Page 72 of Where the Current Takes Him
“Loriun told you to abort it. And that caused a fight.” Jaime paused. “To me, that says some part of you doesn’t want to do it.”
Beau was speechless. Whyhadhe gotten so angry over the idea of terminating? He should have jumped at the chance to get his life back on track, yet he didn’t.
“And…” Jaime’s eyes darted to his mate. “I know what it’s like to find yourself pregnant and afraid. Our first was not planned. I might argue he was less planned than your situation.” He chuckled. “But I couldn’t give him up. He was a piece of me and Vuos. I wanted to bring him into the world, even though Vuos thought I was insane.”
“I did not think you were insane,” Vuos objected. “I thought you were being flippant with your health.”
Jaime rolled his eyes. “In the end, there’s no right or wrong choice. It’s about what feels right to you, and only you.”
“What if I don’t know what feels right?” Beau asked helplessly.
Jaime smiled. “It’ll come to you.”
Beau stayed for a while longer, listening to stories about Jaime and Vuos’s children, and Jaime’s four pregnancies. Seeing the happy, stable couple was reassuring. If they made it through four kids, surely he and Loriun could make it through one.
Eventually, Beau felt calm enough to call Loriun and ask him to drive to a nearby brunch cafe. If they were in public, they were less likely to fight. That, and Beau was starving.
Loriun was subdued when he pulled up to the house. His eyes flickered to Beau’s face, but he remained quiet. He didn’t seem angry anymore. Instead, he looked sad and defeated.
“I’m sorry I yelled,” Beau said softly. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“No.” Loriun shook his head. “Iam sorry. I was trying to force you to make a choice you were not ready to make. I let myself become too emotional. It will not happen again.”
Beau offered him a small smile, but didn’t speak again as they set off for the cafe.
Chapter 30
Loriun
It wasn’t until Beau was seated at the restaurant that Loriun dared to speak. “So… you are still considering… carrying the nymph to term?”
Beau glanced up from the menu, wrinkling his nose. “Nymph?”
“Baby,” Loriun amended.
“You call them nymphs?” Beau shook his head. “Sounds like a baby bug.”
“The word in Loaish isnuaia. But your scientists concluded that ‘nymph’ was a suitable translation.”
“Sounds racist.”
Loriun closed his eyes, willing away the sudden anxiety-induced irritation. “We can discuss the minutiae of language later. I need to know what you are thinking about our situation.”
Beau let his gaze drop back down to the menu. “It’s a lot to take in,” he mumbled. “A lot to think about.”
Something invisible squeezed Loriun’s chest. “Yes. Of course. I understand.”
And it was the truth, to some extent. Loriun could never fully grasp what it must be like to face a pregnancy, much lessan unplanned one. But trying to keep his longing for this child in balance with his rational thinking… It was torture.
He’d grown up watching his species die. Watching nymphs perish in the egg. Hearing the endless grief of parents whose children never took their first breath. This was something Beau couldn’t comprehend.
A bright voice startled Loriun out of the depths of self-pity.
“Good morning, gentlemen. My name’s Eurie and I’ll be your server today.” The girl had to be no more than eighteen, with springy coils of hair in a halo around her face. Her deep brown skin looked human at first, but as she set two glasses of water on the table, the light caught her scales. They were iridescent, casting rainbows along her fingertips, and harmonizing with the oil-slick manicure on each of her Mer-like claws.
A hybrid.
“Have you decided what you’d like, or should I give you a few minutes with the menu?” Eurie asked, smiling. Her eyes were a shade of blue so dark, it was nearly black.
