Chapter 23
Chapter
Twenty-Three
D aniel woke up in the middle of the night, his belly snarling.
Was he hungry? No, he wasn’t. He’d had an amazing potato soup for dinner and ice cream for dessert, and he really wasn’t.
He stared at himself because suddenly he had on house shoes and a robe, and he was opening the bedroom door and creeping downstairs to get food.
He chuckled and patted his belly. “Look, you little parasite! You cannot be making me come down and eat whenever you’re hungry! I fed you!”
Daniel swore he heard a little chuckle in the back of his brain.
He was in the kitchen. He had a cheese sandwich grilling on the stove, a half-empty gallon of milk on the counter, and he was pondering making up some of that cheese he could simply bake and eat.
This was ridiculous.
“Your milk and cheese obsession is off the charts, kiddo.” He was surprised he wasn’t completely bound up inside from it, in fact, but it seemed to be working for his little bug so why not?
His second grilled cheese was sizzling away by the time Hayden came looking for him. He was humming along with the little voice in his head that seemed to be singing wordlessly, of course, but it was definitely a tune.
“You all right?”
Daniel nodded and patted his belly. “Someone was hungry. He wanted cheese.”
Hayden tilted his head. “He did?”
Daniel nodded. “Yeah, like a lot. I’m on my second sandwich. You want one? I also am baking some cheese, because I think that sounds good.”
“Of course, I would love one. You want me to make one while you eat?” Hayden offered, and Daniel beamed at him.
“That would be great.”
He kept humming, and Hayden kept looking at him.
“Is he singing?”
Daniel nodded. “That he is. He’s kind of a nerd. I can tell.”
“Does he have a name?”
“Nicolaa.” It came to him in a rush, or, no… It was less wild than that, easier.
He just knew, like he knew that a chair was a chair and that the sheets were blue upstairs.
“Nicolaa. That’s a beautiful name. I quite like it.”
Daniel chuckled. “I do too. Of course, it doesn’t matter if we do or not, because it’s their name, right?”
Hayden nodded and started assembling another sandwich. “True, very true. We don’t have to pick for them; they do it themselves.”
He had to raise an eyebrow at Hayden. “Do you remember doing that? Like, is that something I should remember doing? I think I did?”
“I don’t remember it, no.” Hayden shrugged, putting the cheese sandwich in the pan so it sizzled, which always made Daniel smile. “I do think you probably did, but it wouldn’t have been as obvious to your mom if she didn’t know you were a dragon?”
He raised his hands, absolutely unsure. “Maybe? Daniel suits me to the bone, so I think I’ll keep it.”
“I think that that’s an amazing idea,” Hayden agreed.
Daniel perched on a stool close by. “Especially now, you know, I’m Dan Dan. I can’t imagine being like Arthur Arthur or Chris Chris.”
“How about Frank Frank?” Hayden teased. “Or if you had my name, you could be Hey Hey.”
He started chuckling and rolling his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think Dan Dan is fine.”
“So you think you’ll be Dan Dan to the new baby?”
He met Hayden’s eyes. “Yes, that’s my name, and Jacks is as much my son as he is.”
“You’re right. Jacks is yours too.” Hayden came to him and kissed him hard enough that the world sparkled for a second, but he got it.
This was important.
It was something that they never wanted to say out loud until it needed to be said out loud.
It was weird, wasn’t it? Because once he said the words, it was perfectly right, but before that moment he had to worry.
Did that mean that just by thinking it meant he thought less of Jacks?
Even worse, did it mean that Hayden would think that he thought less of Jacks?
Now that it was out in the open, it was fine. He thought there were a lot of things in the world that might be better with a little air and sunshine.
Hayden flipped the sammies then, humming along with the song in his head suddenly.
He drank some more milk and they made their way through probably four sandwiches apiece before he burped softly. “Oh excuse me,” he murmured, eyes wide with embarrassment.
“Is he happy now?” Hayden asked.
Daniel tilted his head to one side, hand on his belly. “I think so, but I believe I will take some cheese upstairs with us, just in case. My little wee fridge is empty.”
They had gotten that delivered at least, but he went through the stuff in it pretty darn fast. If Hayden forgot to restock it, then this was what happened.
“We’ll take a little bottle of milk up there too. We have several smaller ones in the fridge here.” Hayden was good to him.
“I love you, you know. Seriously.”
“I would hope so. You’re having my baby, and I’m going to have to buy a herd of cows to keep him fed, I’m afraid.” Hayden was being a nerd.
