Page 33 of The Baby Hex (Mori’s Mementos #2)

Pierce

I woke up with Crilus curled into me with his beautiful head of hair resting on my chest and some nagging voice in the back of my head saying that I really should check my phone.

I ignored it for as long as I could, willing it to shut the hell up.

Between Crilus and me we were on enough links that should someone need us they could get ahold of us easily enough.

“Check it! Check it!” Crilus’s crow cawed.

I couldn’t ignore Crilus’s inner beasts.

It was a big thing with shifters that sometimes their inner beasts knew more than they did.

Crilus and his wolf were out cold, but his little crow was hopping around and demanding that I check my phone.

I did and found nothing. I was about to go back to sleep when it occurred to me that if something had happened Crilus was more likely to receive a text about it than I was.

“Crilus?” I whispered. “Mate?”

We’d discussed children and family trauma, but we hadn’t discussed where we draw the line at ‘invading’ the privacy of the other.

Checking his phone without his permission felt like crossing a line but he was out cold from heat.

He needed his rest and his bird was him, right? Was his permission enough?

Sighing, I grabbed Crilus’s phone off the nightstand to see dozens of missed texts from Mori, Preston, and Teddy.

Yep. Shit had gone down while we were out of touch.

I could’ve just turned his phone off and not mentioned it until his heat had passed but Preston was on his own unless Mori and Teddy had made it back to London.

I opened the texts from him and prayed that he didn’t need a ride.

I was a bit too far out to swing by and pick him up easily, but I would if I was his last resort.

Leaving a pregnant man who asked for my help stranded wasn’t something I could live with myself if I did.

Preston had been in touch with Mori. He and Teddy had gotten in a huge fight with Sharon and her son.

Mori was staying overnight at Glitter Bomb, but Teddy was heading back to London.

His parents were trying to make him return home since hearing about his pregnancy, and he was hoping he could stay with us instead.

I swallowed a groan. We’d never get to claim every room in the house if Preston took up residence in my kitchen, but I doubted Crilus would forgive me for turning him away.

I called Mori but he didn’t pick up. He was probably asleep. Then I tried Teddy who answered on the first ring.

“Just got back, Cri,” he sighed. “She—”

“It’s Pierce. Crilus is asleep,” I said, wanting to give him a head’s up on who he was talking to straight away.

“Tell them to stay in a guesthouse here. I want to—Well, you know,” Crilus mumbled in his sleep and grabbed my dick. It came to life in his hand, and I swallowed hard not to give away what just happened over the phone.

“I thought you said he was asleep?” Teddy asked, his voice tense like he was looking for a fight.

“He is. Mostly.”

“Put him on,” Teddy said.

“He’s resting.”

“Humor me.”

“Give it here. He’s being a scaley dick, huh?” Crilus said, groping for the phone with his free hand. “Teddy don’t be a dick. I don’t want to beat you up and get everyone mad, but I will.”

“Glad to know you’re okay,” Teddy’s muffled voice came through the phone. “Just be on guard, okay? They didn’t catch her.”

Crilus let out a long sigh and handed the phone back to me. Teddy wasn’t thrilled at Crilus’s lack of conversation skills, but he’d have to deal.

“You’re welcome here. You, Mori, and Preston, but in the guesthouse. The staff will help you. Unless you need my particular skillset, I don’t want to be disturbed.”

“Is Crilus in heat?” Teddy asked.

I almost told him to mind his own business, but Crilus started stroking my dick.

“Teddy?” Crilus said his name, amplifying his voice to be sure he was heard.

“Yeah, Cri?” Teddy asked.

“We’re going now. Do you know where we are? Ask Medwin. I bet he knows. I’m going to go now because we’re busy. Tell Mori I love him, and I’ll kill Venal for hurting him later, okay?”

“Venal is in cust---” I never heard the last part of Teddy’s sentence because Crilus hung up the phone and tossed it to the foot of the bed.

And that was the real beginning of Crilus’s heat cycle.

I decided then and there I’d be the one who did my best to stay in touch with the others as to stay aware of the threat level posed by Sharon Claudis.

