The Gift She Gives Ch. 14

It was July now, and Vesper sat outside on a particularly warm and humid afternoon. She'd begun to spend a great deal of her time away from the spa, and would often leave after having breakfast in bed, well, two side by side beds, with Mr. Hughes, and then not go back to the house until almost dusk. Her meals would either be packed for her in the morning if she requested them, or one of the kitchen staff would bring something out to her. They could almost always find her in the same place, perched high in a tree near the area that was already being marked off and leveled for her new home.

She'd taken to practicing her flying every morning now, and was getting quite good at it. Mr. Hughes had come out a time or two to give her pointers, but he was working hard to get things with the spa transitioned more into Faeron's control. The wood elf had been somewhat amazed at the trust of his employer to run more of the business, but he had earned it, and was doing well so far in taking more work onto his shoulders. Of course, he still wasn't able to do everything. Shi was expecting to go into labor any day now, the obstetrician that had been watching her progress was familiar with nonhumans and stated that an elf's gestational period was shorter, so she shouldn't expect to make it to nine months. Apparently, the baby had already dropped and she was 70% effaced and almost 2 cm dilated. Her time was coming and the spa employees were abuzz with chatter about it. Babies were rare at a sex spa, she figured. The last one that had been born here was Domino's daughter, Faith. Faith had been born a vampire, so the human staff had been a little hesitant to hold her at first.

Mr. Hughes was standing by Ms. Carson on a patch of dirt below her and they were going over the plans on where to put the house, which direction to build, and who knew what else, Vesper knew as she looked down at them from her perch and then out across the meadow. It was a beautiful sight, the meadow and the rocky outbreaks beyond that led up to a mountain range. She knew the satyrs lived there. She couldn't see them from her perch, but she knew they were there. Sometimes she got a very faint echo of what sounded like thunderclaps, but the sky would be completely clear and there was a rhythmic sound to it.

Cenric had visited her, excited to hear that she was able to leave the house. At his suggestion that he and the other satyrs show her their home, Mr. Hughes had stepped in, however, and forbidden her from going up the mountain. She knew it was because of what the gray and black satyr had done with her, making her orgasm, and it frustrated her that the angel was still not trusting her. Vesper wasn't exactly sure how she would ever earn that trust back if he didn't try to let her. But they had had a bit of an argument afterwards about whether or not he had the right to control her, which he didn't. So the next day, with Mr. Hughes begrudgingly bringing up the rear, Cenric and Dwight had walked with her out to the mountain and taken her up to see their homes and meet the fifteen, that number had astounded her, fifteen females of varying ages that lived with the six male satyrs on the mountain. There had also been seven children.

Vesper had commented on the many females and they had told her that it was very common for satyr flocks to be female heavy, and that their women were actually in charge of themselves and the men basically an off shoot from their female flock. Payton had laughingly said that they were only paid attention to during the season, that the female satyrs had no use for males unless they wanted to breed. She'd asked them what happens when the flock gets really big. They'd frowned at her and told her that they hadn't had that problem in hundreds of years. In fact, they were now the only satyrs known to exist outside of a flock or two in the Alps.

Nonhumans are a dying breed, she had been told, and that thought had made her sad. The nonhumans that she had met were mostly very amazing beings with a lot of love in their heart. But they lived among and within a very human world with lots of dangers to them. She could understand how dangerous it was for them to be found out. They would not be accepted and treated with even a shred of decency. It was why her mother had feared for her all of her life.

Vesper was watching Mr. Hughes as he stood beside the architect and pointed at something or other in the area where the land had already been leveled to accommodate her home. She knew this whole task was difficult for him, building her a home that she'd longed for all of her life. Knowing that doing so may not even be enough, that maybe they would never be able to get past all of the things that had happened to them. Things had improved, but it was slow going, and the things that they had put each other through were rather horrific. She knew that whenever they spoke, their was a lot of worry on both sides that something would just come along and muck it all up again.

A scream came from the direction of the spa and Vesper tensed as she looked down at Mr. Hughes, who had pulled out his cell phone and was flipping through it. He must have been sent a text, because he didn't type anything in return, but he did speak shortly to Ms. Carson before tilting his head up to look at her.

