Page 61 of Expensive

“Good. Normal. You should go to your appointment today.”

The doctor doesn’t know when I’ll lay our eggs, just that it will be sometime in the next few weeks. Red wolf shifters have longer gestation periods than ice dragon shifters. Our babies seem to be growing at a rate somewhere in between.

The fact that there are two of them was a nice surprise.

He kisses my forehead. “Alright. It will be nice to have this done before we have eggs to care for, huh?”

“Yes.”

For the most part, I don’t want the huge fortune I inherited from Edward Monroe. I donated the land where the mansion once stood to the Lost Wolves Sanctuary. I also gave them enough money to build a rehabilitation facility in the spot where I spent the worst years of my life.

I plan to donate the rest of the Monroe money to Howard’s clinic as a way to thank him for what he did for us. But there was one thing I wanted for Timber that burned through a good chunk of my inheritance. And today he finally gets to have it.

“Do you think it will hurt?” I ask. The pain Timber went through during his sacrifice will always haunt me.

“Some things are worth a little pain, baby boy. I’ll be fine.” He sits up, and Chubs, the hippo stuffie, joins Julius on the floor. “Sorry, Chubs.”

“You’re a merciless tyrant, throwing them overboard like that,” I say with a straight face. “The floor is lava.”

His lips quirk up into a smile. “Is that right?” He grabs Bluebell, an ice dragon stuffie identical to the one lost in the fire, and he holds her over the side of the bed. “Crown me as the stuffie king, or I will toss your friend into the pit of lava.” He says it in this deep, dramatic voice.

I giggle. He’s so fun to play with.

“The stuffies will never surrender!” I take Pig and Cow, who were both named in a very literal way, and push them into his chest. “Stuffie power!”

He screams in fake agony and collapses back on the bed, sticking his tongue out to the side. “I’ve been slain!”

I sprawl out next to him and wrap my arm around his body. “If you say you’re sorry to the stuffies, they might forgive you. Well, the ones that haven’t drowned in lava, that is.”

“What if I’m not sorry?” he says, then launches himself to the other side of the bed and tickles my feet.

I try to kick him away. “Daddy!”

“Crown me as the stuffie king!”

I crawl away from him. “We’ll never give up! Never surrender!”

Daddy’s eyes flick to the alarm clock by our bedside. It’s almost seven o’clock.

He has to go.

“Well, we might surrender in exchange for forehead kisses,” I say.

He gathers me in his arms and kisses my forehead several times. I rest my head against his hairy chest contentedly.

Sometimes I wonder what I did to deserve this much happiness.

“I’ll only be gone until four. Call me if you need me, okay?” Timber says.

“Okay.”

He lifts me off his lap and sets me back on the bed.

“What are you looking forward to most?” I ask him.

He stands up and walks toward the dresser. “Running in my wolf form. It’s been so long, baby boy. Sixteen years.” His face tenses as he realizes that it’s also been a few months since I’ve been able to take my animal form.

But my situation isn’t as dire as we feared.

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