Page 16

Chapter 16

Ash

N ow that my nest was here, tucked tightly into the corner where the broad bay window shone the most sun down on it, I was in full nesting mode. It surprised me how quickly everything was suddenly moving. I barely found out I was pregnant and now I was nesting like a boss. I much preferred it this way. I couldn’t wait to meet our young. Humans having to wait nine months sounded horrible.

We’d moved my nest at least a bazillion times before I finally settled on this location, and now that I had, it felt right location-wise. Comfort-wise? It still had a long way to go. There weren’t enough warm, thick blankets in the house for me to be content with the nest. Therefore, I called for reinforcements.

What a great feeling to know that as I was getting ready to have my clutch, I had so much support all around me. Sure, there was family, but it was so much more than that. We had friends, co-workers—and an entire community.

When they asked me how to help, I let my parents know that I needed blankets. They understood the assignment. Blankets of all kinds began arriving in droves—a box full of homemade heirloom quilts, then another box full of trinkets that I could include in the nest. The colors of the quilts varied between pastels and bright reds and blues, while the trinkets were related to my family’s personality. Some of them I recognized. Others were new to me. But there was no denying that each of them was handpicked with love. This wasn’t a “collection” or a “theme” inspired situation. They didn’t come close to going together, and yet they completely did.

Two of the other items they sent out to me stood out. My omega father had taken a rock and painted a likeness of my alpha father and him in their dragon and eagle forms on it. At least that’s what I thought they were meant to be. He was hardly the world’s best artist, but everything he created was made with heart. I knew better than to ask, instead going with pouring out my gratitude for how it made me feel.

The second item from my family that was more of a hug than an object came from my younger brother. He’d gifted us a silk scarf from his collection, one I knew he adored. It wasn’t an afterthought. He wanted our clutch to be surrounded by one of his prized possessions.

Nesting hadn’t just hit me alone. Nope. Zayne was hit with it too. He’d begun taking some of his favorite spoons and tying them to the vines so that the rim of the nest was surrounded by them. Eventually, those might become little toys for the kids to play with. I thought it gave it an extra bit of shine when the sun came in and hit the silver just right. A few of the spoons even had jewels encrusted on them. I loved how his hoard worked so beautifully with our clutch’s nest.

I told my mate he had to give me the history of each of the spoons when our clutch arrived so they could hear it too. I loved listening to my mate talk about the things he had experienced in his younger years, and just from the few tales he’d already told, I knew that every spoon mattered. The discovering how was going to be so fun.

After placing a pillow that one of the cooks in the cafeteria sent over in the nest, I stood next to it, my chin resting on my hand while I looked it over. It was missing something, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I circled it a few more times. It was fine but not perfect, and that was bugging me more than I cared to think about.

Zayne came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my middle. His big hands resting over my plump stomach. “And how are you today, mate?”

It was Saturday. Our day off—sort of. We didn’t have practice until later. Since the team was doing so well, we didn’t need to push so hard, but we couldn’t let up on their conditioning. I knew part of the reason we slowed down on Saturdays had more to do with the team wanted me to have rest than anything else, but the truth was that they needed it too. If they got too hyper focused on winning, they were going to make careless mistakes. Finding some balance was essential.

“I’m fine,” I said, leaning into his embrace.

“Vexis will be here soon to do the ultrasound.”

I hummed with pleasure, both at his touch and the prospect of knowing what our clutch was going to be. The ultrasound would give us an approximate size of the eggs, as well as how many there were. There was the off chance that inside one egg, there would be two babies, but I couldn’t let myself think of that. As it was, this whole growing a dragon clutch was pretty overwhelming,

“Any guesses?” I asked. “On how many and all that?”

Zayne chuckled. “I mean, it’s somewhere between one and five.”

So very not helpful.

“Gods, it better not be five.” We’d survive if it was, but goodness gracious, that would be intense during those early days when they wanted to eat every two hours.

Clutches were usually around three eggs. My own clutch was just two. Five? That would require us buying a bus or something. Did they even make strollers large enough?

“How many were in your clutch?” I crossed my fingers that it was only two.

We hadn’t talked much about his siblings, mostly because work took up most of our time, and when we did, it wasn’t the tiny details. I knew how many siblings he had, but not how many were in his actual clutch. If it was one, that would give us a better chance of not five.

“Four. It was a rather large one, plus there were twins.”

I counted it out on my fingers. Five. Yep. There were five of them. I was doomed. With my luck, I was going to have five eggs all with twins, and suddenly, I’d have two flight teams in my own household.

“I really need to meet your siblings.” Selfishly, I wanted to hear about what my mate had been like growing up. My brother and I were rather close, but our childhood had been unique in that he was a dragon and I was an eagle. We didn’t have the typical dragon upbringing in many ways. I wouldn’t change it for the world, though. Not once was I made to feel less-than by my family because of my eagle. Other dragons, that was a different story.

