Raven Dexter chose to pursue midwifery the moment she helped a teen friend deliver her baby. Fed up with unconcerned physicians, she studied until she could open her small practice in a moderately sized town. Her practice was slowly growing until the night a strange man demanded she come with her to attend a birth. Her introduction to the paranormal society was in the venue of delivering a small goblin baby that quickly took a chunk out of her arm. The elf that took her to her first delivery moves in without even asking, taking care of everything from her appointments to making her meals, Eyleno Miz rapidly becomes indispensable and then becomes something more.

Excerpt:

Eyleno was still there and he was making her pancakes. He was also talking to her about magical races.

“Now, Raven. I have brought you a primer for the magical races including some you will never meet. In this area, you basically need to deal with goblins, dwarves, trolls, dryads, werewolves and occasional magi and a few elves.”

She laughed and sipped some of the coffee he had brewed. “No mermaids?”

“No, they deliver underwater. Not an option for you.”

Oh, he had thought this out. “So, is there a lot of demand for my services?”

He chuckled. “Yes, the goblins are fast breeders and the trolls often suffer from lack of pre- and postnatal care.”

“What about dryads?”

“They usually only need assistance with the first daughter. Sons are so rare as to be almost a myth.”

He finished her tower of pancakes and set it in front of her before making a few for himself. His voice took on a lecturing tone. “The moment that the infant is born, the tree will start the links to their life force. If the sapling needs to be moved, it has to be done by three elder dryads, so the labours tend to occur in dryad-heavy areas.”

She looked down at her arms and scowled. “What about goblins, do they always bite?”

He chuckled and poured another round of batter. “Goblins are highly carnivorous. The family should have had a rabbit nearby to start him on, but they were all exhausted by the continuing labour.”

“Excuses, excuses. Is that the worst to expect?”

“Well, spider goblins create a web that is used to catch the baby to stop the delicate legs from snapping. Rock goblins tend to climb when they are in pain, so you may have to chase or catch on those deliveries.”

Her mind was reeling as she took a look at the book in front of her. She opened the pristine pages and gasped at the lovely, colourful illustrations that framed her name.

“Is this…was this made for me?”

He grinned. “It was created by the great Archivist, specifically for the one woman who would not have an ounce of magic in her blood.”

That sounded rather odd. “What do you mean?”

“I can’t read it. The words blur. No one magical will be able to read that book if you write notes on your cases in it. Half of the book is devoted for your notes.” Eyleno turned and started in on his own pancakes.

She worked through her stack. The pancakes so fluffy they absorbed the small pat of butter with the syrup riding each mouthful. Raven kept one eye on her food and the other on the goblin-breeding details in the book.

When she finished the pancakes, she sipped her coffee and kept reading. Dwarves had problems with delivery due to the size of the child versus the size of the mother’s hips. Dryads needed constant water during delivery. Trolls needed something to hold onto. Breaking the midwife was a real possibility.

Elves and magic users had standard human-style deliveries with the exception of elves becoming exhausted frequently before the child made its appearance. It was a dangerous situation for both mother and child.

Eyleno was puttering in her kitchen and she smiled as she saw him create dish after dish while she read the book, storing each dish in the fridge or freezer. “How long are you planning on staying?”

He looked at her in surprise. “I thought you understood. I am now your handler. I go where you go, make sure that you eat, bathe, sleep and exercise if you need it. I will drive you to your deliveries, magical and mundane. You are stuck with me.”

“That’s impossible?” She wished it hadn’t come out as a question.

“Why? You have a guest room and when you return from deliveries, you are exhausted, a danger on the roads. You don’t have to pay me. I am paid by the unified councils.”

“I need to talk to someone. Anyone. This is too weird for my blood.”

He sighed and dusted his hands on his thighs. “Just let me pop this casserole in the freezer. I enjoy laying in supplies so that when you need it, food is just a microwave away.”

Eyleno worked swiftly and finished the multilayer casserole, then he put on plastic wrap, aluminum foil and slid the works into a zip-top bag. His tidying up was just as quick. The ingredients disappeared and the counter was spotless within ten minutes.

“Let me just make a phone call and we will be on our way.”

She blinked at his readiness to leave her home. “Just like that?”

“They are expecting it, plus one of the elven elders wants to be one of your clients.”

That made her blink as she was standing up. “Elder? Needs me? How old are we talking here?”

He chuckled. “Read the section on elf-breeding seasons while I make the call.”

Raven flipped through the book to the section on elves and skimmed down until she got to the procreative section. Her voice rose to a shriek as she read the data on breeding seasons. “Fifteen hundred years!”

Eyleno’s laughter rang through the house.