Page 32 of These Little Heirs
“Am I needed, babe?” Cade glanced up at his mate.
“No, Nicky’s okay. It’ll be hours before that baby moves. Nim is just overprotective. Manny made the mistake of telling him to keep an eye on Nicky before he left. They’re designing a new apartment building on the edge of town. Otherwise Manny would’ve stayed home.”
“Apartment building?” Cobalt asked his carrier.
“Yeah. Kids are growing up and not everyone wants a whole house. Plus, it’ll be a place to stick visitors. Liam isn’t fond of the idea of clearing more of the woods. Sure, we need to, probably, but there are ways around it. We gave up some good forest to grow our food. Taking much more might change the entire ecosystem and then everyone will call us non-magical humans,” Eston explained.
“Ewwwwww!” Cade crinkled his nose and Eston laughed before stealing a quick kiss and joining the others in the birthing room. “We don’t want to be stinky humans, do we, Robin? No, we’re fierce dragons. Rawr!”
The baby stirred in his sleep unimpressed with his grandpa’s antics.
The healer, Dara, arrived right on time but walked straight past us resting on the sofa as soon as he caught a whiff of Uncle Nicky in labor.
“Just a second,” Dara said before disappearing deep into the house as if he too lived here.
“He’s delivered enough babies here that he might as well move in,” Cobalt laughed, picking up on my thoughts over our mating link.
“No, thank you,” Cade shook his head. “He has too many mates and children. We’d have to set up beds in the cabinets. Heck, if we have many more we might have to set up beds in the cabinets.”
“Don’t look at us,” Cobalt said. “We’re down to one bedroom here in the house. We need that bedroom. What if someone gets sick or Baby Robin wants to spend the night here?”
“No one’s taking your bedroom,” Cade laughed. “We are going to build on a bit more, though. Probably looking into building up another story too.”
“Easier than not having more kids, huh?” Cobalt laughed.
“Just you wait,” Cade said, looking at the sleeping baby. “One is never enough and then you think you’re done for a while and the pixelated baby moons you.”
“Are they doing that on the tests now?” Cobalt blinked.
“Not yet,” Cade laughed as Dara made his way back into the living room.
“Are we waiting on the missing brother?” the healer asked after surveying the living room and not finding Indigo.
“Yes,” Cobalt, Ambry, and I said at the same time.
“Well, that settles that. Is that Baby Robin?” Dara asked, lighting up as if he’d never seen a baby before when, in fact, he’d met this baby not long ago.
“He is,” Cade nodded.
“Good. For a moment, thought you had another one and no one told me,” Dara chuckled leaning over for a look at the baby.
“Me!” the toddler called from Cobalt’s arms.
“You!” Dara stood up throwing his hands in the air. “Are you the baby of this house?”
“I AM!” The toddler roared.
“Baby Guppy!” Dara said. “Or is it Baby Grumpy?”
“Humphry! Family name!” The toddler corrected him as he was scooped up onto Dara’s side.
“A fine family name at that!” Dara nodded.
The baby rested his head on Dara’s shoulder as the dragon alpha swayed in place with him. I was glad he had someone to keep him occupied until Indigo returned.
The healer paced the floor, carrying the toddler dozed off against him. Dara hummed under his breath, mixing the melody with a mechanical sounding draconic purr. If we stayed in Heartville would our baby have that sort of support network too?
“Yeah,” Cobalt whispered and kissed my temple. “But that’s for you two to decide on. I don’t want to take you so far from home unless you’re absolutely sure about it.”
