9. Frederick

Chapter 9

Frederick

I was no expert on things such as fertile periods, but I had thought they lasted longer than two days. But that was the short duration of Dominic’s, and neither of us knew if that was how they would be with him, or if it was because of his age. He said he expected it to arrive shortly after we claimed one another, and he had been right.

The morning after we claimed one another, he woke up with glazed eyes and flushed skin. If I had thought that he was a tiger in bed before, that was nothing compared to those two days after. I realized quickly that I had been gifted a power bottom, and that wasn’t something I was upset about in any way. I loved sex, and had missed it a great deal. I had a feeling that unless Dominic became extremely ill with pregnancy sickness, we would be having a lot more sex and either of us had been having.

“Where do you want this?” Dominic asked as he held up a box of something. “And yes. We are definitely going to be having a lot more sex than either of have been getting.” He let go of the box, it floating in the air because of his magic, and playfully slapped me on the ass before he grabbed the box and walked off.

“You didn’t say what’s in the box,” I called out.

“It says it’s books!” Dominic shouted at me. “I figured you would want them in your office.”

He wasn’t wrong. I still didn’t know where we were going to put most things, but placing the books in the office seem to be the most logical. We were settling in to our new place in mated enforcer housing, and I can certainly see the perk of being over here. We had chosen the house besides Sebastian, and that put us next to him and Drew with Benjamin and Eli on the other side of them. I hadn’t realized just how much it was going to mean to me to be as close as I was to my family again.

Dominic reappeared, the box he had been toting left behind. “Are we having too much sex?” Dominic asked.

I could only stare at him like he had three eyes. “What? No. Why would you ask such a question?”

“Since your thoughts are complexly open to me, and you had been thinking about how much we have been having, I thought I would ask.” He walked up to me and wrapped his arms around my waist. That was something that I quickly realized Dominic thoroughly enjoyed. His need and desire for physical touch was new to me, but most certainly not unwelcome.

“Well, since you mention it and you obviously know just how little sex I have been having, then you know how much more we are having. Is it too much? Is that even a question? Personally, I don’t think there is such a thing as too much sex.” I leaned in and placed a soft, lingering kiss on his lips. “If you aren’t ever interested or feeling up for it, just say so and we can spend the evening cuddling instead.”

Dominic smiled. “Cuddles are good. I’ve discovered I especially like them with you in front of the fireplace.”

I enjoyed them as well. We had been in our new house for just over a week now, but one of the first things we had done was make a temporary bed in front of the fireplace. It was gorgeous and we had gotten snow that night, and it had been one of the most romantic evenings I had ever had in my life. Despite both of us being of a certain age, I had a feeling that the two of us would be experiencing a lot of firsts together.

“We need to figure out something other than a mattress on the floor for in front of there.”

“Why? Did you not enjoy our time on the mattress there?” Dominic asked with a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Quite vividly. I remember you enjoying it. Multiple times.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. He wasn’t wrong. It was more than just the intimate moments with him, though. Dominic was incredibly outgoing, and he just seemed so happy too simply be here with me. Not that I wasn’t thrilled to have him here with me. Trust me, I was. He was a breath of fresh air that I never knew I needed.

“Have you decided on what color you want to paint the bedroom?” I asked.

“I’m not sure. My place in Venice was quite colorful, but that really went with the style there. This is a log cabin and from what I can find online most of them are just the logs that are exposed. There seem to be a lot of heavy rugs.” Dominic’s nose wrinkled. “Antlers,” he said.

I laughed, because he absolutely was right. “True. But if you will notice, Master Edison has left everything very blank. You won’t find an antler in sight unless we add them because it’s what we’re going for theme-wise.”

“I don’t think I could do antlers, Frederick. I understand the whole circle of life thing, but I just find the thought of having a light made out of antlers tacky.”

I chuckled again because he absolutely was right. There would be no antler chandeliers in our house. “Why don’t we change things up a bit?” I asked. “We can change the walls anyway we wish, because we have magic,” I said. I held out my hand and when a teal ball of magic was hovering on it, I flipped my hand to the side—sending the ball of magic toward the wall. On impact, the wall it had just hit went from exposed wooden logs to a gorgeous pale gray. Gone was the log wall, and in its place was a traditional sheet rock one.

Dominic tilted his head to the side before he shook it. “I don’t mind the exposed logs.” He threw a ball of orange magic at the wall and the gray painted wall suddenly became distressed looking brick one. “What about that?”

