Page 25 of Truly Madly Magically

His mouth firms. He doesn’t argue with me or come back with any sucker punch comments of his own. “It’s protection, and before you get all wound up, it’s about our kid, okay? Are you really going to argue about extra protection for our kid, Ellowyn?”

I almost have a vision of a child with his gray eyes and my—

But no. Summoners see the past, not the future.

I’ll take anything from him when it comes to protecting this kid. Particularly after last night. Particularly after running into Maeve and getting her creepy, sandbagging magic all over me.

I let him drop the pendant over my head. As soon as he does, I feel encased (embraced) in that warm, safe magic I recognize all too well.

Zander’s magic. Rivers magic. I shouldn’t look at him, but I’m only human.

Well. Half.

His gaze holds mine. Our whole complicated past swirls between us like a ghost. All those old hurts I swore I’d healed throb, like new scars marking me where I stand.

How am I going to do this parenting thing with him when we’re a never-healed wound?

I don’t ask him that, because that feels like a wound all its own.

“They can’t know about this,” he says, nodding toward my belly.

I don’t argue, which is some kind of record for us. This long in each other’s company without arguing or getting naked. Go us.

Instead, I consider what Zander’s saying. About protecting our baby from the Joywood. I think about Maeve Mather and her nasty, twisted little cronies—who I’ve always known hated me—and what they might do to my kid.

My mother had to get a special dispensation to raise me as a witch instead of letting me flounder about as a human with a few questionable “talents.” The Joywood allowed her to do it, but they never let it go. They still haven’t.

The current prevailing theory we’ve discussed in a million coven meetings since Ostara is that they could have exterminated us all at birth—especially Emerson and Rebekah, who came with a prophecy—but that’s not the Joywood way. They like playing games with the people they consider their prey. We weren’t supposed to get powerful enough to actually be a threat.

They’ll know about my baby at some point, of course. I don’t know what kind of energy hiding a whole pregnancy will take, but my guess is more than I’ve got. I start to tell Zander this, but stop when an even worse thought occurs to me. “What if they already know?”

He considers this with the kind of horror it’s due. His gaze never leaves mine, and all of this feels a little too much like teamwork. The kind we might have engaged in when we were still together.

“Say it,” he says.

It’s the real test. “The Joywood know I’m pregnant.”

Truth.

He sucks in a hard breath.

I’m not done though, because the timing of last night’s attack doesn’t make sense. Unless we’re missing something. Or... “The Joywood care that I’m pregnant.”

“Fuck,” he mutters.

“Why the hell do they care?” I demand.

He shakes his head. “I have no idea, but we’ll find out. We’ll figure it out and protect this baby.”

He’s so sure. So...determined.

“Come on,” he mutters, and I follow him up onto the ferry.

I stand by the rail as Zander goes to work, but no matter how I turn it over in my head, I can’t believe this is really about me. It has to be about Zander. I’m just the vessel for a powerful future Guardian and Summoner baby, that’s all.

I try not to think about it while I ride back and forth as Zander works his shift. As he flirts with all the women. Makes dad jokes with all the men. That’s not new. What is new is when he makes a random kid laugh or gasp in wonder as he points out Storm dive-bombing from above or Ruth waiting serenely in her favorite tree by the ferry terminal.

I try not to imagine him with our kid, but I do.

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