“Sittingright here,” Sage interrupted with a grumble.
Eric rolled his eyes as only a sibling could, continuing as though Sage hadn’t spoken, “But if you’d like, I can do another ultrasound to ease your minds.”
“I’d rather wait another couple of weeks,” Sage answered before either Dexter or I could. He placed his hand over his flat abdomen and explained, “It makes more sense to wait until we can be sure there should be a heartbeat. If there isn’t one…” he trailed off, and I felt the wave of melancholy sweep through the bond.
Dexter and I reached for his hands in unison. “There will be,” Dexter assured him with confidence, while I still cringed away from making promises we couldn’t uphold. “My dragon insists there will. And I’ve learned my lesson about not listening to him.”
Sage nuzzled his face against our omega mate’s, filling my heart with affection and pride. My mates were so beautiful together; even more so now that they were communicating openly and honestly with each other, and with me.
“Then we will wait,” I agreed with them. “As long as you’re still feeling alright.”
Cheek still pressed to Dexter’s, Sage tilted his face my way. “I promise, I’ve never felt better.”
“I feel like shit, and I hate you both,” Sage complained, slumped as he was over the toilet bowl.
“I know you do, and no you don’t,” I soothed, rubbing his back as he heaved again.
It had been almost two weeks since we’d bonded, and this particular routine had been going for just as long, with his morning sickness usually striking in the early evening, or —as it was on this occasion— just as we were waking up in the morning.
Though we all preferred having Sage snuggled in the middle of our bed between myself and Dexter, we’d taken to me and Dex swapping the middle spot between us, with Sage sleeping on the side of the bed nearest to the bathroom door. On mornings like this one, Sage’s mad scramble out of bed proved why.
“I do,” he moaned, resting his forehead on the cool porcelain, which made me scrunch my nose in disgust, “you did this to me.”
“Hedid,” Dex corrected, passing our mate a glass of water and a damp washcloth, “biologically, I did nothing.”
I leveled my other mate with a flat stare. “Really?”
He shrugged and smirked back at me. “Omegas are azoospermic,” he reminded me in a smug tone, as if I had forgotten the fact. “This,” he waved his hand over our vomiting mate, “is all your little swimmers, darling.”
“Stop stirring him up,” Sage sighed, rinsing his mouth and spitting into the bowl. “I still hold you accountable for this, anyway.”
“Me?” Dex pouted. “But—”
Sage huffed, “I swear, Dex, if you say ‘azoospermic’ onemore time…”
I hoped I was concealing my humor from the bond, because I didn’t think Sage would appreciate it. In a bid to further distract him, I interjected, “Be that as it may, we were all involved, and I am sorry you’re not feeling well. However, today we will get to hear the baby’s heartbeat. That’s something to look forward to, isn’t it?”
The corners of Sage’s lips lifted, and hope tinged with excitement flickered through our bond. “Yeah,” he acknowledged aloud, “I am looking forward to that.” He pushed to his feet and flushed the toilet, washing his face in the sink. After brushing his teeth, he turned and burrowed his face into the crook of my neck, mumbling, “I don’t hate you.”
“I know, beautiful,” I stroked his back and kissed the top of his head. “I don’t understand why you won’t allow me to make you a nausea remedy. The ingredients are all pregnancy safe.”
It was an argument we’d been having since we’d brought him home.
He sighed. “None of the others needed to take anything special when they were pregnant.”
Oh.
“Well, they didn’t have a shaman at their beck and call, for one thing,” Dexter spoke while I processed the multiple layers of Sage’s admission, “and, for another, every pregnancy is different. Nobody has the same symptoms to the same degree as the next person.” When Sage lifted his head to blink at him, our other mate lifted his hands in a ‘what can you do?’ gesture. “I’ve been Googling.”
“Of course you have,” Sage’s reply was fond.
“But he’s correct,” I added softly. “And when we speak to Eric later, I am certain he will also agree. It doesn’t make you lesser or weak to take something that will help ease the symptoms.”
Sage’s shoulders slumped. “But Bran hadmultiplesand he didn’t need meds or whatever.”
“He also kept his first pregnancy a secret for the first trimester,” Dexter muttered, “so hecouldn’task for help. And his second one was easier, by all accounts.” He paused as Sage stared at him incredulously. “What?”
Sage pulled away from me entirely, heading towards the bedroom now that his nausea seemed to have abated. Over his shoulder he said, “I didn’t realize you’d gotten so close with my brother.”
