Chapter 27
Vatten
Guardians of Glitter Bomb Territory
How long had I been pregnant? I hadn’t gotten sick.
Then again not everyone experienced ‘morning sickness.’ My nipples definitely looked like they were charging up to be baby bottles.
How many of our fifty-eight to seventy days have been burnt up already?
We might just have to keep living in the apartment for now.
Building a house takes time and I couldn’t hold a hammer or a nail gun in my dog form.
My thoughts chased their own tails as we walked to the pharmacy. I almost skipped it altogether and headed straight for the Green Bay Omega and Baby Clinic. An ultrasound would be better than a pregnancy test but I didn’t know any of the midwives here, unless you counted Evie.
“I could’ve called her and had her drop by the apartment,” Eran said, squeezing my hand.
“I needed the walk either way,” I shook my head.
Then I couldn’t help it. Fur sprouted between my fingers and toes and my dog burst out of me, taking me down low to the ground and running off.
Conflicting emotions always gave me the zoomies.
Was I supposed to be excited that I was pregnant or worried about how little time we had to be prepared for what might be a very large litter?
Was I supposed to be pleased or concerned about how Eran followed me from room to room even after his rut was over?
Was Gooseberry doing okay? Were murderous ghosts still wandering the streets of the GGB waiting for someone to strike down?
Like how the hell was I supposed to do anything besides run aimlessly until I ran out of steam?
How did anyone do this whole ‘living like an adult thing?’
Zoomies.
Zoomies had to be the answer. I glanced over my shoulder to see a white, fluffy cat racing behind my butt.
Eran was fast for such a little creature.
I kept zooming. I weaved in and out of feet and legs and around newsstands and little carts selling food.
I zoomed until the streets gave way to greenery and children ran in all directions as if someone had made a grassy field just for them.
Park.
The word came unbidden into my thoughts.
I’d seen parks before during my travels.
We didn’t have them up north. Not like this anyway.
A few little heads turned in my direction, and I zoomed away from the park.
I didn’t want to be treated like a pet dog by a bunch of babies.
Eran swerved, following me perfectly. Maybe he really would follow me anywhere.
“Any idea where you want to go?” his voice played through my thoughts.
“FAST!” I answered.
Sure, fast wasn’t a destination but it was the appropriate word for what my dog considered to be our goal.
So fast that either the thoughts flew out of our head or they lined themselves out right.
So, I kept running until I had to duck into an alleyway and pant for air.
We were near the bank. That was information I received from what Eran knew but it wasn’t that useful to me.
“We could drive out to the lake,” Eran offered and for half a second, I almost took him up on that offer. Escaping to the water sounded perfect, except chasing waterfowl and going for a swim wouldn’t make me any less pregnant.
“Gotta fetch the stick and pee on it,” my dog told him and he cracked up inside my head.
“That’s one way to say it,” he said a second later when he stopped laughing.
Eran caught up to me and leaned against me as I panted. I loved him so much. There was something nice about having someone around who always wanted to be with me. Especially, when I always wanted to be around him too. Maybe it was the domestic animals inside of us. Together was just better.
“Or we could drive out to the farm and see what Evie’s up to,” Eran offered. “You could zoom around out there. You could stick your head out the window while I drive.”
“We gotta walk all the way back to the club where the truck is though, huh?” I asked.
“I’ll go get it as long as you promise not to run off. I can find you, but parking is a nightmare in the evenings when Glitter Bomb has drag night and tonight is drag night.”
“Will Evie be there?” I asked.
“I’m not sure. I’ll text her. If she’s not at the farm Philip will be. He’s okay too. He won’t make up answers to the questions he doesn’t know about at least,” Eran told me.
“I’ll wait here. Can we get something to eat on the way?” I asked.
“Yeah. We need to fill you up with liquid anyway so that the pictures show up better,” he said.
“I am not a water balloon!” I said and spun in a circle.
A man came out of the bank’s back door to smoke a cigarette. I crinkled my nose and before I knew what was happening, I threw up in his general direction.
“Should I call a healer?” he asked, smarter than some people since he didn’t assume we were just strays.
“Thanks, Marlawe, but we’re okay,” Eran said, shifting back from his cat form. “We’re going to head out to the farm.”
Eran could say we were okay all day long, but I was most certainly not okay.
