Chapter 26
Chapter
Twenty-Six
D aniel was miserable.
It was cold. There was still lingering snow outside, even if spring was here and Easter had passed.
He was fat, swollen, his joints hurt, and he was tired of hauling his heavy ass everywhere. It made him grumpy. Daniel supposed that could be excused, but he still was going to whine about it.
He had to go downstairs to the kitchen, upstairs to get to Jacks, downstairs to get to the TV, upstairs to finish working in the nursery, downstairs to get to Hayden’s office, upstairs for the bed.
That didn’t even touch all the different trips to the bathroom. At least there was a bathroom on every floor.
He headed downstairs, his stomach growling.
Right now, he needed something to eat. There had better be something. It didn’t matter if it was the middle of the night. There better be meatballs and chile con queso and possibly a slice of chocolate cake.
And milk. He still drank milk by the gallon, which of course made him pee.
He grumbled, hugging on a robe so he could creep down the stairs, holding on to the banister. On the ground floor, he could smell something amazing and he thought somebody loved him because they were in there cooking even though it was oh dark thirty. Or oh dawn thirty or whatever it was.
“Hey, love.” How had he not noticed Hayden wasn’t in bed with him? It was Hayden who was in the kitchen making something that smelled like queso.
“Hey.” He hauled his ass up onto a kitchen stool, popping up his feet, which were a little swollen, on the bottom rungs. “How did you know I wanted queso?”
“You were talking in your sleep.” Hayden stirred the sausage in the pan one more time then moved over across from him to start chopping up Velveeta.
“Oh, sorry if I woke you up.” Sometimes it wasn’t him. Sometimes it was the baby who woke up Hayden singing and asking for things to eat.
“You’re fine, love. I wasn’t terribly sleepy anyway. I’ve been thinking about this one work problem, and I think I had a breakthrough.”
“Wonderful!” Daniel still wasn’t a hundred percent sure that he had figured out what Hayden did for a living, but it didn’t matter. He could be supportive anyway. “Did you want to tell me about it?”
Hayden winked at him and shook his head. “It’s not very exciting, but I did manage to figure out how to move one thing and shift another thing and turn things into what I want.”
“That’s important.”
Hayden handed him a glass of milk. “You don’t have very long left. Six weeks.”
He rubbed his belly. Six weeks felt like no time and forever, all at once. “Yeah, the middle or end of June, you said. I’m ready.”
Hayden rolled his eyes. “I think I can wait for a couple more weeks for sure. Jacks is still very active but uncontrolled.”
“Yes, but we do have more people here to help with that now.”
Hayden rolled his eyes before dumping the cheese into the pan. God, that smelled good. “What we have is several uncontrolled twelve-year-olds, or at least that’s what they act like.”
“True, but in a pinch Rita and Denise can get them to act like responsible adults.” Mostly every so often Dusty would take a swipe at one of the guys and that would put them on the straight and narrow for a little while too.
“One way or the other, six weeks gives me just enough time to finish getting prepared,” Hayden said, giving him a sweet smile and a wink. “I love to hear him, you know. It’s so right .”
“Oh.” Weird. Unnerving. “I don’t really talk to him as much as you do. You seem to have a better handle on all of that.”
Hayden caught him with a look. “I’ve been shifting longer. You’re having to learn to be magical. I didn’t ever know I wasn’t, so it’ll come.”
Hayden sounded very sure, and he appreciated that. Daniel wanted to be sure about something. It didn’t really matter what.
“Now, now, I know you’re certain this food smells good.” Hayden waggled his eyebrows, teasing him.
“You’re right. It does.” Daniel pondered his life. “Think about how strong I am, getting up and down the steps for all this stuff.”
He actually was kind of proud of himself.
“You’re just bummed out about the snow because it’s going away, too. It’ll come back. You know, here it does last longer than anywhere else. Every so often there’s a blizzard in June.” Hayden pulled meatballs out of the freezer to heat up.
He chuckled softly and nodded. “I fully expect that to happen when I’m in labor.”
“No doubt but it’s not like we have a doctor that we can go to or like we can take you to the hospital.”
“Hmmm.” Daniel grabbed a bag of chips and opened them so he could dump them into a bowl. “Is there such a thing as a dragon midwife?”
“Maybe?” Hayden shrugged. “I’ve heard of a dragon medic before but that was for, like, battle.” He turned the heat down a little bit, which one always had to do with queso once the meat was done and the cheese was starting to really melt so it didn’t scorch.
Daniel thought he’d talk to Declan.
Declan seemed to be the person who knew all sorts of people and all sorts of things. It wouldn’t surprise him if one of the guys wasn’t some sort of weird-assed dragon midwife. “We’ll figure it out together. Don’t worry.”
Hayden snorted and tossed his head. “I think I’m supposed to be the one who says that to you. I think I’m supposed to tell you to not worry.”
“Okay, well, go ahead.” Daniel held his empty glass for another round of milk. “Tell me not to worry.”
Hayden chuckled softly. “Don’t worry, pregnant omega.” He beat his chest with one hand, so dramatic. “Big bad alpha me will figure something out, rawr.”
Oh yeah, that was adorable.
“I can’t tell you how much more comfortable and safe I feel now.” Daniel managed to hold a straight face, and so did Hayden, at least for a second, and then they both cracked up, both howling with laughter.
