Chapter Twenty-Three
River
“I think it’s time.” Matthew’s eyes didn’t stray from his egg.
He’d been lying right beside the egg pretty much twenty-four hours a day, stepping away only long enough to pee and when we insisted on showering. So far, the eggs hadn’t done anything. Not a wiggle, but the midwife said they could hatch anytime between now and three days.
“It’s definitely now. We need to get Flora.”
I didn’t see what he did, but I trusted him. This was his egg, he knew it better than I ever could.
Flora was at school, and I’d almost kept her home that morning, but I wasn’t sure how to make an excuse. She wants to see her baby sister get hatche d. Or brother—we didn’t know which. Although, Flora insisted that she did know and it was a girl.
“Okay, I’ll go get her.” I squatted down, putting my hand on the egg. “Stay in there just until we get back. Flora’s going to want to see you the second you’re born.”
We’d spoken quite a bit about whether or not Flora should be there for the hatching. We’d had her stay elsewhere during the labor, but that was a very different process. Seeing his Matthew Daddy in pain like that, we didn’t want that for her. True, she needed to know about the birds and the bees, but at five, maybe not in so many details.
I probably broke a bazillion traffic laws getting to the school, but I was terrified they would hatch before I got there. Our baby was going to be here and soon. I parked in the first spot I saw and jogged into the front office. “Hi, I’m sorry, but I need to pick up Flora.”
“Excused or unexcused?” The woman didn’t even look up.
“Her sibling’s being born right now, and we want her to be there.”
That changed everything. The woman looked up, a huge smile on her face. “Oh, that’s excused. 100 percent excused. Let me go get her for you.”
In less than two minutes, Flora was there, bouncing up and down.
“They’re gonna be here? They’re going to be here today?”
“Yeah. Matthew Daddy—thinks today is the day.”
“He would know. They’re…the baby…”
She looked around, the way she did when she worried someone overheard her mention my tiger.
If I were to guess, she almost said hatchling instead of baby. I had to give it to her. For someone who was five, she did an excellent job keeping the shifter world secret, as it should be. It was a lot to ask of a kid, which was why most shifters went to school with their packs or streaks or were homeschooled. But public school had been great for her. She made tons of friends, excelled in academics, and she even got to be a rock. she was still extremely proud of that.
We went straight home, running into the house.
“Is my sister here yet?” she called ahead of herself.
We’d told her numerous times it could easily be a boy, but she insisted it was a girl.
“No,” I said. “She says she’s not coming out till you wash your hands.” And now I was doing it too.
“She did not say that.”
Flora wrinkled her nose but still went into the bathroom, cleaning up from school. When she came out, I gave her the bad news—it was best to change her clothes too, since those would be dirty from the day.
“Babies are hard,” she grumbled.
She had no idea.
I went in and joined my mates, who were now both at the nest, watching intently.
“There’s a crack.” I could barely make it out, even with shifter vision and squinting, but it was for sure there. “A crack is good, right?”
“Yep. Well, we need more cracks so they can pop out.” Matthew was much more chill about this than I was.
Part of it was that I didn’t fully understand the hatching process. Allen had told us how it normally went with griffins, but this was a griffin born of a cat. So who knew? And then there was my mix of tiger in there too. Only time would tell.
Flora came in and joined us, asking lots of questions as we watched the egg do pretty much nothing for an hour.
And then it happened.
The crack became two, and a couple of chips fell off. Then more. Then more.
I longed to reach over and just help our baby out, but the midwife had insisted that you never, ever help an egg birth—unless they were snakes. And I didn’t ask what made them different. My mates were not of the reptilian variety.
But now that we were watching our daughter, we couldn’t help but wonder. Because all it would take was flicking things away just the tiniest bit, and they would be here already.
There was a wobble.
Then another.
And then a large chunk of shell fell to the ground, and inside, I could see fur. It looked almost like a tiger, but that didn’t make sense.
One more push through the shell, and out popped a little baby griffin.
And I’d been wrong earlier.
Our daughter’s beast didn’t look like a tiger. She looked like Matthew—but griffinized.
“She’s beautiful.” I was in awe.
We all stood there watching her, knowing that the second we picked her up, she would shift into her newborn form, and this would be the last of her beast we’d see until puberty.
“Who gets to hold her first?” Flora asked.
I looked at each of my mates. They nodded.
“You do, of course.” Matthew looked up at her, his smile reaching his eyes.
“Really?” Her eyes were wide.
“Really.”
She scooped up our little cat-griffin, and then in her arms was our baby girl. Allen stood behind her, making sure everything was safe.
“She’s beautiful.”
“She is. You both are.” Matthew took her, bringing her to his chest for her first meal. Flora watched intently.
“I have a sister. I’m the luckiest rock in the world.”
“Yeah, you are. But you know who else is lucky?” My words caught her attention.
She looked up at us.
“We are—for having you in our life.”
“Does that mean I get to name the baby?” I could only imagine the names she picked. Some would be normal, but at least one would be farfetched, of that I was sure.
“I don’t know about that…”
“I have a really, really good one.” She gave her best puppy dog eyes to each of us.
“Okay, tell us your really good name.” Griffin was such a softy.
“Jade. Because then she could be a rock too.”
We looked at each other.
“Jade.” I tasted the name. “It’s perfect.”