23. That wasn’t quite right.
TWENTY-THREE
That wasn’t quite right.
Bailey
I woke up with more snakes than I could count in my face, and none of them were my husband’s crimson-hooded cobras.
The snakes were a great deal smaller than Quinn’s, and I realized they were attached to two young whelps.
I couldn’t figure out how I’d gone from a mine to a posh bedroom, but I didn’t mind having two children treating me like a pillow.
I did, however, mind the lack of Quinn nearby to snuggle with. I also minded the headache piercing through my eyeballs to dig into my brain with a sharp, pointy stick.
Napalm hated me.
Stupid, delicious, yummy napalm.
To make matters worse, I needed to go to the bathroom, and I had no idea how to escape the clutches of two sleeping gorgon children without waking them.
“Quinn,” I whined, well aware if my husband was in hearing range, he’d show up.
He hated when I whined.
Sure enough, my husband showed up, and he smiled at me. “I have your medication in the other room, and I’ll order you something for breakfast.”
“You are the best husband.” That was close to telling him I loved him, right? I needed to figure out why my mouth hated spitting out those three important words. I could do it even with a headache. I just had to concentrate. “I love you, but I need to pee.”
Crap. That wasn’t quite right. I’d accomplished the important part and would give myself a gold star for effort later, but I’d gone and messed it up by blurting too much.
Quinn laughed, approached the bed, and rubbed the little girl’s shoulder. “Beauty, you need to get up, little one. Bailey needs to use the bathroom.”
Like me, the little girl whined, but she turned and latched onto Quinn, which gave me enough space to scoot away from the little boy.
Unlike his sister, he was having nothing to do with my escape, and he tightened his grip. His snakes stirred, and they nuzzled my cheek.
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t dislodge the little boy. I stared at Quinn with wide eyes.
My husband dared to laugh at me, shifted Beauty to one arm, and worked his arm around Sylvester. “All right, Sylvester. You need to come with me so Bailey can wake up. She’s not feeling well. You can take a bubble bath as soon as she’s done using the bathroom.”
Both children seemed to be fans of bubble baths, as they both clung to Quinn and woke up enough to stare at him with wide eyes. At first, I thought they were hopeful, but then Beauty’s lip began to tremble.
“She’s going to be fine, Beauty. She’s just really tired from helping a friend, and she ate something that upset her tummy. She’ll feel better after she takes some medication and has breakfast. You two need breakfast, too.”
I crawled out of bed, and while I meant to stand and walk like a normal, functional adult, I smacked into the carpet.
Quinn chuckled and nudged me with his foot. “I love you, too, my beautiful, but you need to get yourself together. It’s your turn to go through hours of questioning to make sure the FBI and CDC can do their work.”
I groaned, gave up all pretenses of being a mature adult, and crawled to the bathroom, which fortunately wasn’t far. “If I’m not out in twenty minutes, I fell asleep.”
“I would offer you coffee, but you’d be upset because your coffee is so much better. There’s tea.”
“I don’t want minty grass. I want coffee.” I made it to the bathroom door, used the frame to get to my feet, and leveled a glare at my husband. “I’ll accept bad coffee, but there better be coffee.”
“If you make it through your shower without falling asleep, I’ll provide coffee.”
My husband’s ultimatums didn’t need any work, and after glowering at him, I slipped into the bathroom and began the tedious process of restoring myself to base functionality.
During my shower, I discovered I’d been nipped by at least fifteen snakes, and one of the biting assholes had been Francisco, as he liked trying to poke heart-shaped patterns into me with his teeth.
It would take days for my cleavage to recover from Francisco’s perverted attempt at art.
“Quinn, did you have to?” I complained loud enough to be heard over the shower.
As I hadn’t locked the door, Quinn cracked it open and poked his head inside the bathroom. “What have I done now?”
“Fransisco bit a heart into me again.”
With a smile that did a good job of convincing me I should invite him into the shower, he replied, “The children were upset after I put you to bed, and it was easier to calm them while shifted. He got ideas while I was distracted. I’d be sorry, but you were restless, and his nips seemed to calm you down, so once I saw what he was doing, I let him get away with it.
Then the others joined in because they were jealous. ”
“The physical requirements for this to happen are disturbing. Your head must have been on my stomach.” I pointed at my chest, where Francisco had left his mark. “Right in the cleavage, you!”
