Page 97 of Guarded By the Nightmare

“But?”

“My own parents died, Sylas.” And I was hit with a sudden pang of emotion, like a lightning bolt. Our baby would never know any grandparents, and my mom will never see them, and—and—and?—

“Oh, Mina,” Sylas said, wrapping himself around me, right before I sobbed.

“I hate this!” I protested, turning into him. I’d read online about how emotional pregnancy could make you, but I didn’t believe it until it happened to me. “I saw a three-legged dog on a walk the other day while you were gone, Sylas, and I started bawling,” I complained to him, as my eyes filled up with tears. “I don’t even know why! The dog looked happy!”

I felt a chuckle rumble through his body. “My queen,” he murmured, and pushed me back so he could see my face.

“And then there’s everything else—what if it hates me? Or you? And what about global warming?”

He brought his lips down to kiss my tears off of my cheeks. “Your fears are as delicious as they are unfounded.”

“How do you know?” I said, pouting.

“I just do. Come here,” he said, shifting himself and me, so that he was now under me on the couch, andI was using him as a pillow. “You may cry when you like, my queen, but try to save your tears for me. You know I will make you feel good afterward.”

I sniffed. “It was a really cute dog,” I said in my defense, and he laughed, placing one of his hands against my belly, where the difference between my pale skin—now with a few stretch marks—and his fingertips was stark.

I couldn’t even see my lambda scar from here—but I wore the empty hourglass mark on my arm with pride.

He nuzzled his face against mine and whispered in my ear. “Open your legs for me and let me pleasure you.”

I did as I was told, while making a small, surrendering sound.

73

SYLAS

I didn’t mindwhen Mina was messy.

I stayed beside her every night I could when I wasn’t off at work, even though I didn’t sleep.

I just rested, holding her, wondering about our future, and protecting her from her dreams.

Just because we were in love with one another didn’t mean everything was perfect, or that her mind still didn’t have all sorts of cruel traps to spring on her. She spent most of the first week we were back in her apartment crying, while I think everything caught up—how close she’d come to death, to losing me, missing her parents, regaining her friend. All I did was hold her, take her back and forth for daily showers, and make her eat.

She was bright, and angry, and fierce, but she also wanted to be soft, and deserved to be, after having been battle hardened by life, so I strove to make space for all the many versionsof her I knew she possessed.

I knew too she was scared about being a parent. She felt terribly young, and she was—but she knew I would be there, and Ella as well. I chose not to view her deep friendship with the other woman as a threat because I knew it wasn’t, but also because I had spent centuries cultivating fear and hate...it was honestly probably good for me to watch love in action. Seeing as I had no needs other than Mina in my life, it was hardly any effort to lodge and feed Ella, especially when she was the reason Mina was with me to begin with—plus I appreciated her being with Mina, when my work took me away.

I had already negotiated time off with Monster Security—I hadn’t told Mina yet, but I would be off for at least the next year, while we figured out how to add a child to our life. I could sense the baby well enough—seeing as it was dreaming, in a way, inside of her—to know that it was safe and healthy, and as for the rest of everything, we’d decided to deal with it as it came. There was a hospital close by where we go could when it was time, but Mina didn’t want to go to any classes because she didn’t want anyone to stare. She was a little bit of a local celebrity, after testifying in the fraternity’s ongoing legal case, because ancillary members without tattoos but who appeared to have knowledge of the ceremonies were being charged.

She wanted precisely what she had told me in the bone pit—to be normal.

She just hadn’t quite grasped yet that she would always be exceptional, to me.

But that was all right—I would just keep showing her.

I shifted her on top of me so that my hard-on could rock through her thighs, as I stroked claw-tips over her belly. She shivered, and one of her hands came up to play with one of her newly bigger breasts and pinch a nipple—and I used my free hand to haul the rest of her dress up higher.

“Iwould watch you,” I told her, feeling her thighs squeeze.

“You make me come so hard, Sylas,” she whispered, sinking into anticipation.

“I know.”

“And you’re so humble,” she teased, as I leaned forward and wrapped my hands around the backs of her knees.

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