Chapter 18

eighteen

ZAKARION

It is marvelous watching Sammy grow, her breasts changing shape as her belly swells even larger. Our ultrasounds are more exciting every time as our hatchling develops, and soon my Sammy is full to bursting. She grumps sometimes about the weight of it, the awkwardness of her body, the aches and pains that accompany carrying it around with her. I do what I can, but she knows she simply has to bear it. The time is coming that it will be over, and we’ll finally be united with our young.

She’s kept her house, and we’ve paid it off through fully legal means, though she plans to live full-time at the mountain while we raise the hatchling. We still meet her friends once every few weeks, and my sheer size has finally stopped surprising them. Now we all sit in Sammy’s yard together as the weather grows warmer and shoots come up out of the ground.

“You should give us a tour of the mountain sometime,” Sarah says. “It sounds like the perfect place for you, Sam. ”

She preens. “We would love that. Maybe we need to get a road built after all, Zak?”

Of course, I’ll do whatever she asks. “As you wish.”

Though she’s quite pregnant, Sammy loves to go explore the wilderness, and I often hike along with her as we search out placid lakes and ancient trees. Sometimes when her feet are tired, she sits on my back while I walk on four legs, and then I fly us home.

We’re eating dinner one night when Sammy abruptly freezes. She winces, and then her eyes go wide.

“Zak,” she whispers.“I just felt it.”

I tilt my head. “Felt what?”

“The thing. The, um, contraction? I think?”

It’s like a switch is flipped in my brain. There’s a go bag for this exact occasion stashed in a basket in the main hallway, and I rush to grab it as Sammy gets out of her chair. We leave the food on the table as I scoop her up into my arms, the bag in her lap, and I leap off the ledge into the sky.

My great wings carry us quickly to the city as I fly faster than I’ve ever flown before. Every few minutes Sammy wriggles in my arms, clearly uncomfortable with her body’s signals.

“We’re almost there,” I tell her as I swoop down. The hospital isn’t far, but Sammy’s little whimpers are already escalating.

“I don’t know, Zak,” she says in a worried voice. “Something’s happening. It hurts. It hurts so much.”

I curse to myself, but try to keep my face schooled in a calm expression. “Don’t worry. The doctors will know what to do.”

I carry her right in the front doors of the hospital, not putting her down until a gurney is wheeled out for her. After we’re taken to a room, a doctor comes in—a big wolfman with a mask over his snout.

“What have we here?” he asks, immediately seating himself between Sammy’s legs. He glances at me, then at the human in front of him. “Ah, a dragon hybrid?”

“Yes, it’s mine,” I say quickly. The wolfman smiles under his mask.

“Then this might be a bit of a challenge.” He spreads Sammy’s legs to take a peek, and then his eyes get huge. “Oh. Okay. We’re going, are we?”

“Going? Where?” Sammy asks, concerned.

“This baby is coming out, pronto.” The ob-gyn hops to his feet and calls out into the hallway for a nurse. A whole team assembles around us, and now I’m starting to wonder if this was a good idea. Is Sammy in danger?

“Zak,” she moans, reaching for my hand. I encompass it in both of mine, stroking her comfortingly. “I don’t want to do it.” She sounds so miserable and helpless. “It hurts.”

“I know.” But there’s nothing I can do for her except to stay at her side. “It won’t last long.”

“For once,” the wolfman says, “you’re right. This baby is exiting stage left as quickly as possible.”

Then Sammy shrieks, and my heart feels like it might just break in half seeing her in so much pain. All I can do is clasp her hand in mine and hope everything will be all right in the end.

SAMMY

It is fucking misery, giving birth to a dragon’s baby. I want to beat him senseless for putting this thing inside me, all while I cling to him like we’re trapped in a hurricane.

There’s no fucking way I’m having any more of them. Just no way. The doctor didn’t even have time to give me an epidural, and I’ve never been so angry in my life.

I sob and cry and Zakarion wipes away my tears as my whole body tries to accommodate.

“Don’t worry,” he croons. “You can do this. I know it.”

I’m not so sure, though.

“Should have done a fucking C-section,” I mutter.

But I do survive it. With Zak at my side, I push and push, sweating and cursing, until finally...

“It’s here!” I exhale with the world’s deepest relief as, finally, I feel my baby emerge. The wolfman hurriedly calls over a nurse. “We have to open the egg sac.”

Time passes, and I’m worried when I don’t hear a sound. But Zakarion is rubbing my hand, assuring me everything is fine.

Then I hear a chirp. A nurse kneels down next to the bed, carrying a tiny, red bundle in her arms. She holds it out to me, and there are already more tears building behind my eyes as I take it from her.

“We think it’s male, but it’s hard to tell still,” the fairy nurse says. Our infant keens again. “He needs some food now. Here, let me show you.”

Zakarion watches with fascination as our toothless hatchling latches onto my nipple, and a relieved sigh falls from my lips finally feeling him in my arms. Zak leans down and rubs his nose on my cheek .

“You did it,” he says fondly, stroking my hair with one hand, and caressing the baby’s little body with the other.

I nod as joyous tears fall from my eyes. I can’t speak, too overcome by my happiness at having both of them here with me, at last.

We get to go home the next day, but there were some... consequences to having such a large child, and I’m not in the best shape when Zakarion carries both of us back to the mountain. Our infant screeches for much of the journey before I pull up my shirt and feed him again.

“How long until he can fly on his own?” I ask.

“Five years at least.”

I exhale. “That’s good. I don’t think I could handle a flying toddler.”

When we’ve landed on the ledge outside our home, Zakarion doesn’t set me down. It’ll be a little while before I can walk properly, the wolfman cautioned me, but Zak was more than happy to agree to carrying me around until then.

At last, I’m back in our nest, with our hatchling curled up between us. As he sleeps, we debate what to call him.

“Dragonkind create new names by merging the parents’ names,” he explains.

“So, what? Zakamy? Samarion?” Both of them sound silly. “I’m not a dragon, though, so my name isn’t great for this.”

Zakarion hums as he thinks. “Zantha,” he says suddenly. “Zan, for short.”

I kind of like it. It’s a suitable name for one of the world’s remaining majestic dragons .

“All right. Zantha.” I pull him closer, reveling in his baby smell. “I suppose he should go in his own nest, hmm?”

Zakarion agrees, and takes him to the smaller pile of pillows and blankets we’ve placed inside a big basket. I was concerned at first about this arrangement, but everything I’ve ever learned about human babies is out the window now. Happily, Zan curls up, tail wrapping around his tiny head with the barely-noticeable black nubs that will eventually become his horns.

Then my dragon leads me back to our bed, and wraps me up tight.

“Thank you,” he says, cradling my head against his warm, thrumming chest. “Thank you for everything, Sammy.”

I nuzzle into him deeper. “You don’t need to thank me . It’s not every day you find a husband with two dicks.”

He chuckles, sending a rumble down his throat and into his ribcage. “Husband, hmm?”

“Yeah.” I smile against him. “I don’t need a ceremony, though. My folks wouldn’t make the trip anyway. But I know it in my heart.”

“As do I,” Zakarion says. “All of me belongs to you, and our hatchlings.”

“Hatchlings, plural?” I say, snorting. “It’ll be a while before you can convince me that’s a good idea.”

He chuckles, and I fall asleep like that, curled up at my dragon’s side.