I actually really liked what he had just done there and I think it added a level of warmth to the room. “I like it. A lot. Did you want to do the accent wall as well?” I tossed another magic ball, simply because we seem to be doing that for fun. It wasn’t required, but it gave us something to do. My ball hit the middle of the floor and a rug with deep, rich colors was suddenly covering the majority of the wood floors. “And what about rugs? Do you like soft colors? Or deeper colors that feel cozier?”

Dominic grabbed his arm around my waist and leaned into my side. He gave me a quick smile before nodding at me. “I like that. I think that rug goes well with the furniture we already have as well as the walls.” Dominic gave me a concern to look though. “This works for in here, but you had asked about the bedroom and I still don’t know what to say with regards to it. I don’t know that I would want a brick wall there as well as in here.”

“That’s the joy of it though,” I told him. “We can change it every day for a week or two or even a month if we can’t figure out what it is that we want for a room. Do you know what color you want? We can do textured walls that will look nice.” That seemed to catch Dominic’s attention. I tried to remember what the walls were like at the resort in Venice. They weren’t smooth like they are here, but the walls here were usually sheet rock whereas in Europe, a lot of the walls were plaster. That gave me an idea. “Come with me,” I told him as I quickly used magic to plaster the walls in the main bedroom. I decided to go with the color of our magic, and had two walls a nice teal color, while the other two were the color of a sunset to match Dominic’s orange.

“Where are we going?”

“I have an idea about the bedroom. If you don't like it, we can change it to anything that suits your fancy. I know that Benjamin's house on the end, he has done a lot of slight modifications to it. Sebastian, though, his house next-door is mostly how he was given it.”

Dominic made a face and I certainly couldn’t fault him. The entire log cabin thing certainly wasn’t for everyone.

“Does he like log walls or something?”

“I honestly couldn’t say for certain. He’s mated to Drew who is a cheetah. Maybe Drew really likes the look of the logs.”

We had reached the bedroom and Dominic’s eyes widened. Luckily for me, we had our bond and I knew for a fact that it wasn’t that he was upset about what I had done to the room.

“You did this for me?”

“Of course. Do you like it? Is this what you had in mind for our bedroom?” For the most part, I didn’t care what the house looked like. I needed it to keep me war and dry in the winter and cool and dry in the summer. I might have to make suggestions if Dominic said he wanted to paint it in neon colors though. Just the thought of lime green or yellow walls made my head hurt.

“How did you do this?” Dominic asked. He quickly kissed my cheek before he walked over to the wall and gently ran his fingers down it. The smile he threw back at me over his shoulder, said it all: I had chosen perfectly.

“When we were in Venice, I spent some time at a resort there.” I shrugged when Dominic turned and looked at me. “We had to stay somewhere. But I remembered that the walls there, and probably most of the walls in Europe are plaster. Plaster walls, just look different than sheet rock walls.”

“They do. They have a different texture to them, and this is what had been missing.” Dominic ran his fingers down the wall again before he started walking around the room with his fingers trailing along it. “Are you certain this won’t be an issue?”

“It won’t. I will have to take you by Justin and Matteo’s house at some point.” Dominic gave me a confused expression, so I did my best to elaborate. “Justin and Matteo’s mating was absolutely crazy, but that’s not too important. Just that Justin was alpha to his pack in New Orleans, and Matteo spent some time down there with him. Well, their packhouse was this old, massive creole townhouse. Matteo absolutely fell in love with it, and he really struggled to find a house here that he liked.”

“I’m not sure I know what that type of house looks like,” Dominic said.

“It doesn’t really matter at the moment, but I will take you by to see their house soon. What I was trying to get at was that Matteo loved the house in NOLA so much and really struggled to find something here that Master Edison made a mini version of Justin’s packhouse for them here. It looks completely out of place in Montana on a mountain, but Matteo is in love with that house.” Dominic grinned. “It won’t matter what we do to the house while it’s ours. Just a little bit of magic can put it back to the way it was before we moved in. So unless you are wanting to make all of the rooms neon yellow, I have no issues with you making changes anywhere.”

Dominic grand as he closed the distance between us. “No neon yellow?” He asked, but I could tell he was teasing.

I made a face and shook my head. “Just the thought of having to look at lime green, hot pink, and neon yellow makes my head ache.” It truly did. In my opinion, the colors of highlighters should not be on walls.

