CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Lero
Nightshade Bear Territory
When I heard the footfalls on the doorstep I thought it was my other parents.
After our walk around the village, I came home and took a nap while Dad cooked.
I offered to stay up and help him but he insisted he enjoyed the quiet solitude of cooking.
I padded to the front door, bracing for either the squishing hug or the growling about how dare I keep them out of the loop but no one was there.
I glanced down to find a postcard on the green doormat. I picked it up.
“Your mate is back on his own world. Your uncle is annoying. Passed some of your parents coming through the gateway. Congratulations. When the world freaks out just shout ‘The egg is at Grandpa’s!” Don’t ask.
I’m not telling. Anyway. Try not to die anytime soon, okay?
We have enough problems without Mori trying to beat up Dern because you’re dead. ”
I read the words aloud as my sire and carrier’s scent came into nose reach.
The breeze carried them to me and I shut the front door and settled into one of the rocking chairs and waited for the screaming to start or at least the howling.
Instead, my carrier looked like he might pop any day now and my heart sank into my stomach.
I was a horrible son to make him come this far.
“I’m not that damn pregnant!” my carrier growled. “I have two more weeks.”
He batted away my sire’s hand as he tried to help him up the few steps onto the porch. Once he made it up them he sat down in the chair next to me and took my hand.
“You must’ve been so scared if you didn’t even tell us” he said. “I’m sorry this is happening to you.”
My mouth dropped open. Was this the same guy who freaked out about me participating in Mated for the Holidays?
“You’re not required to tell us everything. I understand wanting a matingmoon with your guy even if the circumstances are unusual. I understand that you didn’t want us to worry or go to battle. It’s never easy being the one to decide how much bad news to give away.”
My sire squeezed my shoulder and went inside to check on Dad. I rocked in silence next to my carrier, imagining how scary it must’ve been for him to get the news from a note. The back door opened and shut and I met my carrier’s eyes.
“They have to go, love. They have their pride and their instincts. It’s not much different from the fact I’m staying here because you’ll always be my little cub,” he said and it took a full ten seconds for his words to settle themselves into my brain.
“NO!” I groaned.
“They’re not alone. Your grandpa is going too,” my carrier flashed me a sad smile. “This is the way of things.”
“Which grandpa?” I asked, imagining Xenos blasting through Pami’s smug face.
“The grandpa who is not me,” Xenos’s voice reached my ears before my carrier had the chance to answer.
“I’m here to discuss what might need to happen after they save your mate.
” He took his place in the last rocking chair and none of us said anything for a moment.
“We don’t know the toll the magic might’ve taken on Vallis’s body.
We don’t know what the magic prevented or didn’t prevent.
He might need to spend some time in the hospital.
Your grandsire has called ahead to ensure that there is a place at the Heartville Hospital with Bane Hemlock for him.
It’ll be a quieter place for him to recover.
He’s going to make that decision on the spot once he sees him.
If Vallis needs to go to Heartville, they’ll take him there.
That’s how your grandsire justified going on this trip and I fully support his choices and the thought process behind them.
If that is what comes to be, we’ll get you there once we know they weren’t followed. ”
Neither Vallis nor I had thought that far ahead and as hard as I tried I couldn’t imagine my poor mate suffering and… I took a deep breath, trying not to cry.
“The mind has a way of protecting itself,” my grandcarrier patted my hand.
“Come on. Your dad cooked. It would be a shame to let a good meal go to waste. There will be plenty of time to sit in shock later. Hold onto that postcard. Dern doesn’t send them out willynilly. May I see it? If it’s not too private?”
I passed off the postcard with the note one side and the photo of a full Moonscale breakfast spread on the other side to him. He chuckled after he read the note.
“Do you know what he’s talking about?” I asked.
“Yes and it sounds like you will too when the time is right. I feared things might go that way,” my grandsire sighed and shook his head. “Every great warrior will fall by the same weapon they raise eventually. Doesn’t matter if they’re right or wrong.”