Later, Crilus was going to feel like an asshat for not caring more about the fight, but heat always ran the risk of making omegas oblivious to the rest of the world.

For a second, I wondered if that made me a bigot or a cave alpha.

“Heat is serious business,” Crilus murmured as he scooted down the bed so that he was at eye level with my dick.

“I care. I care so much but I can’t help them right now.

Maybe if she came here,” he looked up at me.

“I think if she came here right now, I’d tear her limb from limb and leave her corpse for the blackbirds to pick at but she’s not here.

This is here though.” He squeezed my cock for emphasis, making me moan and lose my train of thought for a second.

“You smell so good, mate,” I ran my fingers through his hair.

He was right. We’d worry about Sharon Claudis if she showed up.

Otherwise, there wasn’t a thing we could do about it while Crilus was in heat.

I did my best to live my life as anything except a cave alpha but when it came to Crilus I didn’t want to share his attention with anyone else right now. He was mine. All mine.

Mine.

The word dug into my brain, and I couldn’t let go of it as Crilus slid his warm, glorious mouth over my dick.

I lost myself in his slobbery mouth moving up and down my shaft and his arms wrapping around my middle to hold me in place.

It was a good thing that we came all the way out here.

In town, someone might’ve disturbed us. Someone might’ve tried to crash on the sofa and if they got too close to Crilus right now…

I didn’t want to think about what might’ve happened.

My fangs elongated at the thought of someone brushing against him because he was mine.

He was mine and he was going to have my baby and no one else’s.

I entwined my fingers in his thick, soft hair and ground my hips forward, savoring his soft, moist mouth.

This was perfect. He was perfect. He was perfect and all mine.

He was perfect and the start of the next chapter of my life.

The best chapter, if I had to make a prediction.

When I came in his mouth, I knew we were going to lose track of the rest of the world for a while.

The timing wasn’t great but at the same time it was the best damn timing in the world.

And lose track of the others we did. I had vague recollections of the staff informing me the trio had arrived.

They carried baskets of snacks into the kitchen even though it wasn’t their job to do housework.

They maintained the landscape in exchange for a decent salary and houses on the grounds of the estate.

I felt a bit sheepish anytime one of them went above and beyond and tried to remember to make note of it so that their pay would reflect it.

I never wanted to be the boss who took advantage of his staff.

Every minute they spent going above and beyond for Crilus and I was a minute that took away from their free time.

Crilus did get his way, and we romped and made love in every room of the house.

Several times in most rooms. We alternated between romping, sleeping, eating, and occasionally showing off magic for each other.

The house was littered with the remnants of blood and elven magic mingling together.

There was a tree growing through the floor in the kitchen and I wasn’t sure which one of us did that.

Logically, I leaned toward it being Crilus’s doing but he had no recollection of it but since it offered fresh peaches each day, I decided that it was a problem to solve when we didn’t have real problems hanging above our heads.

I lost track of time and the numbers on the clock became meaningless.

Occasionally, I’d remember to check our phones.

So many people tried to talk to us that it was almost obscene.

Their names blurred together, and I started only answering text messages from my parents or his.

Everyone else could wait. If Mori and the others wanted to know if we were alive they could just peep through the windows or something.

What didn’t they understand about our situation?

This was our time and Crilus was mine. All mine.

“All yours,” Crilus mumbled back to me sleepily whenever this thought crossed my mind.

Sometime during our hideaway my parents returned from Greece.

When I saw their car in the driveway I tried to figure out how many days we’d been locked inside the house together but had nothing to go on.

Did they return on time? Shorten their trip?

Spend even longer in Greece? I wanted them to meet Crilus at some point but not right now.

I wasn’t ready to share. I pulled him tighter to me at the thought and he nuzzled into my chest.

As the days wore on it was almost impossible to believe that we had lived any other way before.

Logically, I knew I had a whole life waiting to be lived on the other side of the front door but was it actually real?

Sure, the people outside the house were real, but had those things actually happened?

There was no way my Velcro elf would have run away from me. We didn’t even shower alone anymore.