Page 37 of The Baby Hex (Mori’s Mementos #2)

Pierce

As soon as Kodiak was gone, I gulped down the last of my bloodshakes and immediately wished I’d asked him about talking to the store for me.

Then I remembered what I wanted to show Crilus.

First though, I had to follow him to the bathroom where we left the pregnancy test resting on the sink counter.

“I found something earlier today. Well, I think it was today, anyway,” I said. “Who knows? My sense of time is on vacation as much as we are.”

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Your bird is up to something whenever we go to sleep. I’ve seen him sneak out of you.”

“Yeah, he can do that. Crow magic is different than other types of shifters,” Crilus admitted.

“I know but I followed him the other night up to the attic,” I said and Crilus’s eyes grew huge. “It’s probably exactly what you think it is,” I nodded and grabbed his hand leading him to the corridor with the drop-down staircase that led up to the attic.

“I’m not sure what I think,” Crilus said. “I sort of want to know what he’s stolen. He’s always been a little thief. Every few months I have to search the bar for stolen treasures. I usually forget about how he collects his little shiny things until someone is missing something expensive.”

“And he told Medwin to fuck his own tail,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, my crow doesn’t recognize any authority except for perhaps my parents and that’s even set on a randomizer. I think it’s a Crow King thing,” he shrugged. “This might not be his territory but we’re in our house. It’s okay to call it ‘our’ house, right?”

“That’s what it is,” I nodded, going up the steps before him just in case some unknowable threat had tiptoed by all our magic.

I sniffed the air. Everything smelled right.

Like old magic and blood with a little bit of elf, fur, and feathers thrown into the mix.

Well, that and what I wanted to show Crilus.

I only had a vague memory of finding it whenever I had.

Heat often played with omegas’ memories and more than one alpha had lost time and place while their mate was in heat.

If you added the magic in, it was a miracle I hadn’t forgotten about the discovery altogether.

Taking Crilus’s hand in mine I marveled at how our fingers interlocked perfectly as I led him around tables and old storage crates to the backmost corner of the attic where between two crates his crow had built a nest. Letting go of my hand, he stepped in front of me and squatted down for a better look.

The nest was round and shallow, a little messy, but still easily identified as a nest. Mercifully it was still empty and not in the center of the blood pond on the other side of the attic.

Crilus sat down on the floor, and I thanked all the ancestors that I’d not been so shortsighted as to not have included a spell that kept dust from gathering up here.

He was carrying my child and nothing unclean should touch him.

He rested his elbows on his legs and stared into the empty nest. I rested my fingertips against his shoulders as he took in the sight and considered what the ramifications of such a find probably were.

“Has your carrier laid crow eggs before?”

“Not that I know of,” Crilus shook his head and patted the empty spot on the floor next to him for me to sit down.

I sank down next to him, and he took my hand. Shifter genetics were never plain and simple. Hardly a shifter alive continued to only carry one genetic line.

“I think Mori is right,” Crilus said after a few soft moments of silence “Only, I’m not sure the baby will be an egg.

This might be him preparing for a baby the only way he knows how.

Maybe he’s preparing to lay the crow counterpart to our baby.

I think… No, I know we need to set up a little Crow King alter.

I mean, if that’s okay. I don’t know – I saw an ancestor shrine in the library, and you have those little blood altars in almost every room.

I’m not going to offend your ancestors by inviting that energy in, am I? ”

“No,” I shook my head. “As far as I know my ancestors never held silly notions about mixing bloodlines. Anyone who works blood magic must acknowledge that a variety of sources of power create a stronger base to work magic from. What do you need?”

“My stuff. We brought the stuff in, right? I’m not sure I brought my altar stuff. Shit,” Crilus said and stretched out his legs in front of him. My eyes darted to his bare feet, double-checking his ankles.

“I’m not even showing yet,” Crilus laughed.

“Yet, being the word. Who do we call to get your stuff or do we need to make a drive out to the bar?”

“I’m not ready for the latter.”

“Who do we trust to get your stuff?” I asked him. “I take it you’re not ready for me to make the drive alone either.”

“No,” he shook his head and squeezed my hand. “I’m keeping you right here with me.”

In the end, it was Kodiak who made the drive to Moonscale London proper to retrieve Crilus’s altar supplies.

