Chapter Five
Thalia
I woke up to a weird, roller coaster feeling in my stomach. I sat up and looked down. My stomach was bigger. Not too much, but I noticed it. I swallowed down the shock and took a few breaths, reminding myself that this was normal. Everything was as it should be.
I felt that swishing inside me again and put my hand over my tummy. Then it dawned on me—I was feeling the babies moving. They were moving around in there! An outpouring of love and happiness filled my soul. I was a mommy, and no one was going to take that from me. I looked around the room, where my love slept peacefully next to me. A small smile etched on his face led me to think that he was feeling the love that was flowing through me.
“Thalia.” I jumped, scanning the room to see who whispered my name. A white dove fluttered into the room and landed on the nightstand beside me. To say I was confused would be an understatement. Why was there a bird in our apartment?
“Thaila.” Holy hell, was the dove saying my name? I looked around, and saw nothing else that could have talked. Tristan was still asleep. Looking back at the dove, I leaned in.
“Yes?” Lord, I felt weird. Talking to a dove. Although I guess things haven’t been normal for some time now. I was a demigod. Who knew?
“Thalia, it’s your mother. We don’t a lot of time. I can’t interfere directly. The gods are panicking. Help is coming, and you must have an open mind. Love always wins, sweetheart.” As soon as the dove finished talking, it flew out of the room. I leaped out of the bed to see where it went, but it was just gone like it had never existed. There weren’t open windows or anything. It just vanished. Feeling a little freaked out, I started to run back into the room to wake Tristan, but ran right into an already-awake Tristan in the doorway.
“What’s wrong?” Ah, he could feel my soul freaking out. Handy.
“There was a dove in our room. And it talked. It said my name, and then said it was my mom. That she couldn’t interfere, and that the gods are panicking. And that help is coming and to have an open mind. I’m a little freaked out right now.” I felt my blood pressure rising, and the need to pace was building.
“Ease, my love. Relax. Your mother is sending help. We will be fine. Trust me, love.” His strong arms wrapped around me, and I took deep breaths. Everything felt so up in the air, it was disheartening. The babies started rolling around, and I felt like my stress was affecting them. Placing my hand on my stomach, I spoke softly to them.
“It’s okay, little ones. We are all right. Shhhhh.” I felt Tristan move back slightly and place his hand on the other side of my belly. He was feeling them move. I felt the wonder and elation in his heart, mirroring mine. Whatever was going to come our way, we had them. I just needed to remember that. Wanting to take my thoughts off anything unpleasant, I dragged Tristan back to bed. We didn’t have much time to get things ready for the babies, and right now I would rather focus on that than all of the bad things that were inevitably going to come our way.
“I want to move out of the apartment,” I said. I had been thinking about it, and I thought with two kids, we needed more space.
“Whatever you want, it’s yours.” He leaned in and kissed me gently. I knew he meant it, we would never want for anything. I snuggled into him, and pressed us back against the mattress.
“I want a cool yard, and a pool, like what I had growing up. Is there anything you want?” He had lived so long, there probably wasn’t any place he hadn’t been, or seen.
“I miss home.” I jerked my head up to meet his eyes. Home. I knew he felt my confusion when he continued on, explaining himself.
“The underworld. I was made for it; it calls to me. We are one.” That was something I should have known. I had memories of my past and present. I remember being in his chambers in our past, where we first made love.
“Let’s go to the underworld. I can be with you, now that I have my ring on.” I waved it above us. The ring my mother gave me grounded my powers, and gave me immortality like Tristan. We would never need to part.
We spent the next few hours cuddled in bed, talking about our hopes and what we wanted for our future. We decided to take a trip to the underworld, to his home. We wouldn’t be disturbed there by any of the other gods. It was his domain as Anubis, and he would be the most powerful god there. Osiris’s palace was there, but on the other side. Fat chance he would come over. The more I thought about how powerful Tristan really was, the more and more I got turned on, which led to passionate touches, and hot fucks, until I needed a nap. Being pregnant was making me tired.
I woke up to a banging on our door, followed by some cursing. I stood up quickly and realized that was a mistake. My head started spinning and I fell back to the bed.
“Tristan, who’s here?” I called out. When I didn’t hear anything except the unabated blue streak of curses, I got back up and decided to go investigate myself.
“Tristan! What are you doing?” I was shocked at what I was seeing. Tristan had a man pinned to the door above him, by his throat. I ran over to stop him from hurting the man, but came up short when I saw who it was.
“Orion. What are you doing here? Tristan, put him down.” Orion’s face was flushed but slightly smug now that I demanded that Tristan let him go. We may have solved the issue between our long history, but that didn’t mean I trusted him. Orion had me kidnapped, and had his mother force my past life memories on me. I could have died. Then he poisoned Leander, and tried to stop us from saving him. He knew what he did was wrong, and left after I let him feel my love for Tristan; that was the last we had seen of him. Lord knows what he could’ve been up to, or worse, whose side was he on. Instinctively I put my hand over my belly. I watched as his eyes followed my hands and lingered, taking in my swollen stomach.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, looking me directly in the eyes, then turning to Tristan.
“Or the child.” Instant relief came over me from him only knowing about the one child, but I didn’t let him see it. We needed to keep our cards to ourselves.
“You will not get near them,” Tristan growled, and took a step towards him. Protecting his family.
“What do you want?” I asked, while standing tall. I remember everything now, and I know I could hold my own against him pregnant or not. He needed to see that.
“I am here to help you, to be on your side.” Help? I know my face contorted in confusion.
“Bullshit!” Tristan spat, and I could feel mistrust and anger coming from him. I had to calm him before he did something bad. Wrapped my arms around him, I pulled him against me, sending my love through my soul and into his. I knew it was working when the hand that was at his side came up and wrapped itself around mine.
With Tristan calmed for a moment, I pressed further, to find out more on Orion’s plans to help us. Keeping my arms around Tristan, I looked around his shoulder at the man before us.
