HIS ROYAL LOVE CHILD (Book Two of the LOVE CHILD series)

Chapter Fourteen "TRISTAN"

Picture above Nicholai looking at his new born son.

Video attached speaks of how Nicholai feels as he looks at his son.

Dedicated to Essly for being the first to vote on Chapter Thirteen.

It's been a few weeks since Nicholai woke up in his hospital bed gasping for breath and struggling to breathe. Luckily he was not alone in the room. A doctor and a nurse had been in there with him checking his vital signs, since he was taking longer to wake up than they had anticipated. Nicholai had woken up a week after the birth of his son. The effort to save Liam had completely drained him of all his strength and dragon powers.
Luckily the drain on his powers and strength proved to be only temporary. And over the weeks that followed he slowly regained both. Getting stronger and stronger everyday.

His son however was another matter. The baby faced many challenges. Having to pull away his dragon powers from sustaining and strengthening his son in order to save Liam, resulted in the baby being born way to early and severely underweight. Coupled with the effects of the drugs on his system the baby was also born with underdeveloped lung and heart functions. The doctors battled to keep him alive through one complication after another. Many times they all feared that he wouldn't make.

But as each day passed and he slowly began to respond to treatment their hopes grew. The baby was never left alone for a single moment. Nicholai spent every waking moment with him. At first he wasn't allowed to hold him as he could not be removed from the incubator. Those days Nicholai would get dressed in the special protective garments that were provided and he would put his hands into the incubator in order to brush his fingers lightly and ever so gently over his tiny son.

From the moment Nicholai first laid eyes on his tiny newborn son struggling for his life, Nicholai's rage at Liam intensified tenfold. Nicholai may have saved Liam's life, but he in no way forgave him for what his thoughtless actions had caused. Every time Nicholai had to stand by helplessly and watch as the doctors fought to save his son through one complication after another, his rage grew and he vowed to make Liam pay.

He didn't know where Liam was, but he knew that he was alive and alright. Somehow through the fight to save him, Liam's heartbeat had synchronized to his own and he could feel it. It was like he now had two hearts in his chest. He could tell that he was recovering, but he could also tell that something else was going on with Liam. He just didn't know what it was. At odd times he could feel the racing of his heart, the shortness of his breath and the straining of his muscles. It was as if his body was undergoing some extreme kind of stress.

Nicholai new that Vlad had been in touch with Rafe, Hunter and Cameron, letting them know that Liam was alive. Whether or not he would be coming home anytime soon was another matter. Truthfully Nicholai prayed that he wouldn't come home. He didn't want to see him. Nicholai knew that if Liam came home now, he would kill him. Nicholai had no doubt that at the sight of Liam, his dragon would be unleashed and nothing and no one would be able to stop him from killing his own mate in his rage for what Liam had caused to happen to their son.

Even now, he could barely keep his dragon under control. Each crisis, each complication, each emergency that his son faced had his dragon threatening to burst forth and go in search of Liam in order to make him pay. But he couldn't let his dragon lose. Not now and not yet. His son needed him.

So he kept vigil by his son bedside. Constantly talking to him, reading to him, singing to him, touching him or holding him whenever the doctors allowed him to do so. He wanted to ensure that his son knew just how much he was loved. The doctors told him that based on test that they had run, his son's brain functions were abnormal and he wasn't able to hear him or understand him. He was for all intents and purposes deaf. Also from what they could already tell, his motor skills were severely affected.

Nicholai didn't understand a lot of the modern words that the doctors used and he really didn't care either. He loved and cherished his son anyway. So he kept on doing what his heart told him to do. His favourite song to sing to his son was "A Thousand Years". He sang it over and over again. When his voice got tired, he would play it on repeat. When he was forced to rest, Rafe, Hunter, Cameron, Blake, Blair and the younger kids would take turns sitting with the baby and singing to him.

He was never left alone. They surrounded him with their combined love and powers. Protecting him, loving him. And everyday he grew just a little bit stronger.

The weeks turned into months and eventually he was released from the incubator and could be taken home, or rather upstairs to Nicholai's room. Everyone released the collective breath that they had been holding. They had the baby's room prepared of course but Nicholai wanted him kept close.

As young Tristan grew, he faced many challenges. He had to undergo several operations in his early years. One major one was to correct a heart defect, another was due to his kidneys malfunctioning, another was done to save his eye sight. And so the list went on and on. Each time that he had to do another surgery Nicholai worried and fretted. So did everyone else. They all knew that should anything go wrong, they could lose him. By the time he was two years old, he had gone through too many surgeries to keep count.

He had to under go daily physical therapy to develop and improve his motor skills. He eventually had to be fitted with leg braces in order to walk and his movements remained stiff and jerky. His hearing never improved, even with surgery to correct it and it interfered with the development of his language skills. This of course caused him to have severe communication problems. All within the house had to learn sign language in order to be able to communicate with him. He also showed early signs of Autism, as he refused to make eye contact and developed an aversion to being touched. He would also throw severe temper tantrums whenever he got frustrated, which tended to be quite often.

But they took it all in stride. Everything and everyone within the Hawkthorne mansion adjusted to and revolved around meeting Tristan's needs as he grew up. They learnt how to read him and how to anticipate his needs. They learnt too how to communicate with him. This of course caused his level of frustrations to be significantly reduced. They were all very protective of him. Especially Blair, his aunt. She was worst than a lioness with one cub when it came to Tristan. She was also his favourite person to spend time with, except for Hunter's Wolf Ares. Hunter would spend hours in wolf form with Tristan either riding on his back or just using him as a glorified pillow to lay down on.

Hunter didn't mind though. Seeing his grandson happy and healthy was all that mattered. They didn't know what kind of a shifter Tristan would grow up to be, or if he would ever shift at all. They could only hope that he would, since shifting would unleash his healing abilities and would in effect cure him.

They also didn't know if he would ever meet Liam, his father. As the passing weeks turned into months and the months turned into years with no communication from Liam, they feared that he would never come home again. Vlad had assured them that he was fine. But that was all that he had told them. He didn't tell them where he was or what he was doing. All Vlad would say was that Liam would come home when he was ready.

As for Liam however, he feared that he would never be ready to come home and face the consequences of the mess that he had left behind. Still unbeknownst to him, he had not just left behind a mate, but a son as well.

A son that would need him to save him. Because something was coming or rather someone.