Chapter 7

Chapter

Seven

M organ didn't want to get out of bed.

But he also wanted cinnamon rolls. Wade had made some just yesterday, so all he had to do was get his ass up and go warm one so he could eat.

But he felt ugh. Heavy. Weird. Every day, his body changed, and some days, it was way harder than others.

It just wasn't reasonable. Still, he needed to get up. He needed his cinnamon rolls. Daniel was going to be here soon. And no matter what, that was going to be weird.

Because, you know, he had played Wade and Daniel off each other for a few centuries.

Awkward.

A weird fluttering sound drew his attention to the window—it was vaguely like the sound of going through a car wash, but less wet somehow—and he sat up, frowning over.

Then he blinked.

That was a big fucking bird—not ostrich big or even bald eagle big, but absolutely large.

He tilted his head, looking at the beautiful hawk that was sitting there on the windowsill, pale feathers covered in huge dark-brown dots. "Are you all right?"

He leaned closer to the window. "Do you need help?"

Was he talking to a bird?

He was totally talking to a bird.

She lifted one foot, so graceful there on her perch. Wow, the claws on that thing were massive for her size. From this close, he could see so well why they were predators. They were built vaguely like dragons.

Then she tapped on the window. Tap, tap, tap.

"Wade's probably going to yell at me if I open the window," he told her.

She tapped again.

Morgan supposed he could really get into a lot of trouble by denying something like this, and if Wade got mad at him, he would just blame the pregnancy and flutter his eyelashes. It had worked so far.

"All right." He opened the window, and she flew in, settled on the bedpost, and cocked her head at him.

"Hello, lady."

She bowed, and he heard clear as a bell. Ava .

All right then.

"Hello, Ava. Welcome home."

He had absolutely no idea what kind of home a big hawk needed, but he did have a phone and Google, so he would figure this out.

After he explained it to Wade.

"Umm, honey?" he called, and he could feel Wade's sigh.

What happened?

Nothing. Well, something. Maybe you should come up here.

The sound of boots on the stairs started up. That sounds concerning.

Yeah, a little bit possibly, but she's beautiful.

You didn't have the baby?

Did you have a brain tumor for breakfast? "I did not just pop out a baby, like it was an egg for your breakfast! It's too early and get your ass up here!"

He didn't need this nonsense.

Wade, of course, was already at the bedroom door because he'd been storming up the stairs like some sort of a…storming-up-the-stairs thing. "That's a hawk. A rough-legged hawk."

Morgan arched one eyebrow, inexplicably irritated at Wade's lack of shock. "How do you know it's a rough-leg hawk?"

"Years of falconry. Also see the feathers on the legs."

"Oh." Dammit. "Well, her name is Ava."

See? He did know something that Wade didn't know.

"It is?"

"Yes. Ava, asshole, asshole, Ava." Introductions were important.

Ava ruffled her feathers, made the funniest little chirping noise, and then she bowed.

"I don't think you're supposed to bow to him."

"She's well-mannered," Wade said, inclining his head. "Hello, Ava. It's good to have you here. I'll have to figure out a situation downstairs where she can have access to the outside."

He blinked. Well, that had gone easy. "Yes. I don't want her all cooped up in here."

Ava began to groom her feathers, unconcerned, he thought.

"She's kind of gorgeous, isn't she?"

Wade smiled at him. "She's more than kind of gorgeous. She is here for our baby." He looked so proud, all puffed up and preening, sort of like the hawk.

"Did you have a bird? I didn't. I had a big dog—a huge, fluffy, hairy dog named Bella." He'd adored her, and she'd been his best friend. Familiars were amazing, even if they never lived as long as he would like them to.

"I'm surprised it wasn't a rabbit."

"A rabbit? What is that supposed to mean?"

"Well…" Wade smiled, so wicked. "They're cute and fluffy, but they bite and they have really big claws, so it sounded very much like you."

He glared and his nose wrinkled. "No, I had a dog, big and hairy and not mean at all. But…big and hairy. We cuddled a lot."

"Are you sure it wasn't a stuffed animal?"

