Chapter 16
FORD
My belly was getting big—really big. Ginormous, even.
People at work looked at me and thought I was due any day now. I wasn’t. According to the midwife, I was having at least twins. Twins!
There had been a time when I never thought I’d find someone to settle down and have a family with, and here I was growing two babies.
My coworkers had become really overprotective at work and no longer let me do anything that required lifting more than, well, pretty much an ounce. It was sweet but also kind of a pain.
Usually I indulged them. It was nice having people care about me and my wellbeing.
But today, I was rebelling. My dragon was antsy and sitting at a desk doing admin work wasn’t helping.
When the delivery came during my lunch break, I jumped into action knowing full well that it was only a matter of time before Sampson figured out I wasn’t eating any longer.
Truck unloaded, I checked off the inventory by unpacking everything and then entering it into the tablet. He wouldn’t mind me doing the actual data entry part of this, but unpacking the boxes and putting them in piles to be labeled… that would have his protectiveness on high alert.
The delivery was a bunch of random things.
There were work clothes, butterfly nets, and cookie mix in jars in the first half.
Then, in the second, there were rugs, pillows, blankets, and kitchen sponges.
I wasn’t sure if that was how distribution worked for the larger stores, but that seemed pretty typical around here.
“Oh, Sampson’s gonna be pissed.” Sally stood there, looking at my piles. If I didn’t know she was human, I’d be sure she was a cat the way she constantly appeared out of nowhere.
“Not if you hurry up and get things put away so he doesn’t know.”
Around here, it was easier to beg for forgiveness than ask his permission and be turned down.
She reached for the pile of blankets, and I shook my head.
“No, leave those there.”
She went for the rug and then the pillows and then the shirts. Each time I answered with another shake of my head.
“What can I take?”
“The butterfly nets and the cookie mix in a jar.” It was weird. I didn’t get it, but my dragon refused to allow me to put most of it away. He was iffy on the sponges.
When Sampson came in, I asked him, “How much for the lot of it?” I hadn’t planned on it, but out it came. What started as my dragon being weird turned into me needing the items.
“What? You want it all for resale?”
“No, my dragon insists.” At least with Sampson I could be open about the reason.
“Then it’ll cost a hug.”
“Excuse me?”
“It costs a hug and a thank-you.”
I stood there, staring.
“If you keep it up, it’s going to be a hug, a thank-you, and a hot meal.”
“You make no sense.” I hugged and thanked him. I probably had enough money, but free was better no matter the reason. Sampson was like the brother/uncle/father I grew up wishing I had.
“Let me help you pack up after you call your mate. Tell him to meet you when you get home. I don’t want to hear you unpacked this by yourself.”
“He’s gonna think I’ve lost my mind.” I wasn’t sure I hadn’t.
“No, he’s gonna think you’re nesting.”
Nesting? He said nesting… like with a clutch, but I could have sworn I felt them kick. Or maybe because there were multiples, that was the sensation I was getting when they moved to get into place. In any case, my dragon agreed it was nest time.
I called my mate and put him on speakerphone and started carrying out pillows and shoving them inside the vehicle. “Hey, I know you’re at the den, but can you come home?”
“Sure. Is everything okay? Do you need me to call the midwife?”
“Everything’s great, and I don’t need the midwife, but I’m bringing home a bunch of stuff from work.”
“Food?”
“You’ll see. It’s a surprise.”
When he greeted me as I climbed out of the truck and looked inside, he understood exactly what was going on. He bent down and kissed my belly. “You little ones are coming in eggs, aren’t ya? Well, we’re gonna go make a nest for you.” He kissed my belly again. “Please wait until it’s ready to come.”
“You don’t think that’s weird?”
“I would think it was weird if my mate was a bear or a cat. You’re a dragon. I sort of assumed there would be a nest in there somewhere.”
“You really accept me for exactly who I am.”
“I love you for exactly who you are.” He kissed my cheek and then insisted I wait inside while he unloaded everything.
Putting it together wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.
It was like I had a plan without realizing it—laying things like the rugs down first, then the pillows and the blankets over all of that.
The pillows formed almost a ring for the blankets to sit on and looked very nest-like, which sort of surprised me.
I had seen other people’s nests. They looked nothing like this, but then again, they looked nothing like each other either.
“What’s with all the work shirts?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know, but we need them above the wall, the perimeter, almost as a set.” I went into our room, grabbed my mate’s sweats that he had worn yesterday, turned them inside out, and brought them to the nest.
“I can wash those, you know.”
“They need to smell like you.”
I tried to think back to sex ed, when they talked about how quickly it took from the time you got your nesting impulses to the time you laid your eggs, and I couldn’t remember.
I could call Jasper, but that felt awkward.
Our midwife was great, but I was the first dragon they’d worked with.
In the end, I settled on they will come when they come.
I called Sampson, told him I was taking leave and would keep him updated. I also asked for more blankets. There were nowhere near enough.
After a very quick shower, I climbed into the nest where I stayed unless I absolutely needed to get up. And when I did, my mate took my place. He was the best.
Having a nest was wild. I was drawn to it in a way I’d never been drawn to a place before. It was like a freaking magnet, and I was stuck.
On the fourth day, my stomach started to cramp. “It’s time, honey,” I said.
Our midwife had given us a plan that we were to follow. They had reached out to some dragon flights and talked to some healers. They were the best.
The plan included what they called an “everything shower” because, in their words, I wasn’t going to want to leave that nest after the eggs came.
I wasn’t quite sure I believed that it would be that bad.
So far I’d managed to get up to eat or take a walk around the cabin as long as Zack was in the nest. Would it be that different?
But my mate offered to help me clean up, and I wasn’t turning it down.
They said to call if I felt anything unusual, and I assured them I would.
After getting cleaned up, I circled the nest over and over again, riding out the contractions.
It was harder on my mate than it was for me.
He didn’t like seeing my pain. It was written all over his face, but there was nothing I could do about it. It came with the territory.
The midwife said I would know when it was time to push. They were right.
My mate helped me into the nest and climbed in behind me, letting me squat with my back against his chest. This position was perfect. He helped me stay up as I pushed, and pushed, and pushed.
The first egg, purple, came out twenty minutes later. It was gorgeous, and I wanted to take time to admire it, but my body disagreed, the contractions hitting even harder.
The second one decided to come almost immediately afterward. This one was yellow and sitting next to their sibling reminded me of my own scales.
“Let me help you clean up and rest,” my mate said.
I was a sweaty mess and barely able to stay upright. Getting rest would be great.
Egg. Egg. Push. My dragon insisted it wasn't time yet.
“No, I can’t. There’s... there’s... there’s another one.”
“The midwife said there were two.”
“They said at least two. Trust me, there’s another one.”
And sure enough, ten minutes later, I birthed our third which was green, nearly the shade of my eyes.
“We will need another crib,” I said. With all that had happened, my mind went to the practical. So weird.
“I’ll take care of it. You need to rest.”
We still didn’t know who was inside. Dragon?
Bear? Human? One of each? Our midwife said the egg didn’t identify the beast. We didn’t care as long as they were healthy.
We called to let the midwife know they were here, and they promised to come by in the next day or two to listen to them.
There wasn’t much they could do to change anything at this stage, but the reassurance was going to be nice.
That night I fell asleep wrapped around them, my mate on the other side. “Thank you for my family,” I said.
“No, thank you.” He kissed my forehead. “Thank you, mate.”