A Mile From Gehanna's Gateway

“Owen…”

“What?”

“I need Owen! Ah!”

“Someone get the Master, quick! You are going to lose your child!” A long groan sailed out of Lyn’s mouth as she whammed her head against the pillows, the midwife swishing orders at the nurses, words that barely made sense to Lyn’s ears.

Her heaving breaths filled the room as the events of her surroundings whizz past her eyes in distortions; nurses on white dresses and gloves loitering the space, footsteps thumping against the floorboard and hot air upsetting despite the open windows.

Lyn shut her eyes and pressed the back of her head into the doubled pillows as tears made to her ears from the sides of her eyes. She felt the pain gorging below her belly, her chest tightening and her body feeling as if she was being consumed by fire.

She could recall, despite her pain, that there were a million times when she thought it easy to become a mother. She heard the tasty words of motherhood’s sweetness, and though she had a few times viewed that there was pain accompanying anything, she did not think of it to this degree.

Her breath hitched with loud gasps, and she gritted her teeth as she raised her head to look at the midwife, who in turn smiled as she spoke subtly, “You can do it, Milady, I know you can. You just need to take a deep breath—“

“I said to get Owen!” It would seem as if Lyn’s breathless rasp was the only thing needed for the house’s Lord to rush in closely behind two nurses. He leaned down beside Lyn’s bed before his hands cupped her jaw, his thumbs caressing her glistening cheeks as his indexes stroke her ears with fervor while wiping her tears.

Lyn looks between his intense, blue eyes, searching for solace; all she needed to push through; and he gave it to her, a warm smile pressing against his lips as his eyes tear up. He pressed a wet kiss on her cheek, and then traveled down to her plump lips, taking them in his greedy ones.

The sudden urge to devour her right there overwhelmed him, yet he knew that he should comport himself, for her sake. He only wanted to make her feel better, make her sense him beside her. After all, he put her through this pain, which he never wanted.

Lyn was a sweet six and ten, and he was not even far from that. It killed him when he thought that he should have been more careful and cautious, not totally ignoring control and taking her ravenously until it led to pregnancy, and then they were left with nothing to do but to birth the child.

He felt her grasp his wrist, almost digging in her sharp nails as she tipped her body up toward him. He knew she hungered for him, yet this was the least he could do. He would not go far.

“Owen…” her soft whisper croaked out when he pulled away. Then her other hand grabbed his jaw. “Do not go. I need you.” She breathed out her words just as sharp pain battered her stomach, her hands shaking despite her strong hold. Tears slid down her eyes again, and Owen had no choice than to kiss them away.

“I am always here, my heart, and I’m sorry for bringing you this… pain.” His voice is tender, enough to melt Lyn’s heart to nothing. She felt his love for her, and she did not need to search his eyes anymore.

All she needed to do was bring their blood into this world, the one person who would be theirs forever, who would unite them, make them a family—her first child. She would make Owen a father by becoming a mother herself, and then they will be a happy, satisfied family.

Owen’s left hand slid down her shoulders, then to her arm, taking the hand that seized his jaw. He placed his warm palm against hers and entwined their fingers while holding tight. Lyn took that as an inspiration, and she needed no one to tell her what to do. She held onto Owen’s hand, her upper body pushing from the bed before a scream rips through her lungs.

She sensed pressure building up below her belly, and somehow she felt relieved. Her scream ceased abruptly, though replaced with another after breathing for a moment. The next pause she gave came with a tremendous heartache, and then she had to lie back on the bed, her chest pounding as her eyes longed to close.

Owen could not hold his hunger any longer despite that he tried to hide it beneath a collected demeanor. He watched sweat roll down in rivulets on Lyn’s body, observed her supple breast heave on top her chest, and caught a sight of her mouth hanging open as she let breaths out of it. Then an acquainted force drove him down once again, and he captured Lyn’s lips in her stance.

His tongue pried into her mouth, ignorant of the people surrounding them, while Lyn felt butterflies boogying in her belly, as she pressed her chest against Owen’s hand, her skin turning rapidly sensitive to his touch. His other hand left her jaw and caressed her shoulder, rolling down to grasp her breast before a yelp rips into his mouth from hers.

She did not know how she did it; how she silently pushed out her child, but as she got lost in the intimate world, she heard the nurses squeaking even though she could barely make out what they yelled.

She had Owen’s lips to vent on when she felt a sharp pain hit against her vagina, a bit of emptiness and a mass of freedom overwhelming as she heard a baby’s cry.

She wanted to see her child, she needed to, but it seemed that Owen strongly protested against that. He did not let her go despite that she pressed her arm on his chest with the attempt to push him.

She was too weak to have an effect on him, and she could not feel her body anymore. All she took notice of was her ceasing breath, a number of panic screams, and Owen gently pulling away and grasping her weakening hand.

The latter met the scene of the baby sliding, out of the midwife’s hands, to the bed as the latter slumped to the floor, and the nurses who saw what occurred immediately withdrew. What happened to the midwife skipped his knowledge, but he knew more when another nurse touched the child’s little, bloody hand and fell, mysteriously.

He leaned out of the bed and strode toward its foot, his eyes looking into the child’s bright, hazel ones; a pair of lovely eyes similar to that of his wife. Except that to him, Lyn’s was preferable. “It is a girl,” he whispered to himself, while the nurses took it that he talked to them.

All four of them were withdrawn to themselves; no one dared move toward the child after seeing what just transpired, especially because the gloved hands of the deceased ones were gradually becoming nothing.

“Her blood is unclean, My Lord,” one of the nurses felt the need to speak when Owen reached to carry the child. Yet, he wrapped and took her in his arms, noting the striking resemblance she had with her mother.

He cast a long look at Lyn’s seemingly sleeping figure, and then a glance at the nurses. “Take care of my wife while I clean the child, will you?” The nurses nodded with a curtsey and Owen turned to the door, though he was not a step away from the threshold when he heard a gasp.

“Um… my Lord… I think...” The nurse’s voice trailed off as tears burned her eyes, Owen turning to find her standing beside the bed.

“You think what?”

“I think that… Milady breathes …no longer.”