He admitted that the set up was mostly for his peace of mind but that made the effort more than worth it to me.

That night before going to bed, I cleared out the corner around the nest much to his crow’s bitching and he set up the altar around the nest complete with candles, incense, crow feathers, salt, shinies, and of course, a statue of a man with big, widespread crow wings.

***

The next morning, I woke up alone in bed for the first time since arriving home with Crilus.

I found him upstairs, sipping coffee and gazing into the nest. I peeked over his head to ensure he hadn’t gone and laid his egg without telling me.

Instead, I found a pregnancy test showing a pixelated baby wrapped in a bright red blanket.

I’d lost track of what the colors meant ages ago as I didn’t have many friends taking pregnancy tests on a regular basis at my age.

I lowered myself onto the floor next to him and he leaned his head against my shoulder.

His thoughts were far off as if the bird inside him was determined to take control of the situation.

I left him to ponder the future while I headed downstairs to cook breakfast. Kodiak had been kind enough to arrange for the store to resume drone deliveries of my bloodshake supplies so I mixed one up while the bacon and eggs cooked.

I sipped it while doing some quick research on my phone.

Not much research had been done about crow shifters in particular.

Wild crows didn’t carry their eggs long after insemination, but Crilus wasn’t a wild crow.

Hell, he wasn’t just a crow. Crow eggs usually took about three weeks to hatch.

I couldn’t even imagine being unable to focus on anything else for that long, but that was our probable future.

I put the information aside and decided it would best be revisited after Crilus had an ultrasound.

It wasn’t Xenos or Barry who showed up that afternoon to check on Crilus.

It was Teal Moonscale. For a flash of a second, I almost sent the scaley bastard away.

He could go home to his own mate and leave mine alone.

Except, I vaguely recalled that he had a medical degree.

At least, Crilus remembered him having one.

“And if you send him away, I won’t do that thing with my tongue on your balls anymore,” Crilus chimed into my thoughts over the mating link from his perch upstairs in the attic. “Bring him up. Come with him, though. I want you here if he does an ultrasound. You should see our baby too.”

So, instead of sending my mate’s one-time infatuation away, I led him upstairs. I tried not to talk much because my fangs elongated, ready for a battle that was unlikely to happen.

“First time sires bite a lot. Just warn me first,” he chuckled as I motioned for him to head up the dropdown steps ahead of me.

“He’s not going to bite you,” Crilus said.

My mate had more faith in me than I did. Way more faith. The longer we spent all wrapped up inside the house together the less I liked other people coming around. Family was one thing. Even Medwin was merely annoying. He had his own mate and Clarence wasn’t an alpha who liked to share.

“Stop it,” Crilus hissed into my thoughts. “This is a happy occasion. We’re going to see our egg or our baby. I thought this Teal thing wasn’t a thing for you.”

“It’s not, but you’re mine and pregnant and he’s a giant brute with a stethoscope.”

“Actually, I don’t think he brought that. Just the pocket-sized ultrasound machine,” Crilus said.

“Do you want to move downstairs?” I asked Crilus aloud.

He glanced at the nest and at me then to Teal.

“We’ll be okay. He’s not going to step on it,” Crilus sighed.

“Aren’t you glad we didn’t end up a couple?” Teal teased and for a moment I decided that sinking my fangs into his trapezoid muscle might not be that bad of an idea after all.

“He’s the one who said no,” Crilus reminded me. “And I am because if Ciro didn’t kick my ass, I’d have to break up a fight between you two.”

“No,” Teal shook his head. “I wouldn’t have fought him, and I wouldn’t have helped you run away either.”

“Can we get on with it?” I asked.

The gums around my fangs itched, a sign that my blood lust was kicking into gear.

I glanced back at the nest as we wove our way through boxes and furniture to the old couch that Crilus had claimed as his favorite attic nap spot.

He stretched out on the sofa and revealed his belly.

I curled my fingers into fists and forced air into my lungs.

I didn’t need to breathe as often as shifters did, but the extra oxygen often soothed the blood lust.

“It’s just an ultrasound,” Crilus said, patting the back of the sofa.

I rounded it and rested my elbows on it looking down at him. Teal took his little machine out of his pocket. It looked like a mobile phone with a wand attached via an old curly telephone cord.