Chapter 44 Pregnant Baby Daddy
Severo inhaled sharply when his alarm went off and woke him up. Opening his eyes slowly, he frowned and reached for Seri when he didn’t find him in his arms. The frown deepened on realizing the bed was empty.
Quickly shutting off the alarm on his phone, Severo tugged on a pair of pajama bottoms and stumbled out of the bedroom, heading to the most likely location his Nymph would be—the kitchen.
He found Seri there sitting at the table, fully dressed in a long-sleeved gray tunic and black slacks, his cyan curls perfectly styled. The Nymph looked zoned out and tired as he clutched his coffee mug. His eyes narrowed slightly at the redness he saw under the Water Nymph’s eyes.
“What’s wrong? You’ve been crying…”
Seri’s cheeks flushed slightly. “It’s nothing really…just a bad dream.”
Severo slowly sat down next to him at the table. “I wish you had woken me up. Want to talk about it?”
“It was just another about Skya being taken. I calmed myself down just fine. You have work, so I didn’t see the point in waking you up.”
He snorted. “Today’s going to be a shitshow with or without a full night of sleep.”
Seri chuckled. “Right…‘cause Cyrus and Killian ran off to be with their pregnant baby daddy, Ender.”
He choked on spit, coughing before letting out a distressed groan. “Oh, that sounds so wrong.”
The Water Nymph giggled before sighing. “You know, I tried to be mad at Cyrus for Skya being kidnapped by traffickers…but I just couldn’t find it in me to actually hold on to that anger.
I mean, the only way Skya wouldn’t have been taken was if Cyrus had let Killian die.
How could I even say I’d prefer that? He was one of the first real friends I made. I couldn’t imagine him not being here…”
“Yeah, I can’t either. Though, now Cyrus and Killian are both not directly here, even if they are still alive.”
“Yep, ‘cause baby daddy.” Seri giggled, before rubbing his face with a groan. “Even without the dreams…I keep panicking when I wake up, and I shouldn’t be. It’s been months.”
Turning the man, chair and all, towards him, he wrapped his arms around the Water Nymph’s waist and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Seri, you know these things take time. There is no ‘shouldn’t be’. There is just what is. But I get it, I sometimes wake up panicked too.”
The Nymph stared, looking sad. “You do?”
“I do. And every time I do, I find myself running to Skya’s room with this pit of fear and pain in my chest, worried she won’t be there when I reach it. But then, I had to deal with the same thing when you were taken…”
Seri’s eyes widened slightly. “You never told me.”
“I’m pretty good at rationalizing myself into being better, even if some may think that it’s not exactly healthy to do. As for not mentioning it, I just didn’t want to add on to what you were already dealing with.”
The Nymph hugged him. “Don’t do that. I want to know if you are struggling too… Also—” The man huffed, sounding irritated. “—my broken ass needs to know you are less put together than I think you are.”
Severo chuckled. “Shouldn’t you know I’m a hot mess by now?”
Seri snorted, rolling his eyes. “Anyway, I’m going to up my therapy sessions. I think I need to. I kept putting it off, but…yeah…”
Ender re-joined the waking world, feeling as if an itch he had been dying to scratch had been itched just right. Not only that, he was warm.
Frowning slightly on noting he was in his Gorgon form, he pulled back from it, shifting to fully humanoid. That done, with his eyes still closed, he smiled as he cuddled in further, taking a deep breath in.
His eyes snapped open wide when the scents his nose caught instantly had him on high alert.
Ender couldn’t help but wince when the memories came flooding back to him.
Well, most of them. He remembered a heck of a lot…
a bit of the rampaging he accomplished, and even seeing the two agents now in his fucking bed, but…
he didn’t remember how he ended up in bed with the two men again. Damn fucking hormones.
Ender warily eyed Killian’s chest. He couldn’t see the Fate, but he felt him against his back.
Instantly, his paranoia tried to rise up, thinking about why they were there, and he did his damn best to tamp it back down.
Like, either way, one reason was obvious. Toddles…that blasted traitorous bird, had blabbed. Yet, that didn’t fully cover the why…
“Awake?” a smooth, spine-tingling voice asked. He flinched when Killian ran a hand gently over his hair.
Looking up slowly, he met the Siren’s gaze. “Why did you come?”
One of Killian’s eyebrows, that he now noticed was perfectly shaped, slowly rose at that, before he snorted. “Really? I would think one finding out they’re about to be a father would tend to send people running in one direction or another.”
“I didn’t ask for you—either of you—to come. And they are mine, not yours,” Ender stated stiffly.
The Siren’s eyes narrowed on him. “While neither of us would ever try to take the children from you, the fact is, you can’t keep them from us either.”
“They—”
“Enough!”
Ender sputtered at being snapped at like he was a child.
“Ender, you are not our boss, and those babies are not just yours. I know you are used to being able to successfully shut down and out shout any opposition, but it is not going to work here.”
He huffed and went to sit up, but hissed as the thicker arm around him tightened, stopping him.
The Fate, who had been snoring behind him, snuffled, before grumbling, “Couldn’t give me a few more hours?”
“Let go!” Ender demanded.
Cyrus did instantly, so he sat up, and wrapped his arms protectively around his stomach, uncaring that he was completely naked. His stomach hid enough. “Boss or not, sperm donors or not, they are mine. They are in me, aren’t they?!”
“Ender, we are not trying to take them away from you. We just want to help.” Killian pushed himself up into a seated position, the Siren had apparently gone to sleep fully clothed. “Let us be there for them, and you.”
