"Are you okay?" Eric asked me.

My husband was a bold man to be asking me that. He was either bold or stupid or out of his fucking mind. I wasn't sure which. I was in the throes of childbirth. Of all the wisdom that telepathy had offered me, this wasn't one of them. The pain of it was in a whole other stratosphere. Thanks to all the vampire blood in my system I was burning through pain drugs too quickly for it to offer any relief. It felt like I was being stabbed in the back and the stomach at the same time. It had only been six hours, and I knew that it wasn't going to get any less painful.

"If you ask me that again, I might kill you."

"Do you hate me yet?"

"I hate penises," I panted.

He laughed. "That's fair."

I rolled my eyes and annoyed as I was with him at the moment, I held onto his hand tighter. That bit of physical contact made everything feel not only bearable but possible. I felt like I could do this, despite the pain. The brief pause from the contractions allowed a moment that was pain free and I gazed up at my husband.

Everything that I felt since the moment I laid eyes on him was still true. He was still the most beautiful thing that I'd ever seen. His eyes were still were so enigmatic and his smile still made my heart flutter, even now and I didn't think it would ever stop.

"What?" Eric asked.

"You." I replied kissing the back of his hand. "I love you. I love you so much right now."

"Despite my penis?" he asked.

I laughed as a contraction ripped through my body. It was so painful that I felt like I could barely breathe but I told him the truth.

"Yeah, despite your penis…your good looks and anything else, I love you always."

It took ten more hours but I gave birth to a baby boy. His brother was born three minutes later. I watched as they took their first breath. The amount of love I felt was literally beyond words. The look on Eric's face was awed. He stared at this with tears in his eyes and his mouth hanging open.

Amelia tended to me. Octavia tended to my babies. I would never question her but it didn't seem like much of an exam to me. All she did was stare into their eyes and turn this way and that as if they were fruit. Then with a smile she handed them to Eric.

At first he seemed apprehensive to even want to touch them but she placed them in his arms, he received them expertly in his arms. I couldn't help but smile. My life was perfect and yet nothing like I ever envisioned. It had nothing to do with the fact that I was married to a vampire and our children were vampires. It was the love that I felt and the wholeness that I never knew was possible for a telepath like me.