Dominic looked around the room and smiled. “You have nothing to worry about. This here,” he said while circling his finger around. “This is perfect.” Dominic took my hand and started walking. I followed, not because he was holding my hand, but because I wanted to. He entered the bedroom that was to the right just outside of ours. “I realize we don’t know if I’m pregnant yet or not, and I’m a bit concerned because of my age and how short my fertile period was. But if we happen to be blessed with a little one, I was hoping this could be his room.”

I pulled Dominic into my arms. “This of course can be his room. Fertile periods and heat cycles are many different durations. If you are really concerned about it, we can ask Dr. King. He is the council Doctor who takes care of the omegas at the omega clinic. He takes care of the omega that are rescued as well as the omega and carriers when they are pregnant.” I had already planned on getting the number for the clinic from the council directory. Personally, I didn’t think there was going to be any issues, but if Dominic wanted to see the doctor for his own peace of mind, I had no issues with that at all. In fact, I would certainly encourage it.

“Do you really think I could be pregnant?” Dominic asked, the hopefulness in his voice apparent.

I wanted to give him everything that he desired, and if a family was one of the things he wanted, I would do everything I could in order to provide that for him. If it ended up being the case that we could not have biological children, I knew that the council had been working on connecting mated couples who could not have children with orphan paranormal children. I was more than open to adopting children and providing them with loving home as well.

“I think that it is still too soon for me to be able to tell. We can call my uncle Rainier and have him come and tell us in seconds. If it is going to bother you not knowing, I would rather ask someone who can tell us.”

“And he can do that?”

I nodded. “There are actually several warlocks on the mountain that can. Dr. King is one, but we might need an appointment with him. But Rainier can tell, and so can Benjamin.”

“They’re your family, right?”

I nodded. “Then can you?”

I looked at Dominic intently. “I can’t just yet. I’m another generation down from Benjamin, and two from Rainier. Benjamin and my father are actually first cousins.”

Dominic blinked at me for a moment before it seemed to click. “I think I understand. I don’t have even anything close to something like that in my family tree. It seemed like everyone in my family was a one and done couple and as far as I know, I’m the last on both sides.”

“We have a massive family tree that I can show you if you need a visual for it. The really quick version is that Frederick and Oliver had eight children. Two of those children were Hamilton and Rainier. Rainier is Benjamin’s father. Benjamin has two brothers, who actually live here now. Hamilton and his One Maryann had four children. One of their children was Edmund, who happens to be my father. Another one of Hamilton and Maryann’s children is Benedict. He’s Sebastian’s father. So, we’re cousins with Benjamin, but in actuality we’re second cousins. I am first cousins with Sebastian, Lorenzo, and Caspian though.”

Dominic, bless him, was honestly trying, and I could tell. In the end though, I think he gave up. Not that I blamed him. There were a lot of people in my family tree.

“Yeah, I’m going to need to see that visual. I’m pretty sure I got what you were saying, but that’s a lot of people. How do you keep them all sorted?”

“I grew up with them. To me they are family that has always been there.” I thought back about the summers, my brothers and I would spend with Sebastian and his brothers. Those were the best, and I was thrilled that my children would get the same opportunities we did growing up. Instead of running on the beaches of Spain, they would explore the top of Treasure Ridge.

“I’m excited to meet them, but I’m not sure they’re going to like me.”

I gave Dominic a look that he immediately understood. We had been over this before. “None of that. They are going to absolutely love you. Especially Caspian. The two of you are going to become fast friends I am certain.” If Dominic was pregnant, which I would be surprised if he wasn’t, he and Caspian would be pregnant together.

“If you say so. When do you think I will meet this family of yours?”

I was sure that a family dinner of sorts was already being planned, but I also knew that, they were going to leave us alone until we either reached out to them our month together was up. I was a bit suspicious because I haven’t yet heard from either of my parents, and I knew that they had been told I had met my one.

“Whenever you’re ready. They are no doubt planning some sort of family meal at someone’s house. Most likely Rainier and étienne’s. They have a rather large place even though it’s just the two of them. But they picked it with the family in mind.” It would take only moments to reach out to any of them to see if and when they all wanted to get together, but I wasn’t quite ready to give up my time with Dominic just yet. We’d only been mated for two weeks, and were still working on moving into our house. Couldn’t I be selfish and keep him all to myself just a little bit longer?

“Hmm. Is it wrong if I want to wait a bit longer?”

I grinned. “Absolutely not. I’m more than happy to keep you all to myself for now.”

Dominic smirked before he leaned in and gave me a kiss. I pulled him tighter to me, deepening the kiss with him. Definitely good to keep to ourselves for a bit longer.