Chapter 14
HART
His eyes were bright with unshed tears when he grabbed my shoulder. "You'll find some real estate listings on your desk."
Before I could ask him how he knew we'd been talking about moving in together, he turned to Silver and clutched his hands. "The cookies are fine. You baked them to perfection. You don't have food poisoning, but it is egg related."
Silver blinked. "That's impossible."
"Is it? You didn't sense a single inkling of heat?"
The longer Silver stared at Santa, the more rosy stain sank into his cheeks and neck. "Heat?"
"Thank goodness." I pulled Silver in for a hug. "I was so worried when you got sick. It's heat-related?" I knew nothing about dragon heats.
"I was in heat on Halloween?" Silver's voice sounded hollow, and it took a moment for my brain to process the news.
"You were in heat," I said slowly, "on Halloween."
He tried to pull away, and I realized how harsh I sounded, my throat dry and voice grating. I hugged him tighter and kissed his cheek. "Oh, Silver. We're going to be parents!"
He chuffed a wet laugh and squeezed me back. "It seems so."
Santa piled onto our hug from behind. "Congratulations! It's been ages since I've seen dragon eggs this far north."
"I have to tell Gold!" Silver wriggled from our embrace and rushed for the door. Once he had it open, he turned. "Aren't you coming with me?"
I grinned and followed him to the door. "Always." It seemed sudden, dumping my bullying family one moment and learning I was about to raise my own family the next, but I was all in with Silver. No matter what happened next, we would do it together.
"You're not mad?" Silver wouldn't meet my gaze on the subway.
"Why would I be mad? This is wonderful news!" I laced our fingers together and kissed his knuckles.
"It's … unexpected. I didn't know I was in heat." He sighed. "I should have known. I never want to attend parties."
"I'm glad I let Donner talk me into going." If I hadn't won the time trials, I probably would have stayed home. I grinned, remembering the boost of pride when I beat Bopp. I was still riding high after telling him off in the hangar, too.
Outracing him was easy. Telling him off had been hard, but the look on Silver's face when I did had filled me with more than pride. I finally felt worthy of him, and of our unborn children. We might be Comets, but the generational trauma and bullying would stop with me.
"I need a nest," Silver whispered. "Two. One at the bakery, and one at home."
"Our home." My hands itched to pull the flyers from the front pouch of my bag, where I'd shoved them before we left Santa's office. We'd agreed to review them with Gold, and not before.
We got off the subway at Silver's apartment building. The elevator down still made my skin prickle with wrongness, but I shrugged it off.
"Would you prefer to live below ground?" I asked, dreading the answer.
"I like it, but I'd rather live with you." He squeezed my hand.
The elevator slowed to a stop, and the doors slid open. The air was fresh and warm, but I still couldn't shake the fear of being buried alive, should anything happen.
Silver's apartment was gorgeous, though, with the changing walls and colorful lights along the floorboards. "Can you bring this technology with you?" I asked.
"It's part of the building," he said, "not my magic."
It was magic, though. I wondered if we could hire someone to spell our new home the same way.
Gold hugged us both when we arrived at the bakery and then hugged us again with tears in her eyes when we told her what Santa 30 had said about our eggs.
"That's wonderful news!" She squeezed me hard enough to knock the air from my lungs and left me gasping for air as she turned to Silver, gripping his shoulders. "Where are you going to live?"
My vision was still a little blurred when I pulled the flyers from my bag. I tried to stay neutral, but the first one, a two-story brick with deep eaves and scalloped trim, was absolutely adorable.
"It's near the hub," Silver said. "Two stops from here on the subway, and a quick train ride to anywhere in the village."
"I love the trim," Gold said. "It's so cute!" She pointed to the bold red print to the right of the image. "Open house on Sunday. You two should go. Take the day off."
"But you've been working so hard while we were gone."
She shook her head. "This place practically runs itself, and it's not like we were busy. Laurie and I compared notes last night, and neither of us have seen much action from the villagers. Either they stayed home for their mandatory days off, or they went far away from here."
"That's strange, isn't it?" Silver glanced at me.
"It's the time of year when most of us want to prepare for winter." I assumed my teammates had spent the days winterizing their homes and baking their own treats.
"Besides," Gold said with a wave of her hand, "Laurie's coming over to experiment on some new creations, and you said you already had a new cookie?"
Silver smirked at the mention of Laurie, but he said nothing as he opened the remaining box of cookies. We'd left two boxes with Santa.
Gold frowned at the little red candies on top, but her eyes lit up at the first bite. "They're hot!"
"We could cut back on the candies—"
"No! I'll ask Laurie to bring more! She sells cinnamon candies in her store. I never thought to add them to our snickerdoodles. Who gave you this idea?" She squinted at me, and I raised my hands in surrender.
"Not it."
"Santa 30," Silver said. "We already knew he had a sweet tooth, but he also seems to be a cinnamon connoisseur."
Gold grinned. "We should invite him to our next meeting."
"Can I come?" Silver asked. "Or is this for you, Laurie, and Santa only?"
Gold tousled his hair. He tried to grab her hat, but she darted around the workstation. What followed was a chase and a lot of laughter. Finally, Gold darted behind me, shoving me into Silver's arms.
The jingle bells on the main door rang, and Gold sailed out the kitchen's double doors, smoothing the hair back from her forehead like she hadn't been running like a child a moment before.
"I'll see you Sunday?" Silver asked.
"You could stay with me Saturday night." My apartment was closer to the open house, only one stop from the hub.