“Could be, you never know. Also moo.”
“I think we’d have to get Highland cows or something or maybe have a barn for them up here. I don’t know.” Hayden came over to kiss the top of his head, hugging him tight. He was so warm and wonderful. “Come on, love, let’s go upstairs.”
They grabbed milk and some cheese and wandered up the stairs, kissing and loving on each other. They stopped and checked in on Jacks on the way to bed but by the time they got back into their room, Daniel was ready to climb on top of his lover and take a different kind of energy and sustenance.
Okay, so he was super horny.
After he put the milk away, Hayden laughed, because Daniel kind of threw him down on the bed and climbed on top of him. He loved that expression on Hayden’s face, the surprised, pleased, and heated stare that he was getting.
It didn’t matter that he was already pregnant, and an omega still needed to get knotted once in a while.
He bent down to kiss Hayden and show him what he needed, tell him without words that he was ready.
Hayden answered with a deep growl, hands coming down to bracket Daniel’s hips, and he knew he was going to get exactly what he wanted. He was super lucky that way. His alpha was perfect.
Hayden kinda thought Daniel was going to kill him.
Daniel wanted to take Jacks out into the snow because it was beautiful there, with the snow falling and making a gorgeous curtain, and the whole world seemed quiet and peaceful and wonderful.
And Hayden didn’t believe that Daniel or Jacks would get hurt necessarily because the wind wasn’t really blowing and he didn’t think anything like hypothermia was going to set in on Daniel for sure.
But this kind of storm often brought animals to their door looking for warmth, for shelter from the constant iciness, because this wasn’t a soft wet snow, despite how pretty it looked coming down, it was a hard dry icy snow.
“I’m perfectly capable of keeping Jacks safe,” Daniel said.
“I know you are baby and I know that no moose or bear is a match for a dragon, but you’re pregnant and you’re newly learning to shift and I just don’t want to take any chances.”
“Man, it’s so not fun being pregnant.”
He looked at Daniel, a little hurt. “Not fun at all? Nothing about it? I mean not even that you’re growing our baby?”
Daniel’s expression softened. “I am happy about that. That’s sort of what I do. Of course, I’m just restless, you know? I feel like my skin doesn’t quite fit.”
“Yeah, that does make sense, because your skin is stretching, right?”
Daniel nodded to him, coming close for a hug. “Exactly. Me and my moving skin.”
He winced, fairly sure he was about to get into trouble, when Daniel chuckled at him, poking him on the nose.
“So what are we going to do? I can’t go outside and play in the snow. You have to let me do something.”
“All right, I will totally let you do something. I don’t… okay, what?—”
Suddenly, a low growl seemed to fill the air.
He frowned. “What was that?”
Daniel spun around. “Dusty? I think that was Dusty.”
Sure enough, Dusty came streaking in, vocalizing wildly.
Hayden hurried to the big bay window and peered out. “There’s nothing out here that I can see. If that moose comes back, just ignore him.”
Dusty bared his teeth, tail flashing in frustration, then he went over to Daniel and took Daniel’s hand in his mouth.
“Okay, okay, come on. Whatever it is, we’ll fix it. I’m sure Jacks has just gotten out of his little bed. I’m going to put a lid on it so that he can’t just crawl out. He’s too clever for his own good.”
They hurried upstairs to the nursery, finding Jacks’s bed empty. That was pretty common, but what wasn’t was finding an empty room and the casement window open.
“Motherfucker.” The word was sharp and surprising coming from Daniel, and suddenly his mate was running toward the window, dragon tail and wings trying desperately to come out.
“Daniel, no.” He didn’t know if Daniel could fly yet, and what if he couldn’t? What if he fell? “This is the third story.”
His words didn’t stop Daniel for a second. His clothes fell away, tearing off as he shifted and just slid out of the damn window.
Hayden found himself in the unenviable position of not knowing what to do.
Run downstairs and tell the ladies?
Go outside and look out the window and see if he could see anything?
Shift himself and go out there and just start blowing fire everywhere to find his son?
He didn’t know what to do. He always knew what to do. All those worries happened in a millisecond, and then his mind was made up.
He stepped to the window, staring down, finding his dragon mate, who was less flying and more sliding through the icy air, roaring out his worry and frustration.
So Hayden did the only thing he could do. He shifted too and flung himself out of the window as he did, a great flap of his wings launching him up into the air so he didn’t just fall to his death.