Two hours later, we stood in the bathroom watching the timer while Neal wound between our legs and mewed about how I was so big that I would probably be able to carry sixteen kittens.
“Sixteen is the biggest number he knows,” Beal chuckled, wrapping an arm around me and pulling me in close. “We’ve been working on his counting.”
“With treats, I bet,” I teased him but our hearts pounded hard and fast as we waited for the timer to sound.
It cut through the room and Neal ran out like a cartoon cat, leg over leg. Beal laughed but I buried my face in his chest because I couldn’t look. Over the last few hours I’d become really invested in the idea that we were having a baby. If we were wrong, I didn’t know if I could stomach the disappointment.
“So?” I asked.
“There’s a little baby wrapped up in a red blanket,” Beal said.
“YES!” I screamed into his chest.
Neal sprinted back into the bathroom and meowed at the top of his lungs, high pitched and celebratory as Beal picked me up and spun me in another circle as he did earlier that day.
“We’re having a baby!” He shouted.
“CONGRATULTIONS!” the neighbor bellowed over to us.
“Is that the guy who owns the old ragdoll cat?” Beal asked, still grinning and I nodded.
“THANK YOU!” I bellowed back to him and laughed again.
Beal stole a kiss, and I ran in to tell Mum but she was still out cold in her dragon sleep despite all the noise we made. Neal climbed up onto her back and made biscuits, but she didn’t stir.
“I’m sure she’ll wake up when she becomes a grandma,” Beal said and pulled me in close to kiss my temple.
I hoped he was right. I was having the time of my life, but it felt so unfair that she was missing out on so much of it.
Chapter Eighteen
Mori
Pierce’s Family Estate
Since Preston faked baby troubles to help Annila get away after beheading Jon and Chard we hadn’t left the house much. No one accused him of what he’d done but I knew, and it made me wonder what else my brother did. Growing up we’d always been close, and it was only after he’d gotten pregnant that I realized he had a whole secret life that I knew nothing about. Slowly but surely, that was coming out since we lived together again and didn’t know many other people in the Moonscale Dragon Flight Territory. There was Pierce and Crilus who now dedicated all their time to Baby Hex and the Raven’s Perch. Morvan and Rho, whose baby was growing ever quicker in his lion gargoyle form, were already expecting another. A new little stone had popped up on the back side of his bicep and neither of them were leaving the house or accepting visitors except for Teal at this time.
Preston had his feet up and a bowl of chips resting on his stomach. I would’ve sworn he was having twins except every ultrasound only showed a single little bear cub. Preston had refused to go back to any of the Moonscale Hospitals and insisted that the GGB doctors came here to see him now. They obliged him and every week we added a new sonogram to the book.
I’d been uneasy since hearing about how Sharon Claudis aided Annila in escaping from Clarence and his guards too. She was already linked with my brother as the grandmother of his baby. She was dangerous and no one seemed to want to doanything about it and I still wasn’t sure what Dern wanted me to make of the scene in the scrying bowl.
“She’s watching us,” Preston sighed, picking up my thoughts over our twin link. “How else would she have known what I did to help Annila?”
“It has to be more than that, though, right?” I asked almost stealing a chip but thinking better of taking food from a pregnant bear.
Preston handed me a chip and frowned at me, “when it comes to that wolf, I don’t know, Mo. I really don’t. Venal hasn’t been in touch but I haven’t reached out to him either. I’d like it if both of them kept leaving me alone, so I don’t think about them much, especially when we’re at home. If I can’t eat her, I’m pretty sure, Pierce will for just coming onto the property with his baby.”
I bit the inside of my cheek and cursed Dern. Baby Hex was another secret I had to keep because of that old, dead wolf.
“Look, I only have another six weeks before this baby comes, if Philip McCoy is right. From what I hear, he’s usually right about babies. If you really want to chase her down after the baby comes I’ll go home.”
“I’d rather have you than her, but I’ll understand if you want to go home.”
“I’m homesick,” he shrugged. “Is Sharon your actual mission? I thought that was getting Crilus to realize he wasn’t bad because his grandma was a nut job?”
“I’ll have to ask Dern what the hell is going on the next time he yoinks me over there,” I sighed.
“Here.” He handed me another chip. “How’s the paranormal investigation going? Any leads yet?”
