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19. Nicholas

"We should see a shifter midwife."

Damon rubbed his still-flat belly. He'd lost weight, and his cheekbones were more prominent than before he got pregnant.

George asked non-stop questions about the baby.

"Would they have scales?

"Would they burn the inside of Dad's tummy?"

"Would they be born inside of an egg?"

"Definitely no eggs." Damon waggled a finger at his son.

"But dragons lay eggs, Dad." George pulled out a book with an image showing a dragon sitting on a clutch.

"Remember, sweetheart, I'm not a dragon."

"I so want a dragon brother or sister. They can take me for rides and we can burn stuff."

"No burning," Damon and I said in unison.

I'd explained to George that dragons had to be responsible when they shot out their flames. But the books he read were written by humans, depicting a creature of their imagination. I had to find reading material written by dragon shifters.

"Why do I need a shifter midwife?" Damon chose an apple from the fruit bowl. "You don't think something's wrong, do you?"

"Not at all." But with a human-and-dragon shifter pairing, I wanted my mate to have at least one check up during the pregnancy. Dragon shifters were not known for following the rules, but rather following their own path. No dragon shifters that I knew ever consulted a midwife. But also no one in my circle of friends had mated a human.

"There's a well-respected shifter outside of Creekville where we had the barbeque."

"What about George?"

While we included him in talking about the pregnancy, making sure he understood our love would expand to include the baby and not that we weren't taking away the affection we gave to him. But a checkup wasn't the place for a child, firstly, because, gods forbid, what if there was a complication.

"We can do it on a weekday." Creekville was where his new school was located.

"Okay," Damon agreed. "Go ahead and make the appointment."

If our son got up early on a school morning, I rode with him on our bicycles to school. But on the morning we were to see the midwife, the three of us went in the car. He knew we were seeing a midwife, and we said we'd tell him all about it in the afternoon. He was convinced Damon had dragons in his belly and that was why my mate was suffering from indigestion.

Damon gripped my hand as we pulled up in front of a cabin, surrounded by trees.

"Are you sure this is the right place?" He looked around, but there were no other houses within a mile.

I showed him the digital map on my phone.

"Why is my belly all wobbly?"

"Because while you're already a dad, this is your first baby with a shifter?"

When we reached the door, it opened and a fox shifter greeted us. "Hello, I'm Josie, and you must be Damon and Nicholas." She ushered us in. "This is exciting. My first shifter/human couple."

We filled in paperwork, not the reams of answers that modern medical institutions, like what was the name of your first cat. That was a slight exaggeration, but that paperwork always had me scratching my head. Not that I went to the doctor much as a shifter, but in my last job, we had an annual medical, and I had to submit to it. Saying, "I'm a shifter and we rarely get human illnesses" would not have gone down well.

Josie offered us herbal tea, and while she was boiling the water she asked if we'd played the dragon guessing game.

Damon shot me a glance, one brow raised, but I was at a loss. I racked my brain for childhood guessing games specific to our kind but came up blank. If this was pregnancy-related, I was as in the dark as my human mate.

"I'm at a loss, Josie. What is that?"

"My apologies. Some of my clients are immersed in the dragon shifter lifestyle and live in the caves in the mountains during the omega's pregnancy." She jerked her head toward the distant hills. "With no internet or TV, their entertainment options are limited."

Damon's deer-in-the-headlights expression had me clutching his hand, and I assured him we would not be adjourning to a cave for the birth.

"They guess how many eggs the omega is carrying."

The silence in the room was so heavy, it needed propping up. I cleared my throat. Maybe my shifter hearing was affected, because I heard Josie mention eggs.

"Eggs?" Damon snatched his hand away. "You'll have to fill me in. I hold eggs and do what?" He sent me a "Help me out" look and asked Josie, "Is this like an easter egg hunt?"

Josie's hand froze as she poured water into the teapot. It was as though her body had turned to ice and she couldn't move. Water spilled from the pot, and I leaped up and took it from her. She blinked and gasped. Maybe coming here was a mistake and she was suffering from a shifter-related illness.

But when she recovered her voice, she said, "You didn't tell him?" That was directed at me, and my mate glowered at me and snapped, "You didn't tell me what, dear?"

Yikes, I was in trouble.

"I'm guessing not." I put the kettle on the draining board and strolled back to Damon and Josie. I was buying time as my mind worked overtime, going through the possibilities of what I had neglected to tell Damon. Josie said eggs. Eggs. Oh gods, eggs!

Eggs. What's wrong with you?My dragon wasn't confused. How else are the babies going to arrive?

"Eggs! You have eggs!"

"Where?" Damon shouted back.

"How you two ever became pregnant is beyond me," Josie muttered. "Maybe you need a lecture about the birds, bees, and reptiles." She pulled up an image on her phone of what I assumed was a dragon shifter cuddling eggs in a pile of pillows. "The eggs you have in your belly and that you will lay."

Blood drained from Damon's cheeks, and Josie's and my shifter reflexes kicked in. We grabbed him as he sagged, and Josie directed me to her examination room where I lay my mate on the table. She checked his pulse and bustled off to make the tea while I held my mate's hand and stroked his brow.

"I didn't know, I'm sorry. You're human, so I didn't think you were able to carry eggs."

Damon stirred, and I leaned in close. When his eyes opened, I searched them for what? Fury? Sadness? Fear? Revulsion? Oh gods, not that last one.

"Where am I?" He struggled to sit, but I told him to stay where he was.

"You got dizzy."

"Because of the baby?" He rubbed his belly. "Is our little one all right?"

How could I tell him Josie wouldn't hear the heartbeat inside of the egg and that there would be more than one? Even a scan didn't work with eggs, as the image was blurred. That much I knew.

"Nicholas, tell me." He gripped my arm, digging his nails into my skin. "What's wrong?"

"You don't have a baby nestled in your belly as most humans do."

"What?" Tears spilled down his cheeks, and I kissed them away. "My baby. My baby."

Damn, I'd fucked this up. "No, the babies are fine."

"Babies? I'm carrying twins?"

Josie arrived with the tea, and I sat Damon up, propped up with cushions. "Not twins as such. You have a clutch of eggs."

"Please repeat that."

"You mated with a dragon shifter, and dragons lay eggs and so do some of their human mates."

"Some. But I'm not part of the ‘some'?"

Josie sipped her own tea. "No, I scented your eggs when you walked in. Your babies are dragon shifters. I can examine you but can only estimate how many eggs you have."

"George is going to freak out when he hears he has multiple dragon brothers or sisters," Damon deadpanned.

"You're not upset?" I was trying to gauge how many apologies I had to give and the number of breakfasts in bed I needed to deliver.

"I don't know how I feel except I love our little ones, whether they arrive inside a shell or kicking and screaming."

"Me too."

Tell him about the nest. My beast wanted Damon to be prepared.

He saw that photo.

Tell him!

I gulped and gave my mate my best smile, but he narrowed his eyes. "What now? Out with it?"

"The nesting instinct. Humans experience that."

"Yes, my friend from work's husband did. He sat in the nursery arranging and rearranging the baby clothes."

"Okay." That was a good introduction. We sipped our tea, and my mate commented on how good it was.

"You will want to lay the eggs in a nest and then sit there with them until they hatch." I put down my cup, ready to grab Damon's if he dropped it.

"Just promise me we don't have to live in a cave." He shivered.

How could I promise that? When instinct took over, we had no choice.

"That's a personal decision. Some dragon shifters like the time in the dark, like their ancestors."

Damon grasped my hand. "Thank gods. I hate rats."

I love them, but I don't like caves either. My dragon preferred the comforts of home.

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