Page 9 of Claimed for Eternity

“Mori might actually open his ‘paranormal investigation’ business,” I said gently.

“Huh? I thought he put that idea away when he opened Mori’s Mementos. He has a business now. Who runs that if he goes off and fights ghosts?”

“He’s not going to fight ghosts. Fighting ghosts usually turns out to be a waste of time and he knows that. To answer your question, Preston would take over the shop.”

“They’ve told you this?”

“Preston did. I think he slipped up and told me more than Mori wants us to know yet, but you know how Preston is. Put a box of doughnuts in front of him and he might as well drink truth serum,” I sighed.

“So no traveling the world unless Preston magically grows some of your magic?” I arched a brow.

“Maybe we could. I mean, if you really want to we could figure something out.”

“Mate, I want you to be less stressed,” Barry said. “If traveling does that, then I want to travel. I want to be where you are, but I also want you to be where you’re the happiest.”

“What about you?” I asked him, eyeing the wand he still hadn’t used.

“I’m happiest next to you,” he said.

“Mushy,” I laughed but leaned up on my elbows for a long, slow kiss. “I shouldn’t complain,” I said, laying back down. “Having a mate who’s happy just to breathe next to me makes life easier.”

“Then I’m doing my job right,” he said, glancing at my belly.

We fell quiet as he pressed the wand against my flesh. Goosebumps rose on my back and arms as if he’d rubbed something else on me. As phallic shaped as the ultrasound wand was it was hard not to think about Barry’s naked body rubbing against mine.

A second later, he grinned down at the screen. Calculations went off inside his thoughts and his wolf’s tail wagged inside the inner sanctum he shared with my bear. Barry and his wolf loved all our children equally, but we had more bears than wolves and his inner beast was always happy to welcome another wolf to the pack. Our baby was a wolf.

“Huh,” Barry said, still holding the wand to my stomach as he handed me the bit with the monitor on it. Our baby was a jellybean but even I had seen enough sonograms now to know the slight difference between a wolven and bear jellybean in utero. Our baby was definitely a wolf pup.

“Huh, what?” I asked Barry.

“I was wrong. My guess was bear cub.”

“Can we still travel?” I asked, pushing myself upright once I made sure there were plenty of screenshots of our jellybean to print out later.

“Yeah. We won’t have as big of a window as we would with nine-ish months to play with, but there’s no reason not to go. We’ll just have to wrap it up in a month or so.”

“We can do that,” I said, as he powered down the machine. “Even just a week away would be fun. Make a big difference too.”

“Now, to carry you off---”

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

“Chad’s in labor!” Fran an anxious first-time sire pounded her big, bear fist against the door.

“Shit,” Barry swore under his breath as he popped up off the floor like bread shooting out of a toaster.

“Later?” I offered, flashing him a sheepish smile.

“Definitely, later,” he said, sprinting toward the door and grabbing up his medical bag before dashing off with Fran.

There were plenty of healers who could deliver babies, but most sires still ran for me or Barry. It wasn’t always convenient, but I knew my mate took more pride in it than he let on.

Chapter Six

Barry

It turned out that ‘later’ wasn’t until we were on our vacation. Baby after baby decided to enter the world while we packed for our European trip. I hated leaving Xenos to do most of the packing by himself and to book all the last-minute details, but he didn’t seem to mind. Doing all the scheduling left him little time to think about how we’d get to Europe. I figured we’d take a plane but as usual my mate had other ideas. With the Other World gateways open to us, our trip from Hemlock Other World Gateway to the closest one to VILLAGE. Yes, the elves there named their village the elvish word for village. Part of me was ninety percent sure they only did stuff like that to piss off the dragons. Namely one dragon: Clarence Moonscale. Back in his younger days his shinymania made him fight with various elven clans over their shiny treasures. These days, there were a lot more truces and a lot less fighting.

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