Page 34 of A Drink of Destiny
Raiel muttered a quick apology to the midwife before turning his attention on me.
“I’m not mad. I’m not even upset. If that would’ve worked and he was willing, I’d probably have gone for it – eventually but the thought of another vampire sucking on you doesn’t sit well with me.”
“Mate, I wasn’t inviting him to suck on me,” Raiel smirked. “If he needs to taste that to know if I’m eating enough to support your drinking habits, he’s SOL.”
“Uh… That would be an interesting medical test,” I said, turning crimson at the thought despite the fact we’d romped and mated enough to make a baby.
“Here?” he whispered. “Really?”
“Nope!” I turned around, trying and failing not to laugh. “I need to get dressed.”
“Not for that test you don’t. We always make a mess of things,” he teased, but stepped in front of the door to guard it again.
“My brave protector.”
“Hey, I didn’t eat the doctor. My lion was up for it too,” he said.
“No, you just invited the doctor to eat you,” I laughed.
Chapter Twenty-One
Raiel
Moonscale London
On the way back to the guesthouse we stopped at an inter-world mailbox and sent off some copies of the sonograms to Alvis’s sons and my parents back home. We picked up a few pizzas for a late lunch and Mori for his first lesson in amulet making. While the omegas ate and talked shop, I headed upstairs and searched some things up on my phone. I found several forums and message boards where mates of vampires discussed their diets. Though, I couldn’t be sure any of it was true. I scrolled through for a bit before searching again and ending up on a page from a hospital in Spain that specialized in vampyric medicine. It sort of felt like they were telling me to eat a wild diet, take a vitamin, and hydrate like I meant to cause rainy Moonscale London to sink into a drought.
They were still studying by the time I decided my diet was probably fine since I grew up with what some of them called ‘intuitive eating.’ I ate what I craved, and it was mostly fresh meat and things that could be foraged. Sure, we had bread and the like back home, but it was more of a treat than the main meal. Still, I liked pizza, and it hadn’t killed me or made my mate malnourished yet.
With more time on my hands, I started shopping for the baby or at least I started filling up the cart. Alvis and I hadn’t decided where we’d live yet, and I wasn’t sure how long his friends were willing to let us stay here. Also, how much stuff could we buy for the baby if we were traveling around? I could carry just about anything but only had so many arms and so much back to put it on.
Once he set Mori to practice coming up with artistic ways to represent abstract ideas, I looked up to see Alvis leaning in the doorway.
“We can stay as long as we’d like. They built extra houses so that they could have their own little vampyric community and we’re part of that. I’m not against living with Nic and Beal but figure they have their hands full with the kitten and the baby and Annila taking off.”
“So, I can buy a nursery set?” I asked, arching a brow. “Back home I’d have done all the work of making it but here other designers do it and count on people buying it so that they can survive. It’s like some weird sort of hunting. Unless you have a preference. You’ve done this before. Five times before.”
“Something that isn’t going to fall down,” Alvis teased, sinking onto the bed with me. He reached out for my phone, and I passed it off to him. He spent a few minutes scrolling the cart. His grin spread wider every few seconds.
“Am I going overboard?” I asked him.
“No, this is a lot of good stuff. The carpenter is a vampire too,” he said.
“I know. I searched vampire baby furniture,” I shrugged. “I wasn’t sure if a crib and a bassinet were overkill, but we can afford it, and it has a five-hundred-year warranty. So, if something breaks with a future kid, he’ll fix it.”
“I think buying once and planning to use it for a long time is a good idea,” he nodded. “The house does have a designated nursery. It was the only room we didn’t romp in and for good reason. It would’ve been strange. Too strange for my blood. That’s where the baby sleeps not where we make the baby.”
We shared a quick kiss and he went downstairs to check on Mori. Shopping for the baby and Mori would be a constant in our lives over the next few weeks. The wolf stopped by nearly every day, bringing snacks and trinkets and sometimes magicalbooks to share with Alvis. Packages came in for Alvis too from his sons. Part of me wondered if they had turned their near daily lessons into a book swap. It was also strange for me to know that somewhere on Earthside Alvis had a whole house I had never seen. He’d also never seen where I lived back home.
Our mating feast came and went. His sons and Beal had outdone themselves turning it into a mating feast/baby shower combo. Thankfully, someone had given everyone a head’s up that I’d already bought all the furniture the kid would need for most of their life. We still went home with more baby stuff than I figured one baby would ever use.
For me, the gifts weren’t the highlight of the party. It was seeing my parents again and watching them chat with Alvis and Beal and the other friends we had on Earthside. Their gifts had all been enrichment toys we used for cubs back home. I didn’t bother to remind them that the baby might not be a cat at all because I could totally see a baby vampire biting into some of the toys too. All kids teethed and I knew how sharp Alvis’s fangs were. We all promised to get back together for a holiday as soon as we could make the arrangements.
I spent endless hours folding and organizing all the clothes the baby received from the party. Others offered to help but I was content to listen to parenting podcasts and fold away while Alvis and Mori worked on magic downstairs. Since most of our food came from the market, it was the least I could do to take care of my mate.
By the start of Alvis’s second trimester, Mori was unkidnappable. At least to spirits. Another trip back to the bloody midwife told us that our baby was indeed a lion because a vampyric baby wouldn’t grow so rapidly. I’d seen Ophelian nearly every two weeks since the first time, but I still wasn’t fond of him. I was sure the doctor was a good guy, but Alvis grew sonervous before every appointment that I was certain one day my cat was going to eat him.
Knowing that our baby was indeed a kitten, I set up a carpeted wall for him or her to climb inside the nursery and set out all the toys too. Most were stuffies that were chewable and big leather balls to pounce or hide behind. A little barrel covered in soft, fluffy hides to play with.