Vesper frowned, already half out of her perch and flapping her wings carefully to allow a graceful decent to the ground when he started walking towards the mansion through the woods. When she landed, it didn't take long to catch up with him, as he hadn't exactly began to run through the trees. She was close behind him by the time they reached the middle of the woods.

"What is happening?" She asked, hoping that he would tell her it wasn't Shi. She couldn't handle it if the woman she was friends with was in pain, and whoever had screamed was in a great deal of it.

"One of Faeron's sisters is here." Mr. Hughes said over his shoulder as he continued walking.

"Is she hurt? Is she the one screaming like that?"

"Yes."

Vesper waited for him to say more, but he didn't, so she kept walking towards the mansion with him. When they cleared it and stepped into the well manicured back lawn, she couldn't see anyone, and figured that the sister had been moved into the spa somewhere, the screams had finally stopped. They walked through the back door and then through the dining room into the foyer. Vesper was about to continue down the opposite hall with Mr. Hughes when she looked to her right and saw a tiny little girl, perhaps around three years old, standing near one of the large potted plants that lined the room. Her features were almost obscured by the plant, but Vesper immediately changed course and slowly walked over to her.

The child was similar to Faeron in appearance, long, dark brown hair, but hers had a few light strands in it, strands that shimmered like gold. Her ears were overly large, something between Faeron's and Vesper's pointed ears. Her eyes were definitely elf, big and round and currently wide open in fear as she stood, one hand clutching an oversized stuffed doll, and the other holding tightly to the leaves of a palm tree. She was a beautiful child and Vesper crouched down in front of her and put her hands delicately on her own knees. This child was terrified and Vesper wanted to help her.

She knew that Mr. Hughes must have seen her stop walking, he was standing still near the entryway of the hall, watching the interaction from a distance.

"My name is Vesper. What's your name?" She smiled softly as she watched the little girl let go of the leaf and wipe her hair out of her face. There was a mark in the center of her forehead, like a birthmark but so perfect that it looked almost like a tattoo. It was gold and silver and sparkled just like her hair.

"Elarinya." The little voice was sad, shaky, and those big eyes were very focused on the strange white haired woman speaking to her.

"Elarinya. That is a beautiful name. Did you come here with your mother?" Vesper spoke very softly, and nodded as the little girl did.

"Nana is sick."

Vesper frowned, "Then it's a good thing that I'm good at healing people. I will take a look at her for you, is that all right?"

The little girl's eyes seemed to widen even more and she nodded a little more quickly this time. "No."

Vesper frowned, looking over at Mr. Hughes, no?

"In her language, 'no' means 'yes' and 'û' means 'no.'" Mr. Hughes nodded gently, immediately understanding her confusion.

"Ok then, but first, I want you to come with me to the kitchen, you look like you could eat. How about I make you some toast?" Vesper spoke to the little girl again and held out her hand, palm up to the small child.

"No." The little girl only hesitated a little bit before raising her hand up and taking a hold of Vesper's as she stood back upright, her eyes still holding the little girl's.

"Mr. Hughes, where are they located? I do not want to keep you." Vesper asked as they slowly walked towards him.

"In the basement, in the room I showed you at the end of the hall to the right. On the opposite end of the suite that belongs to Domino and Alexandru. Do not be long, Vesper." He cautioned her, looking down at the child that he'd never heard Faeron talk about before, but not surprised at the lack of information about her. Very little was known about Ennostiel, his youngest sister. She was not raised among her mother's people.

"I will be there shortly. Elarinya, this is Mr. Hughes, he owns this great big home. We are very happy to have you here." She smiled sweetly down at the girl who had moved in to cling tightly to her side, almost disappearing between the side of her flouncy skirt and her big wings, the fear in the child was palpable and it tore at Vesper's heart as she looked up at Mr. Hughes.

"Elarinya. You are very welcome here, little one." Mr. Hughes spoke gently, staring at where the little girl stood against her.

