Chapter 25 #2
“Oh, I missed you, but isn’t it way past your bedtime?” I ask them, and Cordy sticks a thumb into her mouth and shakes her head, but Cally looks at me with teary eyes.
“We missed you, Mama.”
“Aw, baby, I missed you too,” I say, rubbing my nose on her cheek before kissing it. “I’m super busy with work at the moment, but I promise once we have Grandma Lilly back, we will have plenty of time together.” I wince internally. I hope we will.
“We’re going to have a family meeting. I think that we’ll put you in your pj’s and clean your teeth.
Daddy X will conjure some beds down in the dining room for you, and you can all go to sleep while the adults talk.
Then he can move you back to your beds when we’re done,” I say, looking at my warlock, and he quickly agrees.
“Come on, Mama, will help you.” I stand up, and Cas and Link bring Cally and Cordy for me as we go to the children’s room and change them.
Everyone is in the dining room when we finally arrive, babies in tow. Echo gives me a kiss and assures me that Nikos is healing slowly and is in much better spirits. That’s one less thing I have to worry about, but I will need to schedule a visit.
I try to get the kids to settle on the big bed that Xavier conjured for them in the corner, but then they catch sight of Ghosie.
“Teddy!” Cally screams and hurries over to him. I am quick to stop her before she can get to him. I pick her up, and she starts to scream her lungs off. “Want to cuddle the teddy.”
“Aww, baby, no. That’s not the kind of teddy you can cuddle,” I tell her, feeling awful that she can’t have what she wants, but his fur kind of makes it impossible.
Ghosie’s eyes are comically wide as he looks at all three of my children. “You have babies,” he says, sounding surprised.
“Yup, my kraken knocked me up before we even got to exchanging surnames.” I laugh and look affectionately at the culprit who blushes a little. It’s so freaking cute.
“May I?” Ghosie holds his arms out for Cally, looking at her with wide-eyed wonder.
“What about your fur?” I remind him, and he smiles, shaking his head.
“It doesn’t affect children. Otherwise, none of us would ever be able to be around kids. It doesn’t seem to have any effect until they reach the age of maturity. It’s why some of us like to keep our children in our lives. It’s the only time we get this kind of nonsexual love.”
Fuck, imagine not being able to give someone a comforting hug.
That would suck. I pass Cally over to Ghosie, who seems to melt before my eyes.
Great, one more man my children have managed to corrupt.
Jack and Cordy are quick to get in on the action and hurry over to hug his legs.
He is soon sitting with all three kids giving him cuddles, telling him how pretty his fur is, and I can see tears stream down his face from happiness. Fuck, that’s not fair.
“Tell us more,” Link says, going over to the replicator and pressing a few buttons.
I take a seat at a table with my grandpas as I watch the giant bear playfully wrestle with my children.
Everyone else is in the process of getting food or drinks.
I lean over and give all of them an absent kiss on the cheek as Ghosie starts to talk.
“There are very different factions of carevasta bears. The ones who enjoy the lifestyle we must live to be able to continue our species are happy to steal and use their fur to coerce women, and they are also happy to turn those women away once they’ve given birth.
They keep the male children, who are always bears, and discard the female children.
The male children are handed over to a nursery facility to be raised, and these males have very little to do with their offspring—and they have many of them.
Our reproduction rate is actually quite extreme considering we have no females. Gestation is three months.”
“That sounds awful,” Silac says, looking horrified, but shifters revere their children, so it’s no surprise.
“Yes, and that’s the opinion of the other faction.
Males like my dad choose to be completely involved in the children’s upbringing.
It’s mostly the older generation. They remember what it was like when we did have females.
My father remembers his grandmother, but the goddess curse turned all our females to males, and there haven’t been any since then.
There are a few women who are part of our lives, other species who were asked to bear our children and fell in love with their partners.
At the colony I grew up in, there were quite a few, but again, none of these women could have female bears.
Our only hope is to find the goddess and beg her forgiveness and hope she has had enough time to cool off since being offended. ”
“That’s so freaking sad.” Cas, my big softy, has tears in his eyes and a gentle smile on his face.
While Ghosie told his story, our babies curled up against him and went to sleep.
Ghosie looks at them with complete wonder.
He strokes a huge paw over Jack’s forehead, pushing his hair back from his face.
“So you can see why Lila would be such a temptation and why it was imperative that none of the others survived to share her existence.”
“But what about you?” William has his arms crossed and is staring at Ghosie with suspicious eyes. “Don’t you have a responsibility to your species to let them know about Lila?”
Ghosie shrugs. “Why? It’s not going to fix the problem.
Not really, unless we keep Lila knocked up for the rest of her life, not to mention we would then have to wait for all her children to mature before they could even be considered potential mates.
It’s just enslaving more people. I’d rather keep searching for another solution. ”
“Have you consulted reproductive specialists? Maybe we can manipulate DNA in a test tube to create girl babies.” Link sounds excited about the opportunity, but Ghosie shrugs.
“We did seek the help of a cyborg doctor once, since your species is so advanced technologically. They were able to create a female embryo, but by the time it was ready to be implanted, it changed to male. The curse is buried in the male sperm, and nothing has been able to counteract it.”
“Look, as sorry as I am for Ghosie’s plight—and I appreciate the fact that you rescued my granddaughter, so you are welcome to stay with us for as long as you wish—what I really want to know is how do we rescue my wife?” Eric can no longer be patient, and I really don’t blame him.
Now I just have to break his heart, and I’m not sure if any of them will recover from it.