“I may have used you as a pillow while telling the kids a story.”
Damn it, I couldn’t even get mad over that. “Let me guess. The scaly bastards snuck up my shirt to complete their fiendish plans to mark my person.”
“Francisco started it. I would be sorry, but it’s a really nice heart, and you look lovely.”
“If you’re trying to be invited into the shower, it’s working. You should come join me. You can wash my back.”
And every other part of me.
Quinn laughed. “The children will be staying with my parents tonight, so you’ll have to wait until then.
My parents begged, and the children seemed interested because they want to have a big family of people to coddle them.
It’ll help them adapt to staying with humans—and my grandparents can reverse accidental petrifications.
Hurry up so I can get you fed and get your medication into you. ”
“But I want you to join me in the shower.”
“And I want to join you in the shower, but I have a bunch of law enforcement officers in the other room, and they’re keeping an eye on the children.
Once they’re done with their questioning session, we have wedding planning issues to discuss, and then we get to spend until Christmas indulging in each other, seeing the sights, and playing with the children. ”
“Can we go straight to the indulging?”
His smile truly did unfair things to me. “I’m afraid not, my beautiful. You’re all right? If Francisco’s bites are bothering you, I’ll scold him later.”
“I’ll scold him later, thank you. And cuddle him. But it looks like most everyone needs to be scolded. Did they all have to take a turn nipping?”
“The one on your shoulder was from Beauty. Her brother startled her, and she nipped. I scolded her only as much as necessary, but make sure you keep that in mind when we’re out; they’re both young enough still they nip defensively.”
“It’s a good thing I’m immune to snake venom.”
“It really is. You’d be frothing at the mouth otherwise. Are you feeling any better?”
“I’m feeling like I’m alone in this shower.”
“I’ll take a shower with you later,” he promised, backing out of the bathroom. “I’ve ordered breakfast for you and the kids, and it should be here soon.”
I took that as a hint I needed to hurry up or risk losing my breakfast to a pair of hungry kids. I blitzed through the rest of my shower, piled my hair in a towel on top of my head, and changed into a pair of my favorite jeans, which would torment Quinn until he managed to get me out of them.
It would be a long day for both of us.
The hotel room’s living room had turned into an investigation site with papers scattered on every available surface. Despite Quinn’s claim the children were present, I couldn’t spot them. “Where did my babies go?”
“Kidnapped by my parents. You get three breakfasts because my parents have decided they will be rampaging through Vegas and exploring the city. My grandparents went with them.”
“Which grandparents?”
“All of them.”
“That’s too many grandparents.” I shook my head and wondered how I’d even eat one breakfast. I glanced at the various law enforcement officers, and I pointed at the CDC representative responsible for a few too many torture sessions. “Fiend!”
Roberto laughed. “Good afternoon, Bailey. How are you feeling?”
“It is not afternoon. Quinn said he had breakfast for me. Three of them. Breakfasts happen before noon.”
Quinn laughed, stepped around the various piles of paperwork, picked me up by my waist, and set me in front of the couch.
“Make the woman some space so she can eat. And breakfast happened after noon because I called the front desk and asked really nicely for breakfast. I really wasn’t expecting my parents to take the kids, so you really do have three breakfasts to choose from. ”
“Why choose?” I asked, plopping down on the couch between Roberto and an older man in a suit, likely some form of FBI goon ready to make my life miserable.
“Bring the orange drink thing that makes the hangover go away, put coffee in reach, leave food. When the morning ritual has been completed, you may talk to me.”
Quinn chuckled but obeyed, and I attacked the glass of orange-flavored liquid that would bring relief within minutes. Once I chugged it so it could work its magic on me, I went for the coffee to restore my base ability to function.
My choices of breakfast included pancakes, waffles, bacon, sausage, hash browns, more pancakes, and an entire jar of maple syrup for my enjoyment.
It wasn’t just maple syrup, it was the real stuff, the kind I drooled over in the grocery store but usually refused to pay horrendous amounts of money to buy for myself.
I made it through three pancakes and a stack of bacon before my stomach informed me I was no longer at immediate risk of starving to death. “Okay. You can talk to me now, but if you want me to talk without food in my mouth, you have to wait a while.”
Quinn moved enough files so he could sit on the floor on the other side of the coffee table. “I filled everyone in on what I knew about Audrey, but they need you to fill in some blanks.”