Vesper nodded and waved the angel off and then looked down at the little girl with a smile, "Have you ever had toast before? And a cup of tea?"

Elarinya shook her head, her eyes focused on the hallway that the angel had walked down.

"Then you're in for a treat, because I'm English and we make the best tea and toast." Vesper grinned at the girl.

She started walking and stopped when she realized that the girl had hesitated. Looking at her, she could see the little girl shivering a little as she looked into the hallway that Vesper had tried to walk towards, the one where Mr. Hughes had disappeared.

"Oh, sweetheart, I am talking you to the kitchen. It's a big happy, sunny place with lots of windows and food. It's nothing for you to be afraid of. Would you like me to carry you?" Vesper squatted in front of the child and was rewarded with scrawny little arms wrapping around her neck and she wrapped her own arms around the child as she stood back up, knowing the girl's little legs immediately went around her waist.

They walked together down to the kitchen, and just as Vesper guessed, as soon as they were out of the semi-darkened hallway and into the big bustling kitchen, the little girl was okay again, looking around her at all of the people moving around the large space. The scents in the air were delicious, and when they walked inside, Vesper was greeted quickly and one of the female chefs came over with a piece of an apple that she quickly fed to the girl. Elarinya was nervous at first and clung to Vesper, but was soon sitting on top of one of the table tops and eating a variety of fruits and nuts that were given to her by the staff who came to meet her. Vesper watched her closely as she prepared what she had promised before leaving the little girl in their care, eating her toast slowly and being taught how to sip her tea.

Vesper had told her when she was leaving and the little girl had seemed all right with it. She knew where Vesper was headed, and it was more than obvious that the little child would not want to go anywhere deeper into the mansion. The walk to the basement was quick, and she made it quicker by walking with hurried steps. The door at the end of the hall was closed, and there were three elves that she had never seen standing outside of it. They saw her and frowned, but let her open the door and enter without trying to stop her. When Vesper walked into the dimply lit room, she saw Shi standing near a nightstand on the closer edge of a double bed, one hand on her back and the other over her mouth.

Faeron, the obstetrician, and Mr. Hughes were all standing or kneeling around the bed and its occupant, looks of immense concern on their face as they looked over at her as she entered. But Vesper didn't focus on any of them, she could only see the small woman on the bed, writhing in pain, and the horn that had torn a hole through her abdomen from the inside and was sticking out of her.

Vesper's voice caught in her throat and she stared wide eyed at the scene before her. Why would there be a horn sticking OUT of her body?

~*~*~*~

"This isn't going to work." Faeron sighed from his position beside the bed, "she's already torn open. She's bleeding the death."

"I can fix that, Faeron. But what is this? What type of-what is she pregnant with?" Vesper said a short time after she'd arrived. She had moved over to the other side of the bed where there was an empty space and was looking down at the sweating, tense woman who had her eyes closed as she struggled through what was happening to her. She was an elf, that was at least clear to her.

"Minotaur." Faeron hissed under his breath and Vesper gasped as she looked up at him.

"The nonhuman with the bull's head, correct?" She shook her head, in disbelief that the beautiful young elf before her could have been with such a ghastly beast. Mr. Hughes had told her about them, they were dangerous and cruel.

Faeron nodded, "Ennostiel has not had an easy life, Vesper. I don't know if you can help her, she's not...normal."

"I have wings, Mr. Hughes used to, and you have the ability to read human minds. Of everyone in this room, Shi is the only one of us who can claim to be normal." Vesper lectured him, she could feel the pain from the girl as another contraction hit and the horn shifted slightly.

"Vesper, we have to do something now." Mr. Hughes said as he watched the obstetrician use the ultrasound to get a view of what was going in inside.

"There are two horns," Dr. Trainor looked at Vesper, "One has punctured through to her abdomen and the other, I believe, has punctured the rear of the uterus and is imbedded near her spine, she may have had a rupture in her renal artery. There isn't much time."

"The baby?" Vesper asked as she stepped a little closer.

The doctor shook his head, "The child does not have a beating heart."

Vesper frowned, but when she looked at Faeron and Mr. Hughes they looked relieved. She furrowed a brow, wondering why they would look that way at the death of a child, but she really had no time to waste on those thoughts right now.

