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We decided to bring the bulk of our things back to our individual rooms before the morning, so we could make the most of our last day sleeping together. Aiden carried the bag of his clothes, while I had a basket with his toiletries.

I was sad to separate the next morning; it had been fun to play pretend family, even if our child hadn’t been our professor.

I shook my head.

“What is it?” Aiden asked.

“I’m going to miss being a mom,” I said.

His eyes flared with fire. “We’re almost at my room. We can practice making a baby again.”

I chuckled. “I meant to the shapeshifter. He was a handful, but it was fun.”

“It was fun because we were together,” Aiden said, unlocking his door.

“That’s true,” I said, smiling up at him. “We’ll be together soo— What is that?” I shrieked.

Inside Aiden’s room, on one of the beds, a very large, very wet, and very naked kraken was pounding into a girl underneath him.

The kraken flailed, falling to the side and revealing a face I knew very well—Una.

“Get off her!” I shouted, advancing on the kraken.

“No!” Una said, trying to cover her breasts with her hands. “It’s Pierre, you idiot!”

I blinked at her. “Pierre?”

The kraken coughed. “If you don’t mind?”

“Right! Sorry,” Aiden said, dropping his bag and placing my burden on the counter beside the door. “We’ll see you... later.”

We closed the door and stared at each other in shock. “Did you know?” I asked.

He shook his head, clearly amused. “I guess they’ve progressed in their relationship.”

“No kidding.”

We decided to cuddle on the couches in the foyer to wait to apologize to the new couple.

* * *

“Sorry to make you wait,” Pierre said when he approached us some time later.

“Don’t apologize for things you don’t mean,” I teased.

“You’re right.” He grinned at us before sinking onto the couch opposite ours. “I guess you are curious about my mate.”

“Una’s your mate?” Aiden asked. “But you practically ignored her at first!”

Pierre shook his head. “The instant I saw her, I knew. I also knew of her reputation. I didn’t want to make her feel shackled to me simply because of my biology. I wanted her to fall for who I was first.”

“So she knows?” I asked.

He chuckled, and tilted his head back down the boys’ hallway. “She’s aware of the circumstances now.”

“You were able to resist the pull of your mate?” Aiden asked, whistling lowly. “Your will must be made of iron.”

Pierre sighed. “It wasn’t easy. I knew that if I gave into the urge to touch her, taste her, I wouldn’t be able to give her up. I would have torn any man who touched her after me. And she would have gotten bored if she hadn’t become attached first. My patience was worth it.”

I leaned against Aiden’s side. “ You didn’t touch me right away.”

“Are you forgetting the extended foreplay at the billiards table in Wellspring?”

“You didn’t even kiss me!” I exclaimed.

“You didn’t want a distraction,” Aiden reminded me. “I wouldn’t have been able to stay away from you as long as I did if I had kissed you then.”

Pierre cleared his throat, drawing our attention. “I’ll talk to you at dinner,” he said, getting to his feet, but pausing when he looked behind us. “Hello, Professor. Can I help you?”

I twisted around to see a well-dressed, handsome middle-aged man looking down at us in bewilderment.

“No, thank you, Pierre. It is these two,” he pointed between Aiden and I. “Hello, I am Professor Bishop. Divination. I was doing a crystal ball reading this morning and saw a powerful curse heading toward the academy. I didn’t recognize the students it was targeting, but here you are!”

My eyes widened. “A curse? But aren’t we protected within the academy’s walls?”

The professor grimaced. “Usually. But my reading was quite clear. You two are going to be the joint recipients of a curse most dire within the month.”

Thank you for reading Monster’s Baby!