bear.
“I should feed him,” Vale whispered. He tugged open his robe, placing the babe to his chest and cooing as the infant latched on and began to suckle.
Jason wiped tears from his eyes and kissed Vale’s forehead. The moment was intimate and sweet, but Urho apparently had some work to do on Vale’s insides. While they stared at their son, Urho convinced Vale to get into the bed with Jason and their baby, while Urho set about the work of making sure Vale would heal inside well.
Jason and Vale snuggled their child and whispered names back and forth as Urho worked silently. But between the babe’s screams, Vale’s whimpers when Urho’s instruments pinched, and the sounds coming from down the hall in Caleb’s room, there was still plenty of shouting going on.
With tears leakingdown his face, Jason held Vale’s still body in the bed, the breeze from the still-open window pouring over them. In the crevice between their forms, an equally still, tiny body rested, perfect and utterly beautiful.
With Vale’s nose and dark hair. All ten fingers and toes.
And the sweetest breath that pulled in and out in little huffs that made Jason’s heart ache.
Vale’s steady breath was a delight as well. There had been a terrifying moment when blood seeped from Vale’s body in copious amounts, and Jason had thought he might lose him. But Urho had gone in and sewn him up neatly, promising that Vale would live, that the babe would live.
And then Vale had declared them a family.
A family.
Jason hadn’t been able to stop crying since then. All the tension and fear he’d held back through the majority of the pregnancy and then the labor let loose in a storm of emotion. Vale didn’t blame him for it, because he was crying, too. And Urho couldn’t tease or judge, because he’d gone on his way to help Xan with Caleb’s heat. So, it was just him, his giant feelings, and his beautiful new family now.
He’d never thought they’d have this. Every moment since the birth was so perfect, beautiful, and raw. It almost hurt to hold so much joy in his arms.
Jason knew he should call his parents and tell them all had come to pass and that their son was perfect, and that Vale was strong. But he couldn’t bring himself to get out of bed. He couldn’t bring himself to stop staring at the miracles in his arms. His livingÉrosgápe. His beautiful son.
“What will we call him?” Vale’s green eyes fluttered open, and his tired voice asked the question as if they’d been talking for the last few minutes. Another question among many.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Jason said, kissing Vale’s eyelids, his nose, his bearded cheek, his mouth.
“Surely you’ve had something in mind?” Vale kissed Jason back. The tiny baby shifted between them, making soft suckling sounds in his sleep.
In all the months, Jason had refused to entertain the discussion of names, superstitious that if they gave the child a name too soon, they’d lose him. Or each other. “What about naming him for one of your parents?”
“Rupert and Dideon?” Vale shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to saddle him with either of those names.”
“Dido for short?” Jason offered.
“No. I was hoping for something more…”
“Poetic?”
Vale smiled. “Well, if I can’t write poetry, at least I can give birth to it.”
The baby twitched in his sleep, and Vale touched his tiny nose. Jason took a deep breath and ventured, “Virona?”
“Ah.” Vale seemed to consider it. “After the place he was born.”
“His eyes are sea-green.”
“They’re likely to change.”
“No. They’ll be like yours.”
“You insist on it?”