"Can you perform a cesarean, Dr. Trainor? I can work to keep her alive as you remove the baby." Vesper asked the doctor instead.

"Of course, but-." Dr. Trainor looked confused, he had apparently not been told of her powers.

"I can heal her, Dr. Trainor. But with the baby still in place, it will be pointless to do so."

He nodded and immediately went back to prepping the area around the exposed horn to be sliced into. Vesper looked up at Faeron.

"You need to take Shi and leave." She said very sternly.

"I can't leave Ennostiel."

"Yes, you can. Look at your wife. She needs you now, I've got Ennostiel. Go and take Shi away from here." Vesper ordered, her voice unwavering in its strength as she barked at the tall elf that was now glaring at her.

"Vesper-."

"Faeron, go." Mr. Hughes said loudly.

The elf finally sighed and turned to his wife. They had only just shut the door behind them when the doctor made the first incision and widened the hole that the horn had made in her body. Within sixty seconds, he was pulling out the partially formed fetus of a minotaur-elf child and placing it in a clean towel on a table near the foot of the bed.

"She would have been in pain throughout the pregnancy. It wasn't ready to be born by several months. There's no chance she would have been able to deliver a live child of this...species." Dr. Trainor said sadly as he returned to the opening and carefully began to take care of the afterbirth.

"I can't imagine so, with those horns. I would have thought they would have grown in after birth, as the child aged." Vesper wondered aloud as she sat on the bed beside the girl who was breathing shallowly, there was a lot of blood loss, but she needed the doctor to be finished before she touched her.

"I have never treated a minotaur pregnancy in a minotaur female before. But I do know that when they breed other nonhumans, the women do not usually survive. I've never heard of them impregnating an elf, though. They usually take werewolf females to mate, they have a stronger uterus that isn't pierced so easily by the horns."

"'Take' them to mate, Dr. Trainor?" Vesper asked with a frown, she was worried as to what he was implying.

"I do not believe that minotaurs are friendly creatures, and no woman would purposely sentence herself to death by mating with one." She knew what he was telling her and it made her look down at the girl in sadness.

As soon as the placenta and cord were out, Vesper reached out and touched the elf, not caring that she was nonhuman, and also not caring about the fuzzy electricity filled feeling that came over her when she reached for the girl. She wrapped her hand around Ennostiel's forearm and felt that sizzle and pop, and then Vesper watched as the vessels in the uterus slowly stopped leaking blood, and the walls quickly repaired themselves. It only took a few minutes for the abdomen to close, not even leaving a scar on the girl's otherwise perfectly smooth pale flesh.

The doctor watched in fascination as well, and looked up at her afterwards with a smile. "I could have used you last December when Domino was in this situation."

"I've heard that more than once since I came here." Vesper nodded at him, smiling as she saw the look of admiration in his eyes.

Vesper began to feel a little strange and she moved a hand to her stomach, feeling a little sick inside suddenly. Mr. Hughes stood straight on the other side of the bed and frowned, knowing she was having a reaction to having touched the elf.

She felt tears fill her eyes and went to wipe them and realized that her eyes had gotten larger, she could feel the muscles redefining and her vision changed somewhat, becoming more hazy and clear at the same time. Vesper suddenly started hearing voices around her, she could hear the doctor's thoughts as he collected his instruments, he was considering asking her if she was interested in helping him with his practice, thinking of all she could do for the pregnant women in his work. How she could save them or their children.

She could hear more than just him, however, which was weird because he was the only human in the room. She could hear Mr. Hughes, he was worried about what was happening to her now, terrified that she would want to suddenly go have sex with someone. She smirked, of course that would be his fear. Vesper could hear the three elves outside and she could see the dreams of the vampires that were sleeping in the rooms nearby. Vesper found that if she concentrated, she could feel what every being in the spa was thinking of right at this moment, and it was overwhelming, almost nauseating. Gasping, she sank down onto the floor.

"Vesper." His voice sounded overly loud and echoed through her head and Vesper put her hands over her ears.