"Are you sure you ever want to get laid again?"

Wade chuckled. "Point taken. Did you want some breakfast? Daniel will be here around noon."

"Ooh… I've been craving your cinnamon rolls, please. I totally want some. Why is it taking Daniel so long to get here?" It seemed like Daniel was taking forever. It had been almost a week. "And have you heard anything about my brothers? Or your sister?"

"All right." Wade held his hands up. "Hold on. No one's heard anything about any of them, and Daniel sent someone to the apartment. In Paris." Wade hesitated. "It was gone."

"What do you mean she was gone? Like her apartment was empty?"

"I didn't say that."

Morgan wasn't following. "You did too. I heard you. You said she was gone."

Wade shook his head. "No love, I said it was gone."

He was confused. "It being the apartment?"

That didn't make any sense. Apartments didn't disappear. They got knocked down, they got taken over, they got replaced. They got all sorts of things. But apartments didn't disappear unless like, there was an earthquake and they fell into the ocean.

And in that case, somebody would have notified someone that Paris was gone. Humans were picky about things like that.

" Pay attention. The apartment was gone like it didn't exist."

"Don't snap at me." Maybe he'd fallen into an alternate universe where nothing anybody said made sense. It was a possibility, a very strong possibility. He looked at Ava. "Is any of this making sense to you?"

She cocked her head. Fluttered her wings a little. Winked at him.

He was going to have to learn that because it made her look very smart. She didn't have to say anything, and somehow he felt better. He was totally taking lessons.

"It doesn't make sense to me either. That's why we're waiting for Daniel."

Okay. Wade wasn't playing or smiling or anything.

Morgan started to get dressed, leaving his pants undone because that was never going to work over his rounded belly. "All right. I'm hearing you. So we don't know where they are. The apartment is gone in Paris. My brothers are gone. We're both here, but this place is not gone. So why is Daniel taking so long to get here?"

He figured that was the safer question and made him look less like an asshole. Because honestly, it was one thing to play with Wade. Being evil was a completely different thing. He didn't want to hurt his mate. So…

"He had to get the truck, he had to get the trailer, he had to pick up my things, and he had to go pick up the things that we'd ordered for you from three or four different places. Plus he had to sleep and he had some business to do on the way. And it's a, you know, a decent drive."

Morgan nodded to Wade like he cared. "Okay, yeah, wow, that's a lot. And also yay presents. And third, it'll be nice to have your things here." He reached out for Wade's hand. "I'm really glad you didn't go. It's not because I'm scared of being alone or even scared about what's happening, although I sort of am. I would be heartbroken if you left and somehow we couldn't get back together."

"So would I. I'm not leaving you, baby." Wade took his hand, then kissed his knuckles. "I love you. I'm not doing without you any longer."

He couldn't stop his smile and flung himself at Wade and hugged him hard.

Wade lifted him up, surprising a squeal out of him, and then carried him down the stairs.

"Love! You know I'm so heavy right now."

Wade scoffed. "You're perfect. And we're going to feed you cinnamon rolls. I'll just heat them up a tiny bit."

"Can I have icing?"

"I saved you the ones with the icing." Wade was weird. He didn't eat icing on his cinnamon rolls. Morgan would forgive him, simply because he made an entire batch of icing and just doubled up on Morgan's.

"Thank you," he said, squeaking as Ava flew over the top of them and settled on the back of the couch.

Oh, those claws were going to leave a mark. Bye-bye ugly couch.

"Do you think we need to build her a perch? Or a nest? I want her to be happy." He felt happiness was very important, especially right now when things were so weird.

"I'll take care of it."

Morgan liked this part of Wade, the taking-care-of-things part. That gave him tons of time to work on the things he wanted to and to worry because that was exactly what he needed.

Some more time to worry.

"Are you excited about having your things here?"

Wade nodded. "I am. It's been a while since I've had all of it in one place, and luckily this house is big enough for us to all fit in."

"Do you think they'll come back here?" Surely, they'd come back.

He didn't know if he wanted to live with his brothers. They could be so feral and weird. He was absolutely not feral or weird.