Ender rolled his eyes with a scoff. “For how long? A few weeks? Until they’re born?
In case you’ve forgotten, I’m a wanted criminal.
And you two goody-two-shoes are very much on the other side of the law.
” His gaze flicked to the Siren’s left hand, eyeing the ring for a brief moment before meeting the man’s gaze again.
“Nice ring. Sorry to blow up your engagement, but I'm happy to say that this is a complication you two are more than fucking welcome to ignore and forget exists.”
Killian stared, silent for a moment, before he slowly asked, “You really think this is something we could ignore?”
He smiled stiffly. “Easily. Now, go back to your government jobs and leave me alone, as now I…” he growled.
“Now I have to move my fucking base, thanks to Toddles telling you two fuckers where it is. So, yeah, all that baby prep is out of the window! Like, do you even know how hard it is to secretly build a fucking underground compound nowadays?! Finding the land space is not even half the fucking problem!”
Cyrus heaved a sigh behind him. “Ender, we quit.”
His eyes widened as the words registered, and he looked back at the Fate, gasping, “You did what?!”
“Technically, you quit for me, I just agreed in the aftermath,” Killian drawled. The Siren’s voice was smooth as can be, but there was this underlying hint of danger in his tone that told Ender the man wasn’t too pleased with his partner about it.
“Aww, come on, Baby, I apologized,” Cyrus whined.
Ender wrinkled his nose a bit at the man’s tone of voice, as it seemed completely out of place with what little he admittedly knew about the Fate.
“Mm, still not forgiven,” Killian hummed sweetly.
Well, at least he was right about the Siren being a brat.
Scooting back a bit against the headboard, so he could see them both at once, Ender looked back and forth between the two, trying to tell if they were lying or acting suspicious in any way.
Unfortunately, he honestly didn’t know them well enough to even know what signs to look for. “Are you two fucking with me?”
Killian chuckled. “We aren’t, as of—” The man tsked. “—I’m not actually sure what time it is, but it’s been at least a day since we became jobless.”
Frowning, he absently ran his hands over his baby bump as he continued to eye them. Why would they quit? What if this was a trick? Was it a trick?
His gaze narrowed. Were they plotting something? They knew where his compound was now…could a raid be coming?
“I can practically see the conspiracies turning around in your head, Ender,” Cyrus mused with a snort.
“We aren’t plotting anything. And we didn’t exactly have time to plan.
We just packed up a bunch of shit and drove here.
It's likely going to be interesting trying to explain this to my parents…or move shit without being noticed. If we even can with how annoying my family is already being about us quitting.”
Killian chuckled. “Your parents are going to love this.”
Cyrus just rolled his eyes.
Ender had no clue why Killian thought Cyrus’ parents would ‘love’ this development, but then, he was also having trouble recalling who Cyrus’ parents were.
Then again, there were so many Grimms, it was hard to keep track of the ones not currently being a pain in his ass, or at risk of becoming a future one.
Though, none of that really mattered at the moment.
“Who said you could move in here?!” Ender cried in exasperation.
Killian annoyingly raised a brow at him again. “And where else would we move to?”
He huffed and scurried off the bed, turning to glare at them with a hiss. “I don’t care where you move, as long as it’s not here! This is MY compound! You can’t just—” Ender’s words cut off abruptly as his eyes were drawn to something on the bed.
Clothes—a whole wad of clothes—were strown between the two men. Ones he hadn’t seen before, and had not put there, but…but he needed to… He needed to arrange them.
Without hesitating, Ender prodded the two men off his bed, and away from his nest, before starting to grab things, so he could weave them where they needed to go.
The smells coming from the items made him…happy, but also pissed him off, because they obviously belonged to Killian and Cyrus. Ender both wanted to throw them at the two men, while also daring anyone to try to take them from him, because he would NOT be giving them up!
Ugh…his brain was not making sense, even to him. Fucking hormones…
Cyrus stood there, not even attempting to hold back his smirk, as he and Killian watched a fully naked Ender kneel and shove the clothes the man had cocooned himself in last night into his nest.
The Gorgon had managed to unravel himself in his sleep, and at some point, he'd lost his white T-shirt, which had forced Cyrus to shift things out of the way every so often last night.
Ender’s mouth was pinched, yet his eyes were shining. The man looked so contrite, yet happy, after no doubt realizing who the clothes belonged to. Cyrus licked his lips as his gaze trailed down the Gorgon’s back, stopping when he reached his plump, taut ass.
“Hells bells, stop staring!” Ender suddenly snapped, while glaring over his shoulder at them.
“How can we not? You are quite a sight,” he chuckled, his voice sounding a bit husky.
The Gorgon’s face went bright red as he sputtered with indignation, “Out! OUT!”
The naked man pointed, before moving rather quickly from the bed, considering how heavily pregnant he was, and shoving them towards the door, followed by him opening it and pushing them both out of the room.
“Just couldn’t help yourself, could you?” Killian sighed as the door slammed shut behind them. “I was enjoying the view.”
Cyrus chuckled. “He moves rather fast for how big he is.”
“Whatever you do, do NOT say that to his face.”
They looked to the left when someone snorted beside them, and found Soren standing there. “Yeah, I agree, that would be—you know what, do it. Please, do it.” The Harpy smiled viciously.
“I think I’ll pass,” Cyrus said dryly.
Soren rolled his eyes and walked past them. “Follow me.”
And with nothing better to do, they did.