Free Of Consuming Fire by Micah Persell Page B

ear, obviously trying to calm her, but the heart monitor was still beeping extraordinarily fast.
    Grace glared at the angel. “Well done, you complete ass,” she hissed. Profanity was usually beneath her — she had so many more refined ways of using words to cut someone to the quick — but nothing seemed to embody this situation better.
    The angel’s eyes flared as though he was surprised at Grace’s rancor, and then he looked at the frantic couple across the room and heaved a resigned sigh.
    With slow steps, the angel made his way toward Abilene. “Human, you must calm. You are not in danger, and your anxiousness is bad for the child.”
    Abilene’s eyes snapped in his direction, a very clear expression of
you’ve gotta be kidding me
on her face. “Are you completely deranged?” she asked him in a loud voice. “Who says that to a pregnant woman? Who?”
    “Baby, please — ” Eli tried to pull her close to him, to wrap his arms around her.
    “No! This is bullshit! He’s holding us hostage. I’m about to give birth in captivity. And he goes around saying something doom and gloom every five seconds. I’ve had it!” Abilene’s face turned red.
    An alarm started blaring from one of the monitors.
    • • •
    Initially, he had come over here only to lesson some of his Temptation’s anger; however, Jayden felt a genuine and rare flare of concern as a monitor for the baby’s heartbeat began to blare in warning. The mother’s anxiety was affecting the health of the innocent. The small woman reached beneath the blankets again, and a second later shrieked, “I’m crowning!”
    The blue-eyed one swayed on his feet. “Oh, God, the baby’s coming.” He turned toward Jayden’s Temptation with wide eyes. “What the hell am
I
supposed to do? I don’t know anything about this!”
    And then, against all reason or anything Jayden ever would have expected, his Temptation turned her eyes upon
him
. The silent plea in their depths shot straight through Jayden’s spine. Jayden clenched his jaw and squeezed his eyes shut. This went against his instinct. His orders were to
end
these people, not to help them.
    But the innocent was in danger. And the innocent was the priority.
    “There is very little you have to do,” Jayden said to the man quietly. “Her body does the work. You only need to catch your daughter.” He walked forward slowly, mentally preparing himself for what he was about to do. “Little human,” he said as kindly as possible to the small, frightened woman in the bed.
    Her wide, terror-filled eyes turned on him. The alarm continued to sound.
    “I know you are frightened, but you must calm. Remember yourself.”
    With his eyes, Jayden urged the blue-eyed one to take her hand, and once he did, Jayden felt the delicate one mentally take the reins of her panic and try to pull them back. “Yes, good,” he coached her softly.
    After a few moments, the alarm faltered and then fell silent. Jayden allowed himself to relax. He placed his hand on the blue-eyed one’s shoulder and urged him to the end of the bed. “Tell him what to do,” Jayden told the delicate one. “He is strong for his family. He will take care of you.”
    Without another word, Jayden turned from the bed, strode past his Temptation where she gaped at him with a wide-open mouth, and took up residence leaning against the wall right outside the room.
    Less than a minute later, the indignant cry of a newborn babe filled the air. Though he told himself not to look — that
life
was none of his concern — Jayden could not stop himself from peeking into the room.
    The blue-eyed one held an infant so tiny it barely filled his palms. The baby was warm and wiggly and perfectly formed. She had a head full of ebony ringlets, and she gazed upon her father with wide, blue eyes. Jayden’s heart swelled as the infant’s innocence flooded his body like a warm, consuming fire.
    This was every angel’s favorite part of humanity — the perfect,