Page 17 of The Sapphire Dragon's Missing Mate

“I didn’t even know we had these pillows.” Stone had been helping out around here a lot. But I didn’t let him help as much as he wanted to. He had his job, too. Sure he could and did do it remotely, but asking him to do mine on top of his own— I couldn’t bring myself to do that.

And I hadn’t exactly told my boss about the pregnancy yet. He would only find some reason to be pissed at it and, since I was a short-timer, I figured why rock the boat.

“Well, I do need them.” They weren’t even good, but that didn’t make a difference to me. “I dreamed we need them.”

I piled them the rest of them into the laundry cart and pushed them back toward where I’d had Stone set up my clothesline earlier in the week. There were no poles in the ground. Instead he’d attached a hook to one of the trees and a second to the cabin. To that he added the line. It was pretty darn clever, if you asked me.

If you asked the squirrels, they would say the same. I based that 100 percent on the fact that they couldn’t stay away from it while it was up. Stone sketched them one day, only in his sketches, they were wearing circus hats.

For some reason, I still hadn’t been able to figure out, I couldn’t let that particular pillow dream go. For whatever reason, it was important enough for me to have it stick so strongly. No harm could come from indulging in it, so I figured I might as well.

We hung up the pillows, which was exponentially more difficult than I’d imagined. Then I was going to bring the laundry basket back, but Stone insisted he return it.

“Now what?” he asked when he came back to find me staring at my pillows. There were about thirty-five.

“We let them air out.” I shrugged. “That’s as far as my dream got.”

“Okay. Do you want to take a nap?” He spoke my love language.

Also, obviously, that was a trick question. I always wanted to take a nap or go to bed early these days. Pregnancy liked to keep me on my toes, though, and a few times I couldn’t sleep despite best practices.

“Yeah, I’d like that.”

We went up to the house, and I lay on my side while he curled up behind me, holding me close. I fell asleep pretty quickly. It was no surprise—I was absolutely exhausted. What was surprising was that when I woke up, it was getting dark out. I’d missed most of the day. Which was fine. Between the two of us, we were managing to get a lot of the little things done around here.

I didn’t know why I was so vested in the place, but I was, and, as much as I was excited to go meet Stone’s brothers and maybe start a new life, I also really liked my old one. If not for my craptastic job, this would be an ideal setting for growing our family.

I woke starving and headed for the fridge for something to eat. Everything sounded awful. I even tried a cracker from the cupboard. Nope. My body didn’t want food, as much as it was lying to me.

“Argg!” I cried out in frustration.

My mate ran in. “What’s—”

I cut him off with a look. “I’m just feeling weird.”

That was the very wrong thing to say. The next thing I knew, he had me flat on my back on the bed, the midwife on her way over, and my mate taking control of everything like a boss.

It became obvious what was happening shortly before Parma got there. She offered me a choice of laying the eggs on the nest or giving birth to them in a more old-fashioned way. I opted for that. It was how I always expected to give birth, and I couldn’t think of one good reason not to.

Soon I was squeezing and pushing, trying to deliver our eggs. My mate stood by my side, cheering me on, giving me someone to hold on to, and doing anything and everything I asked of him. I might’ve been the one who laid the eggs, but he was the MVP.

“Look what we made.” I was so overwhelmed with happiness. I didn’t know if they were boys or girls or one of each. Heck, I didn’t fully understand how they were going to get out of there, only that they were.

The one thing I did know was that I already loved them completely.

“You did all the hard work.” He helped me get settled on the nest with them.

That was where he was wrong. The man had been holding down the fort, while working his job and putting up with my cravings and mood swings. He did the heavy lifting on this one. “I couldn’t have done it without you, my love.”

Chapter Fifteen

Stone

With our two beautiful eggs in the nest, I learned that some things were instinctual even if you were not born a dragon. Or at least they were for my mate because Arvin not only constructed the beautiful nest—which he did have Pinterest help for—but he also laid those eggs like a champ.

“You know, I thought I might be disappointed to have eggs instead of actual babies to cuddle.” He said this while stroking one of the eggs, so the words didn’t hold much sting. “But then I forced myself to realize that I would never have had the babies this fast, so having them here in their shells is bonus time with them.”

“And you’re a lot more comfortable, with that hard belly gone.”

---