Page 22 of Once Upon a Dance Club Wish

With his hair appearing damp, and his chest covered in beads of sweat, Holden looked as spent as I felt. He braced his hands on the table and leaned over me, panting. “That was... You were...”

And that’s when we heard it. The first crack.

No time to enjoy the post-sex euphoria, I pushed Holden off me and nearly fell off the table in my rush to get over to my eggs. Upon close examination, I noticed one of them had a tiny fracture on its side and the egg seemed to vibrate from within. Only one though. The other two laid as still as they had for the last sixty days.

Holden came over and handed me a wet cloth. “Why don’t you go wash up? I’ll keep an eye on them. It’s likely to be a while before any of them make their way out.”

I used the cloth to wipe myself off, but I didn’t leave my clutch. “Chelone said they could take up to twenty minutes to hatch, but this one seems anxious to get out. And if one started, the others will be coming soon.”

“O-kay.” Holden sighed. He knew I wouldn’t budge.

I’d waited for the moment of their hatching for months.

“I’ll go get the nursery enclosure ready for them.”

Since I hadn’t laid my eggs in a hole the way turtle mothers would, my babies wouldn’t have the moisture and protection of the soil around them to keep them safe until they were strong enough to swim or shift for the first time. Chelone had said to keep them in a moist but not wet enclosure that wouldn’t dry out their egg sacs and would keep them from wandering off. He alsotold me not to help them out of their shells, a command I found very hard to follow.

I wanted to break into those shells and bring my little ones out to meet them for the first time. I had to sit on my hands to resist the temptation.

After placing the prepared enclosure beside our bed, Holden handed me a glass of water and joined me on the sleeping pad. “Any progress?”

I shook my head. “The egg is still moving, but there’s nothing more than a crack.”

We watched and waited until, finally, the crack turned into a little hole, our little one’s caruncle poking through. And the other two eggs began to move at the same time.

I gripped Holden’s hand. “They’re coming.”

We watched and waited over the next hour as the eggs hatched. As each of our little ones came out, we carefully lifted them from their shell, making sure their egg sac remained attached. We held them close to say hello then transferred them into the nursery. They didn’t move much once inside, but they’d just endured a hard journey out of their shells.

Knowing they were all safe in the enclosure, I took that time to have a bath, a temporary reprieve from parent worry since I couldn’t do anything for them at that moment. Though I knew while I relaxed in the tub, Holden watched them as closely as I would have to ensure nothing happened to our little ones. I truly loved my mate.

Chapter Twenty

Holden

As Nelson gathered our little ones and placed them in the travel carrier he had woven specifically for them, I stood back in admiration. Over the last few weeks, he’d adapted to being a parent of turtle shifters with complete ease. My mate had no issues with digging up grubs or visiting the community garden with our little ones, to get them food to eat. From the instant our babies had hatched from their shells, Nelson was obsessed with making sure they had everything they needed. Sure, it meant less time for only the two of us, but we didn’t need any more fertilized eggs to make an appearance until our first three were old enough to have some independence.

Once our babies had lost their egg sacs, we exposed them to water to get them used to swimming. At first, we put a platform in their nursery container and added an inch of water. They curiously walked down the ramp until they’d reached the edge of the water then dove right in. No hesitation from any of them. When they grew a little bigger, we did the same with the trough. Only, with more water and a bigger platform. Since that space was big enough, I joined them in my shifted form. The first time since I was a hatchling that I’d swum with other turtles.

But it was time to take our young ones to the pond, to let them experience a new and more natural environment. A place and time where they could get to know me and what it meant to be a turtle.

Nelson closed our children in the case and put on his hat. “You’re going to make sure they return, right? You’re not going to let them stay in the pond?”

“I promise they will all return with us for dinner.” With a kiss, I hoped to reassure my mate once again that our childrenwouldn’t leave him once they visited the pond. He feared no longer being needed, and of all of us leaving him alone in the hut, never to return. It had taken me several days simply to convince him to let his little boys go for an afternoon swim.

He released a heavy breath before taking my hand in his. “Okay, let’s go.”

Though he walked slower than usual, Nelson never suggested returning to the house. And when we reached the pond, he sat on our favorite log to watch me swim. Carefully, he picked each of our children out of their spot in the carrier and set them onto the ground.

Still worried Nelson might change his mind, I gave him a quick kiss and squeezed his hand before I shifted to my turtle form. Our children clicked and squeaked when I joined them, anxious to visit the pond where I once lived.

Two of them followed me down the bank toward the edge of the pond, but the other remained closer to Nelson, more reluctant to leave him.

“Come on, little one,” I clicked at him. “Your daddy will wait right there for all of us to return. He’s not going anywhere.” That I was sure of. Not until we were all safely back in front of him.

The little one twisted his neck back to look at Nelson then pushed his way across the dirt to join his brothers.

Once in the water, we practiced floating for a bit then gliding across the surface of the water. I showed them the best spot to wait for bugs to drop into the water and let them snack on a couple ants that had demonstrated the location perfectly.

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