Page 11 of Mated in the Stars

“What is happening? It’s too much. Too everything!” Elio shook his head. “I feel fine! Will our egg be okay?”

“Everything and everyone will be okay,” I said and meant it.

“That’s what you have to tell me,” he said as tears welled up in his eyes again.

“No, it’s not. If you’re not feeling anything bad yet, that’s a good sign. It means you’re not in distress and the baby can’tbe in distress. The baby is just a little egg. Our baby doesn’t know anything is going wrong. That egg brat just knows you’re a little upset and that we’re up in the sky again. So, we’re gonna breathe through this and we’re going to get to the ship and hear out Izora. C-sections happen all the time with furry shifters and with some dragons when they can’t deliver the live births their bodies have grown. Hell, I’ve performed an emergency c-section before,” I said and winced at what I just admitted to.

“Did the carrier survive?” Izora asked from nearby

“Yeah. Twins did too. Had to make one breathe but both of them are alive and well. Moved from the GGB to some place that was once part of the Wildlands,” I nodded. “That’s before Doctor Michael Lawngry was in Green Bay. That’s one of the reasons I wanted a real doctor there. I never wanted to do that again.”

“Don’t blame you. Doesn’t sound like you had the right equipment.”

“If the carrier wasn’t an alpha, I don’t think it would’ve ended great,” I admitted.

“Alpha?” Marsin asked.

“They were an AFAB alpha, idiot,” Elio laughed. “Right?” He glanced at me as if to ensure he was not the idiot.

“She was and lucky for her, the doctors guessed right,” Fred laughed.

“I remember the first time I told Clarence the term AFAB and he thought I was talking about someone being in afib and he started poking everyone in the hospital for a crash cart.”

“Assigned Fucking Insanely Beautifully?” I laughed.

“Maybe,” Izora nodded.

It turned out that Elio’s stomach was done for the moment, and he was able to fly part of the way back to the ship on his own but I still couldn’t take my eyes off him. While I didn’t like to admit I performed a surgery on a close friend without any real qualifications for it, the story did its job and calmed Elio down.

Back at the ceremonial grounds Minter rambled to Teddy and the others about how many doors he had seen. In particular, he described the grain of our bathroom door as ‘squiggly worm.’ Maybe he’d grow up to be an artist.

Chapter Six

Teddy

“I don’t know what sort of tree makes squiggle worm wood, buddy,” I laughed and ruffled Minter’s hair.

He shot me a dirty look that reminded me of our sire as he smoothed it out clumsily. I messed it up again because I also inherited too many of our sire’s genes.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Liatris asked, drawing my attention away from the squiggle worm in my arms.

“Hush will have to get over it. You wanted privacy. They want a door. This is the best time to do it. That way we have some time to set everything up and figure out stuff,” Selt said.

“If they’re mad, what can they do about it? If any of them raise too big of a fuss you shut the door and refuse to give it back until they behave,” Xav shrugged.

Their backs were to me as if I were the one who might run off and tell everyone of their secret plans.

“Not you,”Selt said over the flight link.“The baby doesn’t know better. Selatris is asleep inside the tent, so he doesn’t hear and accidentally leak something either.”

Xav was almost as broad as Selt now. Whatever work out or diet changes he made since moving here was really fucking working for him.Really freaking working for him.

“Hey!”Selt snapped over the flight link.“Do who you want, but he’s a little too close for comfort.”

I almost told him I wouldn’t screw his new friend, but I wanted to follow that up with he didn’t have many real friends and for that reason I wouldn’t do something that made Xav or me distant from him. Xav was hot but so was almost every other single person on all of the Starscale worlds.

“Buddy, everyone is getting mad at me these days,” I sighed.

“Me no mad!” Minter shook his head and hugged my neck. “Me no mad.”

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