"I'd like that." Silver's smile was quickly becoming one of my favorite things in the world, especially when it held the same awe I felt whenever I looked at him. He was my mate, and I was the luckiest reindeer in the world.
We were both so tired on Saturday night, we fell asleep watching animated holiday specials on the floor of my living room, the only space large enough for both of us to sleep.
I woke with a sharp pain in my neck and stiff hips.
After I stripped to take a shower, I popped into my reindeer form in the bathroom to ease some of the aches and pains.
The cramped space wasn't big enough for a dragon to shift, though. My back twinged in sympathy when Silver groaned and dug his knuckle between his vertebrae. "Want to shift on the roof?" I asked.
"That sounds wonderful." He took my offered arm, and we walked to the door at the end of the hall.
"It won't be bad for the eggs, will it?"
He laughed and shook his head. "We lay our eggs in dragon form."
"Outside?" I shivered.
"We have birthing caves back home. Here, I would need to find a safe place. Santa 30's hangar would be big enough."
"But cold," I reminded him.
He laughed. "Dragon eggs protect against the harshest elements. Many birthing caves are in active volcanoes, or deep in cold mountain passes."
"I suppose that makes sense," I said. "There aren't many places large enough to hide a dragon."
"No." He sighed. "We won't have much privacy at the hangar, either. There aren't many dragons here, but I'll ask the griffins where they lay their eggs."
Silver stripped his clothes off and jumped into the air.
I almost laughed at how silly he looked until his magnificent wings sprang open and carried him several feet up.
Then, his dragon form spread out above the rooftop, and I understood his need to be airborne.
Over the large mountain lake, his size had seemed proportional to our surroundings, but here, in the city, on top of my apartment building with four small units to a floor, setting his full weight on the roof would likely crumble the building to the ground.
He flew in a circle around the building and shot a gout of blue flames into the sky before hovering vertically in the air and landing with the same grace as he'd taken off. His wings were the last to fold into his sides and become arms.
He wrapped them around his core and shivered. "It didn't seem that cold up here before."
I draped his parka over his shoulders, and he wrapped it around his body like a robe. I carried his clothes back to my apartment and showed him how to work the shower fixtures, and then I let him be while I searched my fridge for lunch.
The knock at the door was so quiet, I thought I'd imagined it. A few moments later, three hard knocks echoed off my bare kitchen walls. I checked the spy window and almost fell over with shock. My parents were outside my door with all the fixings for Sunday dinner.
"Hi!" I opened the door wide for Papa, who had his extra-large slow cooker balanced in both hands. Dad shuffled his grocery bag handles to one hand and grabbed me around the shoulders for a side hug.
"What are you doing here?" It was almost noon, time for the big family gathering at Uncle Arend's house.
"We wanted to eat family brunch with our son. What's wrong with that?" Dad flashed one of his brilliant smiles, but Papa shook his head.
"Tell him the truth," Papa said.
"We arrived at your uncle's place, Bopp started talking shit about you, and we left. We won't be going back to another family dinner until he apologizes."
"Never, in other words." Papa rolled his eyes. "That boy never apologizes for anything, and when he does, he's got his fingers crossed behind his back like a two-year-old."
"It's great to see you." Since we'd seen Bopp at the hangar, and I'd told him off, I'd been dreading the fallout with my parents. Having them show up at my door was an even better outcome than the best-case scenario I'd imagined.
"Is there enough food for one more?" I glanced at the bathroom door. Steam curled from the sizeable gap around the thin wood frame. The pipes protested, and then the patter of water against the sides of the shower enclosure diminished to a single slow drip.
"Of course!" Papa's overly cheerful grin made up for Dad's slight frown.
"Who's here?" Dad asked. "In your shower?"
"Your mate?" Papa asked. "The dragon baker?"
I nodded, afraid my voice would crack or fail me completely.
"Wonderful." Papa dragged me into the kitchen. "Set the table for four. I brought napkins and that vegetable dip you like. I'll chop up the broccoli and cauliflower."
He shoved the bakery box with more snickerdoodles to the side, but then he leaned down and inhaled deeply. "Smells delicious. Dessert?"
"If you'd like. We can't stay much past one. We have an open house at two."
"Open house?" Papa frowned at me. "You're moving in together?"
I nodded.
"Isn't that fast, even for fated mates?"
I wanted to melt into a puddle on the floor, or shift into my reindeer and take to the skies. My parents had raised me to be a responsible alpha, and here I was, knocking up my fated omega the first time we had sex, all because I couldn't fit a condom in my Halloween costume.
"That would be my fault." Silver stood in the kitchen doorway looking magnificent. He wore a gray suit that brought out the lowlights in his hair. I was nowhere near as professional in my polo and jeans.
"Papa, this is Silver, my mate," I stammered.
Silver held out his hand, and they shook. Papa leaned in for a sniff, and he tackle-hugged my much-larger mate. "Now I understand the rush. Congratulations!"
I'd expected harsh words. Instead, Papa hugged me and called to Dad, who was watching a game on the living room television. "Congratulations are in order, Encke! Come give our son a hug! We're going to be grandparents!"
Of all the ways I expected my parents to react to the news that Silver was pregnant, this wasn't it.
No teasing, no lectures, no "responsible alpha" sermons.
Their simple acceptance had me swallowing back sobs and wiping away tears of joy.
Everything from house hunting to the brutal training for Christmas Eve seemed less stressful now, replaced by gentle excitement and anticipation.
I couldn't wait to be a dad. Better yet, I was looking forward to introducing our babies to my dad and papa.