“We bonded over trying to rescue you, actually,” Dexter followed him out the door. “It’s a fun story.”
I snorted, but I was sure Sage would be just as pleased by those developments as I was. After all, Dexter had struggled with fitting in with the pack, and with convincing Sage’s family that he was a changed dragon. Though it had taken a particularly stressful event to force the issue, it was good for him to have befriended someone other than just the two of us, and Sage would come to see things that way, too.
“Move your sexy arse, Alpha,” Dex’s teasing cut into my musings, “unless you’re not coming to the clinic with us.”
I didn’t need to be told twice, even if I did have two mates.
This second visit to the clinic’s ultrasound room was less stressful than our first. Despite his morning spent throwing up, Sage looked much healthier than the night we’d brought him back from that awful cell, and he wasn’t shrouded in tension and disbelief as he lay on the exam bed. He’d spent the past two weeks coming to terms with being pregnant, accepting that it had happened without a knot or a mating heat of his own, and —especially courtesy of the random bouts of morning sickness— he seemed convinced that we hadn’t been mistaken.
For my part, my protective urges were still in hyperdrive, but I was no longer paranoid about letting him out of my sight. I wasn’t entirely certain the same could be said for Dexter, but he managed to hide his own worries from us, even with the bond in play. Perhaps his friendship with Brandt was helping him manage his own concerns, given that Brandt was keeping an eagle eye on Sage as well.
Eric’s contribution to our combined protective urges was more subtle, but obvious in the careful and thorough checkups he gave my pregnant mate. He took blood and urine samples, blood pressure, and other assorted measurements. He grilled Sage on how he had been feeling, then assured us that the morning sickness was a sign that things were still progressing as they should be.
“Of course,” he acknowledged as he set the ultrasound machine up, typing on the keyboard and plucking the ultrasound gel from the little warmer he kept it in, “that’s not to say that pregnant people who don’t have morning sickness should be concerned. Everyone’s bodies handle the hormone fluctuations and other changes differently.” He squirted a dollop of gel onto Sage’s stomach and grabbed for the transducer wand. “Look at Bran: he had pretty bad morning sickness when he was pregnant with the girls but barely felt nauseous with the boys.”
“It’s almost like I told you so,” Dex muttered smugly from his place at my side, his hand squeezing our mate’s shoulder, only for Sage to sigh and nod his head.
“Okay, okay, you were right. Do you want a medal?”
Dex’s eyes lit up. “I would love one, actually.”
Sage rolled his eyes. “For the love of—"
“Ah, gotcha!” Eric’s triumphant exclamation interrupted my mates’ banter, causing us all to turn our attention to the screen above us which mirrored the image on the monitor.
“It’s gotten bigger,” Eric said, pushing the cursor towards the gray blob in the middle of the wonky black circle, “and that flickering—” the arrow hovered over a spot in the middle of the gray blob “—is their heartbeat. Fast, strong, and steady. Textbook, even.”
“Can we hear it?” Sage asked, his pretty blue eyes locked on the fuzzy image. “Bran said—oh!”
Eric had flipped a switch, and a fast-paced sound —like a gallop, butwhooshinglike it was underwater— filtered through the speakers. It matched the speed of the flickering.
“That’s amazing,” Dexter breathed, his voice choked with emotion.
I couldn’t blame him: I was feeling overwhelmed by it all, too.
Of course, I had known it was real and that it was happening, but this —hearing their heart thumping away so steadily andseeingit on the screen— cemented the baby’s existence for me.
“It’s really happening,” Sage blinked, a wave of convoluted emotions washing through our bond. I could feel his relieffirst and foremost, then his joy, and his love. And, underneath it all, a hint of panic.
I snorted and squeezed his hand. “And here I thought the morning sickness had convinced you.”
He didn’t tear his gaze from the screen, his Adam’s apple bobbing before he said, “I just…I needed to hear their heartbeat. To know they really are okay. All that time in the cell…”
Suddenly, his panic wasn’t as amusing. When I thought it was at the prospect of having to look after a baby, it had been cute. But to think that he had spent the past two weeks still anxious about the effects of the magic-restrictive cell…well, that filled me with guilt and sadness.
“Sage, beautiful, you should have said something,” I murmured.
“It wouldn’t have changed anything.”
“We’re bonded,” Dexter rebuked gently, his fingers tightening around Sage’s shoulder again. “Even if we couldn’t change anything, we could have shared the emotional load or lent you our conviction that it was all going to be okay. Hell, we could have brought you to Eric for reassurance if you needed it.”
“Exactly,” I backed him up, speaking in a matching tone, full of warmth but also firm censure. “I know we are learning to keep everything from spilling through the bond between us, but these kinds of things aren’t trivial. You would expect me or Dexter to share similar fears with you, wouldn’t you?”
Sage bit his lip, still staring at the flickering peanut shape on the screen. “I would,” he eventually answered. “I just…I didn’t want to worry you.” Finally turning his head to face us, he shifted his watery blue gaze between Dexter and me. “I feel like I’ve done enough of that to last a lifetime.”
“You didn’tdoanything,” Dexter’s admonishment was more of a growl this time. I found it extremely arousing and worked hard to keep my inappropriate response from spilling through the bond, or from tenting my trousers. “Baby, it was all outside of your control. And, regardless of whether you want us to or not, Serge and I will always worry about you the same way you’ll worry about us. That’s just how this whole relationship thing is supposed to work.”
Sage blinked, then frowned, pouting, “I liked it better when I was the rational one and you were the brat everyone rolled their eyes at.”
