Chapter 47
Savla
It was almost two hours into the planning for our future home and the entire peanut gallery was still present. When we reached the garden section, Hanna leaned into me, her hair brushing my jaw and my brain stopped working.
Her hand rested on mine without thinking and my fingers naturally curled around hers. The bond warmed, slow and tender.
Darak stared between us and muttered, “I swear to the ancestors, if you two start making heart eyes, I’m quitting.”
I barely heard him. Hanna looked up at me with an amused twinkle in her eyes.
“What?” she asked, in a whisper.
I swallowed hard. “I keep seeing it.”
“Seeing what?”
“This.” I touched the blueprint lightly. “This home. With you in it. With me. Together.”
Her breath caught and the air thickened. The bond hummed even louder. Everything felt like a beginning when it came to Hanna. Behind us, the entire clan collectively combusted.
“They’re definitely nesting. I can tell. It’s the pregnancy hormones,” Becca muttered from where she was sitting on her mate’s lap.
“Get them a baby room—just in case,” Rok called, rubbing his palm across his mate’s back and grinning at us.
I dragged a hand down my face. “They’re going to be unbearable.”
Hanna leaned against me, warm and perfect. “Yeah. But I don’t mind.”
And I didn’t either. The Gods help me—I loved this chaos. The clan that I’d never once thought I would have outside of my brothers. The perfect mate that matched every dream I’d ever had plus more.
And I loved her above everything else. For believing in me, for knowing what I needed before I did, and I couldn’t wait for the future that lay in front of us. The one that I’d never dared to dream too hard for, but I wanted more than anything.
Ribbon had definitely grown bigger. Bigger than any mountain toad I’d ever seen, and I wondered if it was related to the magickal ingredients he readily consumed from Hanna’s section of our workshop space.
Everyone said he was the size of a boulder, but that was inaccurate. He was the size of a problem.
Because the moment Darak tried to spread our blueprint flat again—after the clan wrinkled it, dropped it twice, and used it as a snack tray—Ribbon hopped onto the table and sat on it.
Just sat. A mountain of damp toad flesh on top of the carefully drawn home layout. Darak let out a heartfelt noise I’d only heard from warriors in battle.
“Savla. Remove your creature.”
I cleared my throat, already knowing what the outcome would be. “Ribbon, off.”
He croaked once. Deep and defiant. A sound that clearly meant ‘no.’
Zara clapped her hands. “He’s claiming his house now.”
Enka added, “Technically, he’s the real heir in this relationship.”
Ribbon croaked again, louder.
Darak’s eye twitched. “Savla. Get him off, or I swear on the ancestors—”
I stepped up and tried to push him gently. He didn’t budge an inch. He widened, like a pancake spreading.
“Gods,” I muttered. “He’s increasing surface area.”
Hanna laughed so hard she had to lean into me for balance. The bond hummed warm and syrup-thick, and I nearly forgot we had a growing toad problem. Darak pinched the bridge of his nose.
“That’s it. I can’t do this. I’m sedating the clan for the rest of this process and vetoing all decisions,” he stated, firmly.
“Hey!” Zara protested. “We’re helping!”
“You’re hindering,” Darak corrected. “Actively, consistently and loudly.”
Dristan crossed his arms, smirking. “This is the Everlock building experience. Embrace it.”
Darak pointed a shaking finger at him. “I’ll embrace the tranquilizer gun you promised me, asshole.”
Pen covered Lira’s ears. “Language!”
Krusk gently guided the baby away from Darak’s meltdown radius. “He’ll be fine.”
“He won’t,” Enka said cheerfully. “He’s unraveling.”
Darak snapped. “I am fine.”
Ribbon croaked—clearly implying he was not.
I leaned closer to Hanna. She was glowing in the afternoon sun, hair catching little threads of light. It made something in my chest flutter—soft and stupid and entirely out of my control.
I murmured, “We should… probably pick a place for Ribbon’s pond before he decides it himself.”
Hanna grinned up at me. “Yeah. And maybe a place for another little garden. And space for—oh Goddess Mother, look how cute!” She pointed at a spot where Darak had sketched a tiny square labeled future expansion.
She smiled at me, shy and soft. “Like… in case we ever need more rooms.”
My brain did something strange, that I was entirely unused to. It filled in possibilities of the future. Something that it had avoided for much too long.
And what I saw astounded me. A tiny hand reaching out for mine. A child with her hair and my eyes. Little footsteps running across the wooden floor. Hanna laughing in the doorway as she watched us, stomach swollen with our next youngling.
My heart slammed like it wanted out and the bond pulsed—warm, deep and full. Hanna’s eyes widened almost the same second.
“You’re imagining something,” she whispered.
I choked. “No.”
“You are,” she said, voice pitchy.
“I’m not.”
“You are,” she hissed, pressing a light kiss to my lips. “You can tell me anything.”
The bond betrayed me completely by projecting a soft, sweet warmth that basically screamed what I was thinking of. The family I was dreaming of.
I groaned. “Gods. Just ignore that.”
She didn’t even try, pressing a harder kiss against my lips, slipping her tongue into my mouth and rewarding me with a kiss that spoke of her own dreams. Her own hopes.
A tiny smile tugged at her lips, shy, terrified and adorable. “What… what did you picture?”
I shook my head. “A... tiny witchling running through the house.”
The bond blazed while I pictured it and her eyes widened. She blinked up at me with a soft, sweet expression. “Savla.”
“I can’t control it,” I muttered. “It’s involuntary.”
She laughed under her breath. “You’re imagining our younglings?”
“I’m not—!” I hissed, voice cracking. “I mean—I wasn’t trying to—I wouldn’t want you to think—only when you’re ready, and—”
She touched my hand, stopping my meaningless tirade. I froze, terror filling me to my core. I hoped that I hadn’t messed anything up by just announcing my dreams to her.
“It wasn’t a bad thought,” she whispered, cheeks flaming but eyes warm. “Just… surprising.”
My heart nearly stopped. Before I could answer, Krusk stomped over.
“What’s this I hear about younglings?”
Hanna and I both shouted, “Nothing,”
Enka popped up behind him like a goblin. “I heard ‘future rooms.’”
Zara gasped dramatically. “Are you nesting again? Tell me everything. Savla needs more people to talk to.”
Tasia covered her mouth. “Oh, but what if she’s already pregnant! Call Pen—she knows the signs!”
Pen yelled from the other side of the room where she was hurrying over with a freshly changed Lira, “I’m already here!”
Darak hurled his clipboard onto the table. “We’re never going to get these blueprints finalized.”
Ribbon lifted his head and croaked triumphantly, still on the blueprint.
Hanna put a hand on my arm—a small gesture, but it grounded me instantly. She looked up at me with a shy, trembling little smile that made the entire chaotic scene fade away.
“We don’t have to think about any of that yet,” she said softly. “We have time. All the time we want.”
The bond softened, warm and steady. I nodded, throat tight. “Yes. We do.”
“But…” she added, biting her lip, “I didn’t hate the idea.”
My breath left me in one painful, joyful exhale. The clan hooted again since nothing was sacred if they were involved. Darak looked at though he wanted to scream into the void.
Ribbon croaked like he was officiating a mating ceremony. But all I could feel was Hanna’s fingers squeezing mine and the bond whispering gently,
Soon. Not now. But someday.
I wasn’t scared of that thought anymore. And the Gods help me—I wanted every day of my future with her.