"I don't know, love. I just know that I have you now, and I'm not letting you go." Wade looked at Ava. "You or our baby." Wade set him down on a stool at the kitchen counter. "Now, let's do that cinnamon roll thing."

"Yes, please." He grinned as Wade pulled stuff out to heat up and fussed over his drink, which was a weird smoothie concoction Wade had come up with.

It didn't make him sick, so he would take it.

"Yum," he said when Wade put his perfectly iced, refreshed cinnamon roll in front of him. "Thank you, babe."

"You're welcome." Wade leaned on the counter. He liked his cinnamon roll heated to nuclear, with melted butter on it, so his would be a minute. How long had he known that? A lot of years.

"I worry about them," Morgan said finally.

"I do too, love. I really do." Wade sighed. "I just don't know where they could have gone. And Wendy? I mean, she can't even go home." Wade's near-black eyes were flashing with worry.

He caught himself doodling, drawing lines of ice on the countertop. One line after another. Ms and Ws and?—

He just wanted them to be found, to hear that they were all right.

That was all he wanted.

"Eat your cinnamon roll. It'll be okay."

"How do you know? You don't know. It could be terrible. It could be completely awful, and we wouldn't know."

"I think we'd know."

"But."

"Morgan, I need to think we'd know."

Well, that made sense. "Okay. We'd totally know."

And if Morgan was honest, he could close his eyes and he didn't feel—sorrow or worry? Or anything really super bad? It was more like a yearning.

Except that yearning was a big word. But it wasn't as small as wanting. Although yearning did only have one more letter than wanting.

It didn't matter.

He didn't feel like there was anything really hurting.

No fear, no sense of being ripped away. So maybe Wade was right. Maybe they would know. He just wished that they knew knew.

"How's your cinnamon roll?"

"Fine. Perfect. Do birds eat cinnamon rolls?"

"I've never seen a bird of prey eat a cinnamon roll. I've never given a hawk a cinnamon roll. I mean, little birds would, but she's not meant to peck at cinnamon rolls. She's meant to tear apart prey."

Right. Ava was a carnivore, mainly.

She landed on the stool next to him, startling him, and he glanced over as she looked at him curiously. So he instinctively scooped up a fingerful of icing and offered it to her.

She nipped it delicately off his finger, her beak looking somehow both lovely and intimidating. The hook was no doubt meant for tearing into meat, but the rest was all crushing pressure.

Kind of cool.

And she liked icing.

He felt kind of vindicated by that.

When she went in for more, though, he pushed his plate to the side. "Maybe not the best idea, lady. You're not used to sugar. Let's use it as a special treat."

She fluffed herself in a way that seemed a bit offended, but then settled in, closing her eyes and, he thought, drifting off to sleep.

They munched their way through what had to be second breakfast for Wade, and first for him, and then he wandered to the big, ugly couch so he could curl up with a book and a blanket while Wade moved around the house like a demented satellite.

"What are you doing, babe?" he finally asked as Wade went by for like the fifth time.

"Making a room ready for all the stuff Daniel is bringing, baby. We need a nursery. I hope your brother will be okay with me taking over his stack-of-newspapers room. That's not his hoard, right?"

"Goddess no. He hoards antiquities. Dragon and other mythical creatures antiquities."

Wade tilted his head. "Huh. Like ones we created in this realm?"

"Yep. Nothing humans could say he stole from their cultures." He grinned. Max could hold forth on that for hours. "As long as you moved the piles in order, he won't care."

"I did." Wade chuckled, coming to plop down next to him. "I love when you smile."

"I'm smiling a lot more having you around." He took Wade's hand, willing to admit that now.

"Good." Wade leaned over to kiss him. "Wanna see what's on TV until dickhead gets here?"

He giggled, smacking Wade's leg with their joined hands. "Yes. But don't call him that. It will pop out when you see him."

"And this is bad how?" Wade winked, and they turned on the TV, finding some wild movie to listen to while they snuggled.

This was a pretty good life, he had to admit. They just needed to find the siblings, and he would feel pretty complete.