My dog threw up again to prove it. Marlawe’s scent twisted all concerned and he disappeared back inside the bank after stamping out his barely smoked smelly stick.
I almost ran away but Eran flashed me a concerned look.
Maybe I hadn’t had morning sickness because we didn’t allow stinky things into our apartment.
Eran scooped me up and carried me in through the back door of another building. I crossed my ears that we weren’t breaking and entering.
“It’s the back office of Jade’s place,” Eran said, picking up my thoughts over our mating link.
“Eran?” a woman’s voice called out. “Is that you? Jade isn’t here today but we’re up to our ears in phone calls. I swear, no one wants kids to be happy.”
“What’s up, Zevna?” Eran shouted back as a woman with big black wings ducked through the doorway into the small office.
“Never mind. Is he okay?” she asked, nodding at me.
“He needs some morning sickness gummies,” Eran said. “What’s up with the calls?”
“People who don’t even live in our territory are complaining.
Like what are dragon and harpy kids supposed to do?
Never fucking fly while they play?” she asked, pulling a key ring out of her pocket and crossing the room to unlock a filing cabinet.
“I think Jade still keeps some on hand. Never know which parent is going to have their ‘pregnancy awakening’ here.” Zevna laughed at her own joke. “Do you want me to call my carrier?”
“No, I think we’re going to drive out to the farm and see Evie when his stomach settles down,” Eran said.
“Well, maybe if you put him down that would happen faster. I imagine being carried around like that feels a lot like being a water bottle except the water is the contents of his stomach,” Zevna said, setting the bottle of gummies down on the desk.
A second later, Eran kissed me on the top of the head and set me down on my own four paws. I sniffed the air. The room smelled nice – like the little snacks kids were always eating. I was still hungry.
“What happened?” Zevna asked as Eran unscrewed the cap off the gummy vitamins.
Eran explained the cigarette smoke while I ate the gummies from his hand. Then spotting a cot in the corner, I walked over and stretched out.
“You sure you don’t want Evie to come out? Shit! She’s not even at the farm today! She’s out doing an ultrasound on one of the horses at the lake or something like that. Doing something to a horse. My carrier’s off today but he’ll come out,” Zevna said and Eran bit his lip.
“Do you not like my dad?” Zevna’s dark brows shot high on her forehead and her wings tensed like she might flog Eran any second now.
“I’m not sure how my cat is going to react when a healer touches him,” Eran whispered, but I heard him anyway.
“And Evie is big enough to sit on you while she does her job,” Zevna nodded. “I could sit on you. I got paid for it at my last job.” she offered and I growled. “Oh, he doesn’t know, does he? I used to work at the Cuddle Club.”
“Oh. Bear squashed. Though, she’s not a bear. Is she a really big wolf?” I asked, over our mating link.
“Big wolf, big wings,” he said.
“Zevna?!” a familiar voice called from the other room.
“Looks like Philip is here. Maybe he can sit on you!” Zevna said and disappeared.
Eran crossed the room and sat down in front of me. He ran his hands up and down my sides, soothing me.
“Philip will eat whoever keeps calling to harass them,” he whispered. “Some of his kids fly because one of his mates is a dragon. He’s gonna eat them.”
“He can’t have the gummies if they make him sick. Those are mine.”
“What’s goin’ on in here?” Philip walked in, adjusting his cowboy hat.
“I think we might be pregnant,” Eran said.
I waited for Philip to ask him how he managed to get pregnant too. He seemed like the sort of guy semantics mattered to, but he didn’t. Instead, he just walked over and sat down in front of me.
“You can use the group link to speak to me if you want,” Philip said. “I know we didn’t get off to a great start the first day you showed up, but that was a complicated day. This is a complicated sort of era, I guess.”
“Life is complicated. Did you eat the killer ghosts?” I asked, cutting straight to the chase.
“We have a plan, I think. Canton has some stuff to finalize before the full moon, but it’s almost time. Now, what about you? What happened?”
I told him about the zoomies and the cigarette. He nodded as if it made perfect sense.
“Got the portable out in the glovebox,” he said, pushing himself up onto his feet. “I’ll be right back and we’ll see what we’re dealing with. Might be you’re just averse to cigarette smoke.”
“Gonna be twelve puppies all trying to kill me,” my dog whined.
“We’ll put up a no smoking sign when we get home,” Eran said.