Zayne had introduced me to his parents via a video call, and he’d added me to the family text chain, where he and members of his family included random updates. As a rule, I hated group chats. But with this one, I got to see glimpses of the people who helped my mate become the man he is today. It was fun and sometimes confusing to watch them banter away.

Being that they were all so long-lived, it seemed that they had grown apart over the years—not in a bad way, they all just lived different lives and were spread all across the world. I understood the why, but I found it a touch sad. Maybe I shouldn’t. They all appeared happy enough.

“They’ll visit. They’re excited for my first clutch. I know it seems like they aren’t a big part of my life, it’s just—”

“I get it,” I said.

“My parents usually come to at least one competition.”

I hadn’t known that, and it warmed me. How sweet to come support your child’s team even when they were centuries old. They were going to be amazing grandparents, that was for sure.

“That’s exciting.” I was glad that the team was going to be worthy of them. I was more than my job, but having them see the product of the hard work their son and I did felt important.

“And they’ll definitely be here to visit our clutch. They visit all of the clutches. They love being grandparents.” That didn’t surprise me, not one bit.

“Mine will as well.” I glanced back at the nest. My brother’s clutch was still young, and I couldn’t talk to my folks without hearing them gush about their grandkids. I loved it. And soon… soon they would do the same about our clutch.

“The nest looks beautiful, mate. You did a fantastic job.” He kissed my cheek.

“Thanks, but it’s missing something. I just don’t know what. I’ve been trying to figure it out and getting nowhere fast.” The feeling had been plaguing me for hours. I couldn’t rest until my nest was perfect, and for some reason, my eagle had determined that our nest needed something… I just didn’t know what. It would be nice if my eagle would just tell me already.

We had soft blankets, big fluffy blankets, small blankets that would fit an infant. There were blankets of varying materials: fleece, silk, satin, cotton. There were trinkets of varying sizes and even some toys that Zayne’s father had sent. And pillows—we had those galore.

Yet even with all of that, it was not complete.

“I might have an idea,” Zayne said. He stepped out onto the back deck and grabbed something off the table. When he brought it in, I realized it was a feather.

“Is that one of mine?”

He nodded. “You dropped it when you shifted last time. I picked it up. I thought it might look nice in here.”

He set the feather on top of one of the pillows. A sense of calm washed over me. “Perfect,” I said. “It’s perfect.”

That’s what our nest needed—a piece of me.

He chuckled. “Just one little feather.”

“That’s all it needed.” I turned in his embrace and kissed him.

A knock sounded at the door, and then it clicked open. “Anyone home?”

I chuckled. I had to love how inviting everyone was, just walking into our home. Since many people had come over to gift us the nest, more of our friends and neighbors had visited. Many of them stated that it was their first time seeing Zayne’s home. My hermit crab of a dragon was getting used to having so many people around.

“In here,” Zayne called.

Vexis was a broad-shouldered dragon that stood tall. He looked more like one of the strength trainers than a doctor. The rumor was that he had been a Flight Leader in his youth but had gone into medicine because his alpha father had a rare condition that hadn’t been researched at that time. His smile was warm and friendly.

“Congratulations,” he said as he shook my hand. “It’s great to see you again.”

“You as well,” I said.

“Normally, we would have met a dozen times before now, but it seems that everyone on your team is staying completely healthy, so I haven’t had to see much of you.”

“Trust me, I much prefer meeting like this.” Zayne said. “Last time I needed Vexis for the team, it was to deal with a broken wing that had happened during a collision.”

“Yikes,” I said.

“Agreed. Shall we get started? I’m sure you’re anxious to know what you are having.”

“Yes, please.”

I sat down on the couch. The doctor pulled up a chair and prepared the ultrasound.

My experience with ultrasounds had all been via television shows, and human ones at that. I wasn’t really sure what to expect from one designed for an egg-hunting mission, but it wasn’t this.

There was no huge machine and television on the wall, no darkened area, and no medical bed. Nope, it was just us at home, my couch, and a suitcase-looking medical device. It wasn’t long until he had it opened up, plugged in, and me lying down so he could begin the imaging.

It was a small wand, one coated in cold cream of some sort, and he slowly rolled it over my belly, back and forth, and up and down, his face unreadable. How I wished for the huge television screens from the TV shows. At least then I could watch what was happening.

On second thought, maybe that wasn’t the best idea. It wasn’t like I’d know what I was looking at.

He picked the wand up. “You want to know how many eggs, right?”

My mate and I both nodded, and he put the ultrasound down on my belly again and began to trace the eggs, one at a time. “This is the first one and here is the second.” And up went the wand.

“Two? There are two?” I was having two eggs.

“You are. This machine isn’t the most modern, so I can’t tell you how many are in each, but they are both the size I would expect for singletons at this stage.”

Two babies. We were having two babies. I couldn’t wait to meet them.