Hayden finally grabbed him because the queso was bubbling away but not needing too much attention and kissed him. “I love you, mate.”
“I love you too. That much, I know, is going to be just fine.”
“It is. It really is my job to make sure things go as well as possible. I can’t…well, I can’t anticipate everything that will ever happen, as evidenced by the situation with Jacks recently, but I’m really going to try to keep everything on the rails.”
He reached up to touch Hayden’s cheek. “Hey, we’re in this together. We muscle this train back on the rails with each other.”
“Chugga-Chugga-Choo-Choo! Do I smell queso?” Thomas came in, his amazing colored scales just glinting.
“I have to warn you that the scent of spicy goo is wafting, and you’re going to have like five of us in here any minute.
If you’re trying to have kinky queso-y panky-panky , you should let us know now so I can run back and tell the guys. ”
Daniel glared at him. “I’m going to have meatballs and queso because I’m pregnant and hungry.”
“Is there enough to share? Again, if not, I can run back and tell the guys.”
“There is enough to share, and there are meatballs and queso.”
Thomas tilted his head. “Interesting. I like it. Is there guacamole? I think we need guacamole, sour cream, and salsa.”
“Oh no, salsa makes me queasy. Makes me acid-y.” Daniel gulped his milk, just at the thought.
“That’s fine. I’ll help.”
Daniel blinked. “Do you know how to cook?”
“I was usually the cook when it was just us. I mean, you’ve got Rita, who cooks everything, and she’s amazing, so I don’t have to, but I do know how. There are four other people coming. I know that you can’t hear them yet, but I can.”
Hayden rolled his eyes, but Daniel thought his mate was pleased at having all the company.
He thought that Hayden had been aching for more family, and that was okay with him.
He was not an “a dragon is an island” kind of dragon.
He’d been taking care of people for a long time, and now they had each other, all of them, to take care of.
The twins came bopping in with a huge bag of tortilla chips. “From the stash so we’re contributing.”
Kenn waved. The big dragon didn’t say much, but Daniel had no question that if Jacks started crying right now, Kenn would be the one who ran up and got him.
“Thanks guys. You rock. You really do. Is Declan coming?”
“I don’t know. You know he doesn’t get out much.”
No that wasn’t acceptable. Declan needed to be around his people so he could heal. Being a hermit wasn’t good for a broken heart.
“You guys cook. I’ll be right back and I’m going to go get him.” He marched out, not wanting to have to go up the stairs, but knowing he would if need be.
Hopefully, though, if he did a little mental search for Declan, he’d find him down in the sunroom at the back of the house staring out at the mountains.
Declan loved to look at the mountains, and he had a feeling that if terrible things hadn’t happened, Declan would be out there flying right now instead of just staring.
As soon as Daniel was able to fly, he was going to take Declan and make him go out there and join him.
His mental GPS tracked Declan in the sunroom, so Daniel blew out a relieved breath and headed that way.
He put a hand on his belly. “We’re going to get Declan and take him back for food, baby. Do you hear me?”
Little Nicolaa sang to him, agreeing with him.
“Nikolaa, is that a boy’s name?” He supposed it was in some places. Maybe it was a dragon language that he didn’t know.
Regardless, that didn’t really matter because it was Nikolaa’s name, so Daniel was going to go with it.
He found Declan in the sunroom and walked right up, his belly leading the way. “We’re having queso and meatballs, possibly cake.”
Declan offered him a sad little smile. “Oh, I’m not hungry.”
“Okay, but we’d love it for you to come and hang out with us. I worry about you.”
“I’m just sad.”
Daniel got it. It made perfect sense. “Of course you’re sad, but that doesn’t mean you have to be sad alone.”
“Oh, I don’t want to bring anybody down.”
Daniel sat next to Declan, taking the dragon’s hand. “You’re not bringing anybody down. You can come be with us, and we’ll take you as we can get you, all right? We want to be together with you. Nikolaa does too. You’re going to be part of his family.”
“Nicolaa?” Declan raised his eyebrows and smiled, even if it was a tired, sad smile in a way. “That’s a great name. I wonder…”
“Wonder what?”
“Well, you’re an ice dragon, and Nicolaa is vaguely Eastern European, so maybe that tells us a little about your heritage.”
Daniel held his hands open, shrugged, “I don’t know that I have a heritage. I just had vaguely uninterested, normal foster parents.”
Declan squinched his face up. “Vaguely uninterested and normal?”
“I know, weird, eh?” He shrugged. “I don’t know what to say. I came out and left home, and that was it. I don’t know.”
Declan nodded to him. “I don’t know a whole lot of dragons who were raised human, but I’m glad we found you. Or you found us.”
“Me too!” He couldn’t imagine having missed all this. Having never known he was a dragon and just living his life as if he were human. Skating through.
This life he had now might be more dangerous, but he had a mate. Jacks. A family.
He grabbed Declan’s hand, squeezing. “Come have food with us. You don’t have to talk, or you can say all the things you want, but how often do we have middle-of-the-night queso and meatballs?”
Declan shot him a grin. “Well, less often than we have midnight pancakes.”
“See? Perfect! Come on; let’s feed this baby. He’s hungry.”
They headed off to the kitchen together, and Daniel felt as if he’d done something right. Something good.
Yay him.