Chapter Nineteen

Casimir

It was as if our egg waited until we accomplished actually sealing the deal on our claiming vows before it came out. After Tritus laid our egg, I didn’t go beyond the backyard except to pick up or drop off Casalona but, while I was gone, Tritus kept his end of our mating link wide open. Every instinct I had to fight against while Melon nested, Tritus embraced. He didn’t mind me fussing around with the structure of the nest and adding new bits and pieces whenever I spotted a place that didn’t feel secure enough. I polished our egg, night and day. When we could, we both stayed inside with our pink egg.

While we didn’t let visitors into the house, we did set up a screen to call Ren. A couple times a week she’d show up for the call. My sister’s eyes sparkled whenever she saw the egg that was her-colored growing in our nest. She was still where she had been when I left Earthside but some of Tritus’s hope leaked onto me. Maybe she would come back as the Ren we all knew and loved one day. Only, for me she was always going to be that Ren. Woman or dragon, she was my sister, and I wished she could share more of my life and I of hers like things had been when we were younger. Life wasn’t fair, but sometimes you got something just outside of fair and had to make peace with it. Tritus was right. As long as she was alive there was hope for her.

After seeing Zayton and Ren’s human form in my memories, Tritus commissioned a painting of us and Castor for my birthday. The artist had somehow captured every detail of us. It took me way too long to realize that’s because Tritus could show him over the flight link. That painting hung over our nest so that our hatchling would know they had a huge family who loved them – near and far, on this world and others, and on both sides of the doors of life and death.

I missed Castor and the rest of the crew while we sequestered ourselves away, but my dragon needed that time and space to heal. Like me, he’d been through too much. He had to do too much, and this was his chance to start over too. So, we lay around with our mate and watched our egg grow more each day until finally the day before Ren’s birthday our little girl cracked her way out of it by giving the inner lining of the shell a nice, hard headbutt. We startled from our nap to find our baby face down in the nest wailing her heart out and flailing her limbs as if she were disappointed that we hadn’t hosted a welcoming party.

We scrambled, sleepy but somehow more alert than ever, to grab her up and brush off the excess eggshell and the stringy stuff that came from inside the egg. She was beautiful. I thought she looked like Ren, but Tritus insisted that she looked like me.

“Do Ren and I look that much alike?” I laughed as he put her in a diaper and swaddled her up nice and tight.

“You do. You all do or did or whatever. What about calling her Renmir? Do you think it sounds too masculine?” Tritus asked.

“You better retract that question before Roary hears it and comes to get you,” I teased him.

“Oh, shit. They would too,” Tritus said and bit his lip.

“I was giving you shit. I like that name. I think it fits her. I think Ren will like it too,” I said.

“I hope so. She’s one of the sweetest dragonesses I’ve ever met,” Tritus said, holding Baby Renmir close to his chest and settling in against me.

She was my second born and it seemed I was on a roll with daughters but if they were anything like Ren was growing up I was going to be an awesome girl dad. At least, I hoped they’d think I was awesome.

“I think you’re fucking awesome,” Tritus said, picking up my thoughts over our mating link and smiling like a fool now that he could listen in on me easily.

“Good. I think you’re fucking awesome,” I whispered in his ear. “I think we’re a fucking awesome family.”

“We are,” he nodded. “This long road was worth it.”

“I love you, mate,” I whispered and wrapped my arms around him and Baby Renmir.

“I love you too,” he said, leaning his head back against my shoulder.

I glanced at the painting above the nest. Ren and Zayton no longer haunted me. I remembered them both for who they were before chaos gobbled them up. Somehow, without ever meeting either of them in person, Tritus convinced them to unhaunt me.

READ ON TO DISCOVER WHO MIGHT RUN OFF TO BE A GLADIATOR AND GET MORE THAN HE EVER BARGAINED FOR.

Hello and thank you for reading! Whether this is your first book in this universe, or you’ve been around since the beginning, thank you! It means the world to me to be able to continue expanding this universe to new and exciting places!

Some housekeeping notes:

1) Yes! All the crew members and Marisan will find their mate in this series!

2) Yes! ‘Lotus’ will be reincarnated --- eventually. Probably in this series.

3) This one was new to me, but a few readers have asked questions that I’d love to answer in slice of life stories. The first five of these are live on Amazon now. You can find the series here . More of these will come out probably in the new year. Maybe a bit before then if my health continues to improve.

4) We have family trees ! Really – trees in the plural! Thanks to the awesome Riley Morgan ! Thank you so much!

5) So many of you have asked what I’m going to do about (if anything) some of Xenos and Barry’s kids – this is still in the making! I know it feels really far away since we’re now on a world that isn’t even Earthside, but if things go as I plan this is coming!

6) Someone recently asked me why I hyphenated true-mate. When I first started writing my first book, I thought the words true and mate just looked a little separated and needed to be tied together because of what their joint meaning was. So, it became the way everyone in the Hemlock Universe wrote it.

7) You can follow me here to keep up with all the upcoming releases and other fun stuff 3 3 3

Happy Reading & Loads of Love!!

XOXO

~Maggie

Reading Order for Maggie’s Books

This has been much asked for, and despite posting it on the blog and FB I always get folks asking. So, if I remember, it’ll be tucked in here at the end of every book. It’s also always posted in my FB group (Hemlock Wolf Pack.)

The First Omega

Omega Studies

Omega Sight

Omega Magic

Healer’s Oath

Omega’s Homecoming & Ardan’s Oath

Claiming the Shaman

The Sleeping Omega Prince

Omega Rebellion

Skystead Wolves

Mated for the Holidays.

Saving Cinder

Freeing Fenrir

Crow King’s Heir

Alpha in Distress

Sky’s Homecoming

All the Pieces of Us

As Long as You Need Me

Omega Midwife

Pheromone Swap

Making Room for Love

Behind Dragon Wings

Interview with a Captive Dragon

The Other Mr. Claus

Yuletide Bites

Stay with Us

Guardians of Glitter Bomb

To Save a Sidhe

Dead Mates Society

The Love We Choose

The Love Right in Front of Us

Alphas of Lore

The Vampire and the Beast

Catnip & Mistletoe

The Practice Alpha

Alpha Unleashed

Alpha Misunderstood

The Pride of Glitter Bomb

The Age of Lions

A Worthy Bear

Stuck Between Two Bears

Omega in the Stars

Just a Wolf

Canton: A Memoir

Wildlands Omega

A Wilder Alpha

Omega’s Fall

Alpha’s Curse

Alpha of My Heart

A Wildlands Yuletide

Omega’s Second Chance

Alpha’s Sacrifice

Omega’s Return

The Little Hemlock King

The Kissing Wars

Haunted Mates

Keeper of My Secrets

Invisible Alpha

Banished Alpha

Kiss Me Better

Surrounded By Scales

Fanged Secrets

Omega’s First Love

Deck the Halls with Harpies

A Yuletide to Remember

The Wolves At My Sides

The Fall Before the Heat

Witch of My Heart

Coyote’s Fate

Fall with Me

The Impossible Week

Cursed of Frost

The Guardian’s True-Mate

Omega Seeks Quiet Life

True-Mates’ Reunion

Meet Me in the Stars

Stripped to the Scales

Bitten in the Wild

Call Don’t Fall

Dragon Eggs Under the Tree

The Unexpected Yuletide Baby

Unhaunt Me (You are here!)

Gladiator’s Bite (Coming soon!)