“Zero,” Wess said. “They told me about the tradition of biting the midwife but we’re skipping that unless you insist upon it.”
Colton glanced at Preston who shrugged. All signs pointed to my brother being pregnant so if anything other than a jellybean or whatever snow demons looked like in utero showed up on that screen, I was phoning our sire to come do another ultrasound – the right sort.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, bro,” Colton laughed, picking up my thoughts over the family link.
Baby Andy wiggled wanting off my lap but I managed to regain his attention by pulling out a piece of jerky from my shirt pocket that I put there just for that reason.
“I trust you,” Preston grinned. “And I’m the twin that matters right now.”
“Do we know if snow demon babies look different in utero? I checked the literature but there is nothing to be found,” Colton said.
“I honestly don’t know,” I said and bit my lip.
“That’s fine. We might just find out today. Don’t worry. Anyone comes asking personal questions send them my way. I deal with kicking in-laws out of delivery rooms every day. If they won’t listen to me they get to deal with Ivan. He’s my sweetheart but he can’t stand a bully,” Colton said. “Do you have any questions?”
“He’s talking to you,” Preston said after Wess didn’t answer a few seconds later.
“Uh… Am I supposed to? You’re going to run the wand over his belly and show us the baby, right?” Wess asked.
“That’s the idea. Only what we see probably won’t look like a fully formed baby. Preston hasn’t been pregnant long enough for that,” Colton chuckled before turning on his machine.
The whoosh-whoosh sound that punctuated my childhood filled the room and I rocked Baby Andy as he growled at the sound.
“It’s okay, baby,” Preston said from across the room. “It’s not growling at you.”
I couldn’t see the monitor from where I sat but Colton watched it intently as he slid the wand across our brother’s stomach.
“Right there they are,” he said a few seconds later and Preston burst out into tears.
Baby Andy squirmed to get away from and hit the floor on his furry butt with a plonk. Wess rounded the sofa and picked him up before he had time to get upset. He sniffed Wess’s face as he was carried around the sofa. Out of curiosity I followed them around the sofa.
There are the old-fashioned machine’s monitor were two little…. Horns? I had to be seeing things because I’d never seen an embryo shaped like a horn.
“I’m having twins,” Preston managed through his tears. “They’re beautiful. Little tiny twins.”
I almost asked if we were sure those were babies at all, but Colton shot me a warning look before turning his attention back to his work. They had all the hallmarks that made them babies. Only they weren’t eggs or jellybeans. I glanced around the room and besides Baby Andy’s my eyes were the only dry ones in the room. Had I lost some sentimental piece of myself along the way?
“No,” Preston shook his head, picking up my thoughts over our twin link. “You know how mushy alphas get over this. They don’t even have the bucketfuls of hormones that I do as an excuse but look,” he pointed to the screen. “They’re twins like us.”
That was it. Then I cried. I cried because the babies were twins and that these babies wouldn’t be hunted by Sharon Claudis. I cried because I didn’t know when I’d meet my mate and Annila had lost her mind. I’d been accused of being dramatic so many times that I started to leave the room because this wasn’t about me. This was Preston and Wess’s day. It was a happy day and here I was crying like I was a small child.
Colton put down his wand and told Preston he could clean up. He’d gotten enough footage to print some sonograms off. He rounded the sofa and hugged me tight, crushing me to him.
“Shh, Mori,” he whispered like he had when I was actually a small child. “It’s all alright. The bad guys don’t get to win. They don’t get to have a say in our lives. They were all outsmarted again. You’ve been through a lot recently. Let’s have some tea.”
“I’m sorry,” I said but not to him but to my twin.
“It’s okay, Mori,” Preston said, though his eyes were still watering. “No one’s mad at you over what Annila did. We’re mad that she did it and we’ll do whatever we have to do to protect you and everyone else.”
“I’m supposed to be the brave one! Not the one who can’t stop crying!” I said, wiping my eyes as Colton led me to the kitchen.
“Brave people cry,” Colton said and ushered me into the kitchen.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Preston
Nightshade Bear Territory
