Chapter 132: Episode 131: I’m tougher than I look.
Drax and Knox rush for her, but she raises a hand. "Don’t worry, I am fine."
She squeezed her pink eyes shut. The sudden cramp wrapped around her lower stomach like a tight, hot band of iron. It squeezed her muscles with a fierce intensity. She forced herself to stay perfectly still on the mattress. She breathed steadily, in and out, drawing the cool room air deep into her lungs.
She counted her breaths silently, focusing solely on the numbers to calm herself and lessen the pain. One. Two. Three. Four. The tight band slowly began to loosen its grip. She let out a long, shaky sigh before relaxing back on the bed, sinking deeply into the soft gray pillows.
Drax stood near the edge of the mattress. His pale face looked very tense, the sharp lines of his jaw pulled tight. He took a slow step back and pointed toward the wooden table across the room.
"I’m going to get water," Drax said. His voice sounded rough, scraped bare by his sudden fear. He turned and walked quickly across the stone floor.
Axel watched the whole scene unfold from his spot on the woven rug. The white wolf knew a tense room when he saw one. He knew Rue needed quiet to handle her body’s stressful false alarms. He turned his attention to the two toddlers playing with the carved wooden blocks near the hearth.
"Alright, you two tiny menaces," Axel announced softly, clapping his broad hands together. "It’s time to leave the room."
Theron hissed softly. The silver snake boy shook his head, not wanting to leave his mother’s side when she looked hurt. Mochi just blinked her bright blue eyes, her fuzzy grey ears twitching in confusion.
Axel didn’t give them a choice to argue. He knelt and scooped the snake boy up in his left arm. He grabbed the little leopard girl securely with his right arm.
"We’re going to build a giant fort in the nursery," Axel promised them in a low, excited whisper. "We will use the thick blankets and the tall chairs. You both have to guard the fort from imaginary swamp monsters. It’s a very important job."
Theron liked the idea of guarding a fort. He stopped hissing and nodded seriously. Mochi let out a happy purr, eager to play a new game. Axel carried the wiggling children straight out the door. He shut the thick bedroom door softly behind him, trapping the loud toddler noises out in the long hallway.
The stone bedroom fell into a deep, tense silence.
It’s a false alarm, just a severe cramp. Her body was simply practising for the main event of childbirth. But it hurt deeply. It sent a sharp, stinging ache radiating through her lower back and down her pale thighs. Rue breathed through the pain for a very long time.
She lay there and remembered the pain from her past life. She remembered the cold hospital room in New York. The pain of her sickness had been dying. It had been cold, lonely, and hopeless. This cramp was different.
Even though it hurt, it was a living pain. It meant life was growing inside her. It meant she was bringing a new soul into the world. That realisation made the sharp ache much easier to bear. She held onto that thought tightly as the muscle spasms rolled through her stomach.
Knox couldn’t sit still at all. The Southern panther paced back and forth at the foot of the bed. His dark boots clicked sharply against the cold floorboards. He ran his scarred hands through his dark hair over and over again, messing up the thick strands.
"Are you sure we shouldn’t get a healer?" Knox asked, his voice tight with raw panic. "I can run to the swamp border right now. I will drag the best healer back here by their collar. I don’t care how much it costs."
"She doesn’t need a healer, Knox," Caius answered smoothly. "She just needs peace."
The Serpent Alpha sat gracefully on the very edge of the mattress. He didn’t pace the floor. He didn’t shout or threaten to kidnap medical staff. He placed his cool, pale hands gently over Rue’s swollen ankles.
Caius pushed a slow, steady stream of his chil into her skin. The cooling frost sank deep into her sore joints, chasing away the burning pregnancy fever that always accompanied her cramps.
"Thank you, Caius," Rue whispered, her breath hitching slightly.
"Just focus on my hands, sweetie," Caius murmured. His glowing golden eyes locked onto her tired face, offering a silent pillar of support.
