Page 61 of The Baby Hex
“So all we can do now is wait?” I asked.
“And be careful,” Teal said.
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and she won’t come back,” Preston shrugged. “I’m not taking any chances but it’s like the whole of Earthside is watching out for her. At that point, I’d cut my losses and try to have a baby of my own. It’s not about the baby. Not really. She wants the power. She wants a baby who has magic like her and then some. My kid isn’t someone’s instrument of power or destruction. My bear cub is going to be a chubby wubby little furball who spends hours rolling down hills because he’s silly.”
The chatter continued but I lost track of the conversation. What would my baby be like? Would they be just a crow with pointed ears? Would they pick up the vampyric gene and the wolf? None of the above? Would they like to fly and play loud music? Would they have my eyes or Pierce’s?
I made my way away from the table with the crow still prattling on in my thoughts. Pierce tried to follow me but I waved him off, saying that he should catch up with his parents. When he finally came up to the attic a few hours later after everyone had went back to their own homes, I was curled around the nest which now housed a blue-green egg with little black speckles all over it. I stroked the egg’s hard shell and grinned up at him. My bird had known what to do and when to do it.
Pierce stretched out behind me and spooned in. I leaned back against him, happy that he stayed despite me taking my shields down. Happy that he still wanted to be here with me. I dozed on and off thinking of my grandmother. Had she used such magic because she feared everyone would leave her? Had it started out so simple? My sire used it because his mate was dead, and he had been lied to about why he was killed.
“You’re not that person,”Pierce whispered into my dreams.“You’re you and you’re mine. You don’t need some magical walls to keep me with you. I’d spend all eternity by your side, if only you let me.”
His words swam through my thoughts dragging me down into the deep abyss of true sleep.
Chapter Thirty
Pierce
As much as I wanted to keep Crilus locked away in the house we both needed some fresh air. We weren’t ready for time apart yet and that was okay. Time apart was for when you felt smothered and while sometimes I drowned in how much I cared about him, I wasn’t smothered and unless he learned to lie over our mating link, neither was he.
Going out with an egg in the nest took some preparations. We couldn’t just lock up the house and leave the egg alone and we weren’t willing to be apart yet. So, we set about making an egg pouch that Crilus would wear around his neck. If something went south, he’d take off with the egg, seeking the high ground, unless we were attacked by a dragon for some reason, and I’d fight with the sort of magic I rarely had occasion to pull out.
While we were happy to go alone to the bar, Medwin Moonscale insisted on sending a guard car to tail us. If they weren’t guys I enjoyed working with, they may have been my lunch instead of the okra and jalapeno poppers Crilus pulled out of the freezer and cooked up while I went from room to room sweeping up any left behind glass. By the time we sat down to eat the bar was more or less ready for the public again. We talked plans for the bar’s future in circles. The immediate plan was to offer Raiel a promotion to bar manager, if he’d take it.
“They’ve been getting paid for their normal hours even though the bar’s been closed,” Crilus said. “I have insurance that takes care of all that. It was one of the things I wouldn’t open the bar until I could buy because I didn’t want anyone who threw their lot in with mine to get screwed over if my life blew up.”
He’d be back at the bar as soon as he felt that the baby was old enough to be away from him. I reminded him that during the day I could hang out in the upstairs apartment where he lived not so long ago if he really needed or wanted to be at the bar. He reminded me that most of the business at a bar is done after dark.
“It’s not like I’ll be gone forever but while I’m chest feeding, I’ll stay home as much as I can. Besides, milk pumps freak me out. I’m not a cow or a goat!”
I smirked thinking of milk running down his chest and stomach, rolling lower and lower until ---
“Hey!” he swatted my arm, having picked up the thought over our mating link. “That is baby food not something for you to lap up as an excuse to go down on me.”
“Do I really need an excuse?” I asked, turning his barstool so that he faced me.
“I have an egg around my neck, mister!” he said and playfully swatted my thigh.
“Okay, okay. I won’t offer to give you a mind-blowing orgasm to help you relax,” I said, mock rejection tickling my words.
“I’ll cash that in tonight when the baby’s back in the nest and I’m holding you to the mind-blowing part. If I’m still able to rub two brain cells together and make a coherent thought, you have to start all over again. In the meantime, we have baby shopping to do. Put your dick brain in your back pocket until we’re finished. SC is still on the loose.”
I wasn’t sure when we started calling Sharon Claudis ‘SC’ but that was her new name now as far as we were concerned.
***
I’ve always thought it was a shame that some of the best days of life were always the ones that passed the quickest. Croweggs incubate for approximately three weeks. In our case it was eighteen days. Eighteen days filled with shopping, rearranging the house to ‘baby-proof’ it, and being surprised by various events whenever we returned home from our various outings. All three of Crilus’s parents came over in cahoots with mine to have not only a mating feast for us but a baby shower too. The little attic nursery was filled with everything a baby could ever want or need. Morvan and Rho both attended, bringing their baby, Cutter, who froze into a little stone gargoyle whenever anything startled him. He was adorable and always made me wonder what sort of cute and funny treats we were in for with our own kids.
With Teal’s help, I changed out the attic window with one that opened outwards to allow bird-sized people to fly in and out with ease. It was too small for even Crilus to contort and fit through in human form. Mori could barely squeeze through in wolf form but Venal and SC were both bears, and they weren’t known for being sleek and slender.
We spent so much time in the car getting things ready for our baby’s arrival that most of the chatting about names took place there too. Our discussion raked in names from everywhere but never quite settled on any singular theme. Whenever Mori was included, he always tossed out floral names like Lavender or Sage but none of them ever sat right with us.
“Maybe Belladonna or Yew,” Crilus said one afternoon, tucking his phone into his pocket.
All morning, Mori had sent lists of flowery names. Sometime between Crilus’s first and only ultrasound and our baby shower he had a vision of holding a raven-haired baby girl. If Crilus’s oldest brother wasn’t named Raven, we might’ve been that bloody cliché. Truth be told we were leaning toward names that spoke of magic and perhaps even a few rough edges. Belladonna and Yew were both common names, though.
“Hex,” I teased him. “We’ll call her Hex and if it turns out the baby is a boy we can still use Hex.”
