Chapter Sixteen

Brender

After waking up just long enough for dinner, Saer did sleep like a rock. Oliver was back home with his video game friends and that left Stellan and I to ourselves for some much-needed alone time. I cleaned up the kitchen while he tucked the baby in and hit the shower. Jingle Tails was stuck in my head like a bad pebble on repeat. I hummed along to the earwyrm as I washed up the dishes and wiped down all the surfaces. Living with a hatchling meant everything got sticky even when nothing sticky was available. It’s like they made slime out of the scales or something.

I was just about to flick off the lights and head into the bedroom when my stomach did a cartwheel. No. Wait. That wasn’t my stomach.

“Babe?” I reached out to Stellan over our mating link while heading towards the bathroom.

He didn’t answer right away. My heart skipped a beat and my dragon raised his massive head, rousing from his slumber inside his inner sanctum. The retching gave Stellan away and I sighed in relief. Retching was handleable. Retching was something we could manage. I tried the knob, but he must’ve had his foot or something up against the door.

“Babe?” I whispered through the door, trying my best not to wake up the baby.

His only answer was another round of retching.

“Babe?” I called out a little louder and tried the knob again. The door was still firmly shut. I bit my lip.

“I’m alive!” his voice came out hoarse a second later. “Don’t come in. If I’m sick ---” he paused and we both braced for him to throw up again. “If I’m sick, you can’t catch it. Someone has to take care of Saer.”

“And where do you think you’ve gotten sick and how have I not caught it, mate?” I asked, gently.

“Right now really isn’t the time for questions like that.”

“I don’t think it’s a stomach bug,” I said, leaning my forehead against the door, silently willing him to open it.

“You think I’m faking? Really? Right now, Brender?”

“I don’t think you’re faking anything. I just think this is a side effect of another part of life.”

“If I was going to get motion sickness it would’ve happened on the rafts,” he said, a growl lacing his words.

“Okay. I’ll stop trying to be funny and cute to cheer you up.”

“It’s not working by the way.”

“I noticed,” I sighed. “Babe, what if you’re pregnant? There’s a million things I could say right now but if Saer wakes up I don’t want him to hear them. I just think there is a possibility that the odds are in the favor of that outcome more than you being sick.”

The toilet flushed and the sink turned on. I waited a beat for him to ask for anything and when he didn’t, I headed to the kitchen to get him a glass of water anyway. Sure, he’d probably drink from the faucet, but it didn’t matter how many tails I beat in the arena I would never be a match for the sickness that came along with some pregnancies.

When I returned to the bedroom, the bathroom door was open and Stellan sat on the edge of the tub. He took the water without complaint, nodding his gratitude. It was nearly Yuletide but some of the clinics would remain open for emergencies. It would just be a short flash of whatever the doctors called their machines. Two seconds max. A little longer for the rest of the appointment but ---

“I’m not ruining kiddo’s Yuletide.”

“I don’t think this will.”

“Waking him up to drag me to an appointment---”

“I’d call Oliver to come sit with him,” I shook my head.

“You thought of that fast,” he arched a brow at me.

“Have to think on your claws when you work with kids,” I winked at him.

“I think I have a pregnancy test in the cabinet. They send one in every new mate omega pack.”

“Huh?” I blinked.

“It’s a new thing. Started last year. Instead of only sending packs when eggs are on the way the flight started sending out kits to omegas who meet their true-mates. Condoms, some snacks, lube, so many brochures on conceiving and birth control and a pregnancy test.”

“Nice,” I nodded. “I hadn’t heard anything about that.”

“I was so caught up with Saer and everything that I just stuck in the cabinet,” he said and pointed to the topmost cabinet on the other side of the room.

The box was big and bright purple as if they shipped it straight from the purple district on 1. It was already split open and I spotted the pee test easily enough. It was a ball that opened up for the might-be pregnant person to pee into. When the ball was shut some magical or scientific mechanism went off and if the ball turned purple, there was an incoming egg. Not as quick as a sonic but quick enough.

A few minutes later, Stellan and I both stared at the clear ball as it made up its mind as to what our future held. Slowly it tinged purple and then as indigo-purple as I’d ever seen. Stellan opened his mouth to cheer but clapped his hand over it at the last minute to keep from waking up the baby. I pulled him into a tight hug as my dragon tossed his massive head back inside his inner sanctum and let out a roar of celebration. It didn’t take long for Stellan’s dragon to join in.

“I’d say we’d celebrate by practicing for our next one but I don’t think my stomach’s up for it,” he laughed.

“We can cuddle instead,” I grinned, leaning my forehead against his. “As long as I’m with you – it’s all a celebration, mate.”

“One day, we’re going to go out dancing. Just the two of us,” he whispered back.

“We’ll make it happen. Probably after Yuletide, though. I think most of tomorrow will be getting ready for it. Hell, maybe we should sleep all day to keep up with him on Yuletide.”

“Probably,” Stellan laughed, and I kissed his forehead. “Will you carry me to bed? Be my big cave-dragon?”

I scooped him up and carried him off to bed. While he carried my egg he’d never have to walk again if he didn’t want to.