Drax returned from the wooden table. The Dragon King held a clay cup filled with fresh, cool water. He sat on the other side of the bed, right next to Rue’s shoulder. He slid his thick, muscular arm behind her back and lifted her just a few inches from the pillows. He held the rim of the cup to her lips.
"Drink slowly," Drax instructed softly.
Rue took a small sip. The cold water felt amazing on her dry throat. She swallowed and leaned her head against Drax’s broad chest. She could hear his heart pounding violently against his ribs. It beat so fast it sounded like a loud war drum echoing in a deep cavern.
Drax, Knox and Caius pamper her without holding anything back. Knox stopped his frantic pacing long enough to gather three extra pillows from the wooden armchair. He stuffed them carefully under her knees to elevate her legs and ease the sharp strain on her lower back.
He also fetched a cool, damp cloth and pressed it gently against her flushed forehead. Caius kept gently rubbing his thumbs over her calves to stop the muscles from tightening further. Drax stayed right behind her, offering his radiant body heat and strength as a solid anchor she could lean on.
You guys are treating me like I’m made of thin, fragile glass, Rue thought, closing her eyes for a moment.
Caius heard the thought broadcast clearly through their invisible mate bond. His cold fingers twitched slightly against her skin. Knox stopped fixing the blanket over her toes, his pointed ears picking up the slight change in her steady breathing. Drax just tightened his protective hold on her shoulder very gently. None of them said a single word about hearing her inner voice, but their bodies reacted instantly to her silent words.
Rue opened her pink eyes and watched them. Rue could feel their panic. It filled the large room, hanging in the air thick and suffocating like smoke from a wild fire. They were four of the most dangerous men in this al world. They fought in bloody territorial wars. They commanded armies of feral shifters. Yet, a single false alarm from her fragile body turned them into terrified, worried messes.
She had no choice but to tease them. She wanted to chase the heavy fear out of their eyes and bring some light back into the room.
"You guys look ridiculous," Rue forced a small, tired smile. She let out a breathy chuckle that turned into a tiny wince halfway through. "The big, scary warlords look like they just saw a terrible ghost. It’s just a cramp. Women deal with this all the time."
"You aren’t just any woman," Knox grumbled defensively. He walked over and knelt directly beside the bed. He rested his chin on the mattress, looking up at her with wide, golden eyes. "You’re carrying a very stubborn panther cub. And your body is soft. You aren’t built for this kind of intense strain. We have every right to worry about you."
"I’m tougher than I look," Rue argued gently, reaching out to pat Knox’s dark hair.
"We know you’re tough," Caius agreed, his thumb continuing its slow, rhythmic massage on her ankle. "But that doesn’t mean we enjoy watching you hurt. If I could take the pain from you, I would do it in a heartbeat. I would take it all."
Drax set the empty clay cup on the nightstand. He shifted his weight on the mattress, moving around so he could look directly at her face. He didn’t smile at her joke. He didn’t laugh at her gentle teasing. He looked at her with an intensity that made her breath catch right in her throat. His dark eyes searched her pale features, looking for any sign that she was hiding something worse from them.
The cramp flared up a third time.
It hit harder than the last two combined. A sharp, burning spike of pure agony shot straight through her pelvis and wrapped around her spine. It felt like her bones were trying to pull apart from the inside out.
Rue bit the inside of her cheek hard. She tasted a faint drop of copper blood on her tongue. She refused to scream. She refused to let them see how much it truly hurt right now. If she screamed, Knox would probably tear the bedroom door off its hinges and run all the way to the swamp to find that healer. Drax would panic and burn the forest down. Caius would freeze the house solid in his distress. They were already on edge, and she didn’t want to push them over the line into feral chaos.
She forced her face to stay relaxed. She kept her breathing slow and measured, even though her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. She hid the pain deep down, locking it away behind a very convincing, fake smile.
Drax leaned in closer. He reached out and brushed a silver curl away from her sweaty cheek. His touch was so gentle it made her want to cry.
Drax asked her seriously if she was fine.
Rue lies, her knuckles turning white, "Of course I am fine, silly."