Page 26 of Bronze Dragon

When their minivan pulled into their driveway, the front door of their house burst open and his mother Yasmin hurried out, beaming. The woman had been a godsend, coming to stay for the last few weeks as Ashley couldn’t really get around easily—two children had made her belly huge. At least she hadn’t had to worry about anything at home when she did finally go into labor thirty-six weeks to the day. Three days later, she was rested and able to take two perfect, healthy infants home. Ashley exchanged glances with Raf, who had driven them home, and he smiled at her. "Let me come around and open the door for you, love."

She laughed. "I can get out of the car myself, Rafi." His mother’s nickname for him had snuck into her thoughts, and now it seemed second nature to use it. "Why don’t you help me get them out of their car seats?"

He toggled the two back sliding doors open with a switch and then climbed out of the car only after he’d watched her slide carefully out onto the pavement. Their daughter was behind the driver’s side, asleep in her little peach beanie, while their son was behind her, wearing a matching one in orange. It was going to be hard not to want to dress them alike, even if she knew one girl and one boy wouldn’t be identical twins.

Ashley unbuckled her son and scooped him up carefully. She didn’t ache too much at the moment, though her body felt weird—after reaching a size that had shocked her, being more her own size again was almost disconcerting. She glanced up to see Raf cradling their daughter to his chest, her onesie covered in cherry blossoms, murmuring against the top of her head as he bent around her tiny body. If she hadn’t already been in love with him, seeing him with their kids would definitely have made her fall in love with him. For a large man, Rafael was tender and sweet with the two infants, whom they’d named Aurora and Ashwin.

Raf looked up from cuddling his daughter, a grin breaking across his face as he caught her watching him. He reluctantly tucked Aurora into the crook of his arm and reached for the oversized bag that carried the remains of what had been in the hospital with her and the few things they’d brought home for the two newborns.

"Can I carry anything?" Yasmin’s accent still sounded posh to Ashley’s ear, but it didn’t make her like the woman any less.

"I think we’ve got it, Mom," Raf replied, poking the button that closed the door automatically. Ashley belatedly did the same on her side, preferring to keep her eyes on Ashwin in his smart little navy-striped onesie. It was still hard to believe, somehow, that these two perfect little angels were theirs. Somehow even in her fantasizing, they’d been ghosts, not little squirming bundles that could simultaneously make the best and worst noises she had ever heard. "Coming, Ashley?"

She glanced up to see Raf and Yasmin both on the porch, looking back at her. She smiled, completely unapologetic that she’d gotten lost in thinking about her son. "Baby-dreaming again." She walked up the front steps cautiously, somehow more afraid she’d drop him now that there was stone underfoot.

Yasmin was beaming like the happy grandmother she was. "Which of them can I steal first?" she demanded as soon as they were all inside. "Ashley? Do you want to sit down?"

She grinned, ready to laugh at the way her mother-in-law could still rock the pleading puppy dog eyes. "I do, but I want my son. Take Aurora so Raf can go get me a glass of water." She was still getting used to the fact that Yasmin was much older than she looked, and it had startled her to learn that Rafael was older than he looked, too, though not so drastically. Her husband was thirteen years her senior, and his parents had to be at least eighteen or twenty years beyond that, if not more.

Yasmin turned to her son and Raf grumbled, but handed over the baby. "Is there anything else you need, sweetheart?" he asked as he moved past her into the kitchen.

"Not until they wake up." Ashley moved to the comfortable couch they’d put in the open area that could see into the kitchen but also look outside at their beautiful yard. With her husband’s friend just down the street, the property had been too good to pass up, and once Raf had promised to show her his dragon since they had easy access to the woods, she hadn’t put up much of a fight. Sinking into the cushions, she cradled her son to her chest. He smelled of baby powder with a tiny hint of something Raf said was his dragon. It wasn’t char, exactly, but it had a sharper scent than anything else about Ashwin or Aurora.

Raf brought her water and leaned over to kiss her forehead and then the top of Ash’s head. "I’m so happy you’re home," he murmured.

Yasmin had taken a chair instead of the sofa, her eyes on baby Aurora’s tiny reddened face, but she spoke to the couple as if her attention wasn’t fully distracted. "The boys were all ready to invite themselves over tonight for dinner so they could all welcome the children, but I told them they had to get Ashley’s permission first." Yasmin glanced up, smiling over the group of six male dragon shifters who apparently amounted to 'the boys' in her mind. "It’s up to you if you want to make them wait, but I can’t say how long they’ll be willing to. Male dragons tend to be pushy."

"Hey!" Raf’s tone was jovial even as he softened the remark so it wouldn’t wake up either infant. "We are not!"

Ashley grinned at her mother-in-law. "If we can put them off till dinnertime, not whenever they feel like showing up, we might as well do it tonight. They still need to meet their niece and nephew." That was how the group had been referring to her children for months now. Only Chas, by virtue of being on-hand for the birth of two dragon children, had met the babies yet. The others had reluctantly given her time to recover first. Ashley considered the clock on the wall, since she had stopped wearing a watch months ago when her wrist got bigger along with the rest of her. "I may take a nap till then, anyway."

"Shall we take them upstairs to their bassinet in our room?" Raf asked, glancing at where his mother was cuddling their daughter.

Yasmin glanced up to object, but sighed when she saw Ashley smiling at her. "They will probably sleep better near their mom," she admitted. "It’s the first time they can’t hear her heartbeat easily."

Ashley blinked at the other woman. It was sometimes hard to remember that her husband, his family, and his friends—even their children—were not human. They fit in so neatly until one of them did or said something just a little bit off. "Don’t tell me they can hear that from across the bedroom?"

Yasmin smiled. "If you’re still, and so are they, I’d expect they can. They may be tiny, but they’re still dragonlings."

Ashley almost shuddered at the thought, but she would get used to this, she was certain. "Alright, I need to snooze. Even coming home feels like it tired me out." She looked at her husband. "Let’s go up and settle them in so we can lie down, too."

One of Raf’s eyebrows quirked at the 'we', but he said nothing, reclaiming Aurora from his mother and following her upstairs to where they had bought a larger bassinet for the twins to share for a little while, a slim inserted railing the only thing keeping them apart. Only once Ashley could tear herself away from her beautiful children and lie back on the bed did she start to relax. Raf was quick to climb onto the bed behind her, spooning with her as they both watched the sleeping babes. "Have I told you how much I love you today?" he murmured.

She smiled. It had become his habit to ask, often multiple times a day. "You have, dear, but it’s always nice to hear it. I love you, too." With his arms wrapped around her and their children sleeping just a few feet away, sleep took her in moments. She had all she needed right there.

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