“But—”
Atlas grabbed Bel’s hands to pull him back to bed. Urging his mate to lie down, Atlas waited until Bel was on his back before cuddling to his side. “I mean it, Bel. Everyone finding out, if you gain weight, all of that is background noise. Unimportant. What is important is that you and I are going to have a baby. Our baby. And you are giving me such a special gift.”
“I’m sorry that I didn’t know,” Bel said quietly. “I feel even worse now that Asmos reminded me that we were taught this. Orso he says we were. I still don’t remember learning that aboutus. You’d think something like that would stick out.”
“Don’t feel bad.” Atlas gently started to rub Bel’s tiny little bump. “Mammon didn’t remember either.”
“It was centuries ago,” Bel said. “And mates just weren’t a thing that we thought about back then.”
“I know. And I’m not mad.” Not mad at all. “I never really thought about having children. I knew I was gay back in junior high.”
“You like kids though?” Bel questioned.
That was a harder question. “I’ll love our child.”
Bel snorted. “That’s not a real answer.”
“Like I said, I never thought about it,” Atlas responded honestly. “I was an only child. I don’t have much experience.”
“More than me,” Bel pointed out. “I was never even around demon children.”
“That just means that we’ll learn,” Atlas vowed. Did he think things would be easy? No. With the excitement from their friends, it was already a look at how people would react. Their child would be the first of his kind. That was fine. They would love and protect their baby.
Yes. Atlas kissed the baby bump again. All the love and protection this baby needed would be provided. And they had a whole circle of badass friends that would look after them.
Chapter Twelve
Bel
This wasn’t right. Six bowls and no matter what magic that Bel used, there was something missing. He pushed the sixth bowl away from him, making it fly forcefully against the wall. It didn’t taste right, or smell right, and the butter was sticky.
“Bel?”
He stiffened as his mate walked into the kitchen. A room that Bel couldn’t remember Atlas ever entering before so Atlas must have been searching for him. Gripping the edge of the black marble counter, Bel dropped his chin and breathed deeply. He was stupidly emotional for no reason at all.
“Hey.” Atlas rubbed his lower back, which Bel pushed back into because that felt amazing. “What are you doing?”
Bel scowled at the six bowls he’d tried to magic up. “Nothing.”
Atlas hummed. “It looks like you were trying to make popcorn.”
Damn it. Bel was not going to blush. He just couldn’t think about that big bag of popcorn that he’d bought for Asmos and Cary.
“Do you want popcorn?” Atlas asked.
“No.” It wasn’t right! He was used to being able to magic up whatever he wanted.
“I think you do.” Atlas kissed between his wings. “I have an idea.”
“What?” Bel kept his head down. If his mate was going to tease him, then Bel didn’t want to see it. All he wanted was that stupid popcorn.
Atlas slipped a hand around Bel to rest a palm against his belly.
Bel’s much larger stomach than it had been a week ago. At the rate that he was growing, Bel wouldn’t be able to hide the pregnancy from anyone. Not that he imagined there were many demons that didn’t know already. Hell, word had already gotten around to the other realms by the emails that Bel received from old friends.
“Hey,” Atlas said.
Bel started to turn before realizing that Atlas was on the phone.
