I glared at him. “Will you keep your voice down? I thought we agreed to tell them all tonight?”
His eyes sparkled. “I’m excited. Bite me.”
I smirked. “I think that’s more your domain.” I knew how he felt. We’d hoped I’d get pregnant quickly, especially after Kip’s knot filled me to the brim. It had only been a matter of weeks since our first time condom-free, and we’d been delighted to get the test results.
I kissed him. “Okay. Let’s go share the good news.”
Kip took my hand and led me to the dining room. Our parents joined us, all smiles. Then Deron and Maia strolled in from the living room.
“When’s dinner? We’re starved,” Deron said.
“I’ll start it in a minute,” I promised. “Kip and I wanted to talk to you all first.”
Fiona frowned. “Is something wrong?”
“Wrong? No, not at all.” I pulled the envelope from my pocket. “We went to the doctor and had some tests done.” I did my best not to scream the words.
Mom’s eyes widened. “Are you?” she asked excitedly.
I nodded. “We’re going to have a baby.”
Pandemonium broke out as everyone surrounded us. The men clapped Kip on the back, while the women were hugging me and crying.
A ringing phone broke the revery. Tony glanced down at his cell and his face went pale. “I have to take this.” He headed out onto the patio.
The door closed behind him, and the celebration continued. For several long minutes everything was happy and joyous.
“Am I gonna be an uncle or an aunt?” Deron asked.
Kip snorted. “You’ll have to excuse my brother. I think I got all the brains.” He rolled his eyes. “I think what youmeantto say was, are you gonna have a nephew or a niece, and the answer is, we don’t know yet. We don’t even know if it’s gonna be one baby or sextuplets.”
I gaped. “Why would you even say a thing like that out loud?”
“Yousaidyou wanted lots of babies.”
“Yeah, but not all at once!”
Then the patio door flew open, and Kip’s dad burst in, his face pale as snow.
Kip froze. “Dad? What is it? What’s wrong?”
Tony’s eyes were filled with pain when he looked at Kip. “Jerome is... He’s dead.”
Kip
Behind me, Mason gasped.
“Is that all?” I asked, because really, I’d have done it myself if I could. “Why should we care if he killed himself?”
Dad was still pale. “That’s the thing. He didn’t. The guard was watching the camera and he heard Jerome scream, then his body contorted as his limbs snapped. Whoever it was ripped off his head and placed it on the floor before they vanished.”
A chill ran through me. “You’re not saying....”
Dad’s grave expression only added to the ice crawling over my skin. “The dragon knights sent the assassin.”
He’d told me about the assassin before, a dragon knight who was melded with a shadow dragon, making him nearly impossible to detect. They sent him in to eliminate other knights quickly and efficiently and with as much pain as possible.
“But Jerome wasn’t a knight,” I protested. “Why would they kill him?”
