Dewiwasthe baseline.
Hence why he encouraged her to pursue any dietary craving that struck her fancy as long as she was getting calories and it wasn’t harmful, like alcohol or drugs.
Or dirt.
Hence the combination of coffee and cake batter.
Two birds, one stone.Technically three, because the coffee helped keep her awake.
Ken was already freaked out enough about her pregnancy and his impending fatherhood for her to dump this on him, too.
And, truth be told, she was having trouble not snapping at everyone more than she already was. If Ken and Badger started hovering around her while trying to get her to eat more, she’d be sorely tempted to take heads off, loved ones or not.
Dewi’s free hand settled over her baby bump, which felt more like a mountain already.
It’s only March. How horrible am I going to be by July? If you want to come early, I won’t complain, as long as you’re healthy.
A Summer Solstice baby would be kind of cool. Also, according to the doctor, it wasn’t uncommon for shifter babies to be born early without any issues, because their development was frequently accelerated. In fact, it was common for shifter babies to be born three or more weeks early with zero problems. He’d experienced several cases where the babies came six weeks early and they were in all ways completely healthy, as if they’d gestated to their full forty-week term. Nonshifter babies born to shifters sometimes came earlier with no issues, while nonshifting babies born to nonshifters usually followed normal human patterns.
While the timing of and circumstances surrounding her pregnancy weren’t anticipated, Dewi would be lying if she said she wasn’t looking forward to becoming a mom.
Ideally, she would have held off longer. This hadn’t been in her plan. Beck’s mate, Nami, was due a few weeks before Dewi. And both of Dewi’s sisters-in-law, Asia and Gillian, were also due in July.
Thank you, post-Muster Madness baby fever.
Her current situation was due to her and Ken stupidly not considering sexual logistics during some frantic, welcome-home nookie rather than succumbing to post-Muster Madness.
Not helping Dewi’s mood was the fact that Peyton wanted her and Ken and Duncan back in Idaho this weekend for an extended stay of indeterminate length because Ken had asked her older brother to recall her.
All because Ken had freaked out about her clumsy spells. He’d admitted that to her the other night night after she got off the phone with Peyton and, admittedly, threw what amounted to a temper tantrum about her brother’s orders to return to Idaho.
Which prompted her mate to come clean and admit he’d asked Peyton to issue the edict.
I’vegotto have this out with Peyton.
Yes, she could see where Ken was coming from. But she had absolutely no intention of spending more than a few days in Idaho. Not when Tamsin would be giving birth soon. The corgi shifter their pack was providing protective sanctuary to was herself due in a few weeks.
The last thing Dewi wanted was for her and Da—also a Prime—to be fucking off in Idaho doing family shit and unable to help protect Tamsin. The corgi shifter had been through enough already.
Not to mention Tamsin needed to be surrounded by friendly, trusted faces at this most physically and emotionally vulnerable time of her life. And since Dewi was a Prime, she felt she should be available to be present for the birth of Tamsin’s baby, so she could help Tamsin through the process. Sure, Badger was a Prime, as were two other enforcers now in Dewi’s region, but even Dewi didn’t fail to recognize a female presence would likely be more welcomed during the birth than a male.
Adding to the “fun,” they were in the process of resettling dozens of pack families from Central and South America to the US, many of them in and around the Tampa Bay area.
Let’s not forget the two new Enforcers, both of them Prime Alphas, who Dewi needed to get to know.
All of that combined meant this wasn’t the absolute worst time for her to be jetting off to Idaho, but it dang sure wasn’t in the top 100 best times, either.
Dewi sat back and propped the bowl on her tummy, another spoonful of mix going in her mouth.
Mostly.
She used a finger to swipe at the drop of batter that had dripped onto the T-shirt and licked it clean.
Right now, it felt like she’d been pregnant for several years instead of a few months.
Time’s funny like that, isn’t it?
There was just too damned much going on right now for her and Da to not have paws on the ground in Florida.
