Page 30 of The Emerald Boa’s Lover (Operation Colonise #3)

Plan C

Dalahan.

I pace and twist on my coil as I wait for Charlie.

I have two plans for how the rest of today will go.

Plan A, Charlie comes swaggering towards me, a big grin on his face because Asma’s surgery went well, and I give him the gift envelope in my hands.

We go back to our nest, we celebrate until in a tangle together and plan for our future.

Plan B, Charlie walks into the waiting room where I’m currently resisting the urge to nervously wring my own tail, and he is wearing a sad smile because the surgery didn’t go well.

I’ll quickly put the gift envelope in my skirt pocket and carry him home.

I have some of that whiskey he likes. I’ll dote on him and he can have the day off work tomorrow.

I will take his tears with my tongue and hold him for as long as he weeps.

“Dal?” I swivel round on my hips to look for Charlie. I find his head and his windswept blonde hair hanging out of a doorway. I see right away Plan A isn’t on the cards. He is smiling like he does when he’s trying to pretend he’s okay. Oh no. My poor Charlie. “Can you come here a minute?”

“Of course.” I slither over, my body swaying as I move quickly, and see the back of his white doctor’s coat as he slips into another room. I don’t hesitate to follow him through that door as well, and it isn’t long before I realise he’s taking me on a familiar route. “Charlie?”

“Hang on.” He waves his hand for me to follow him to…the incubator ward.

“Charlie?” I ask with an incline, catching up with him as he walks into the ward.

Many eggs are here, most will have a mother who had to lay prematurely but would go home with her once they were stable enough to do so.

We pass the four mottled eggs Charlie helped to evacuate from Gjenti at Gcorket.

He takes me to the back of the ward and two pale blue eggs, fully formed, are under a red heat light.

“Charlie?” I ask again, distantly drawing the dots together.

“Okay.” Charlie cleared his throat and braced his hands on his hips.

His shoulders were wide and he had his chin raised.

Whatever Charlie was about to say, he was about to tell me.

Not ask me. Tell me. Yet I could tell from his eyes that he wasn’t confident that I’d like what he had to say.

Neither was I, by the way he stood defiantly beside the two blue eggs. Oh Charlie? What have you done?

“Charlie?” I put my hands on my hips and lift up on my tail so I’m looking down at him. “Do you have something you need to tell me?”

“Yes.” It worries me more that he’s hesitating. Charlie never hesitates.

“Well?”

“Asma left me her eggs in her will, and begged me on her death bed to promise to take them, and I said yes.” He blurts out and then folds his arms with a defiant arch to one of his blonde brows. Like he’s daring me to challenge him.

“Charlie?!”

“On her death bed, Dal.” He swallowed thickly, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Looking me right in the eye. Whilst dying. I couldn’t say no to her.”

“But you could agree to take on her eggs and raise two Ucfeni hatchlings?” I am shocked, astounded, worried, and unsure how to deal with this. Plan A AND plan B just went up in smoke, and Charlie has presented me with plan C. I hadn’t planned for Plan C.

“…so it would seem.” He cleared his throat and was watching me intently. His jaw was tense, but his eyes were unsure. “And since she passed away, the eggs are mine now.”

“Oh Charlie.” I hold my right elbow and my right palm presses to my face. “You can’t just accept someone’s eggs on their death bed. Legally they—”

“She left them to me in her will. And the will was in her personal effects.” My hand falls from my face and my emerald eyes are wide.

Well shuck. That would do it. Charlie moves his folded arms to his hips again, restless.

“So…legally…they’re mine.” He looks pale all of a sudden.

“Total disclaimer? I wasn’t planning on being a parent, never mind any time soon.

” Well at least he is being honest there.

“And erm…Well? I’ve been pacing back and forth in here for the last hour because I’m honestly a bit…

” He snapped his mouth shut, like he was instinctively trying to clamp down on showing any weakness.

He folds his arms and looks away from me, pain and shame on his face.

I tentatively lower on my tail and reach for him.

I flick my tongue out and scent his anxiety in the air.

I’ve never seen or smelt Charlie be so afraid before.

“Talk to me.” I hiss softly and I’m three seconds away from ululating a soft coo at him.

To coax him to calm down and open up to me.

“If you’ve been pacing in here for an hour, you must have been thinking about the ramifications of this?

” I nod to the side to indicate the two eggs.

“The ramifications on us.” Charlie closes his eyes and sighs.

“Yeah.” He’s breathless in his admission. Like the fight had been kicked out of him.

“Because accepting these hatchlings doesn’t just make you a parent before you were planning on it, but me too.” He snaps his head to look at me, startled.

“You…but I thought Ucfeni don’t adopt eggs because their scent pheromones might be unpleasant.

” Oh Charlie, you fool. Did he think I would leave him for taking the eggs?

Had he paced here for an hour, worried I would see my own fangs and slither off in a rage?

Or that I would make him choose between his honour and me?

I’m not pleased he made this choice without me…

but Charlie has suffered enough today. That is a conversation for another time.

“Normally, no.” My throat scales pale with what I’m about to say. There will be no turning back once I go down this route with him. One way, or another. “But Asma is still here isn’t she?”

“What?” He narrows his brows at me like I’ve just grown a second head. “Yeah? I-in the morgue. Why?”

“If you’re quick and you have some of her pheromones extracted, I can check if we’d be a scent match.

” He stares at me like I just spoke a language his com-gem didn’t translate.

“Pregnant Ucfeni secrete traces of the natural scent of the hatchlings. To expose the rest nest to their scent and get them used to it before the hatchlings emerge from their eggs. Otherwise, we’d have a high risk of rejection upon hatching, or family members being unable to stand each other’s scent.

” I shrug, and Charlie still hasn’t realised what I’m telling him.

“If I don’t mind Asma’s scent, then I won’t mind the hatchling’s pheromones when they hatch. ”

“Oh.” Charlie rubs the back of his neck, still in a bit of a daze as he moves his other hand to his com-gem. He hesitates and then frowns up at me. “Wait, so are you saying that if you’re a scent match…you don’t mind me bringing the eggs home with us?”

“Oh I mind, because I wasn’t part of the decision.

” I make that very clear, but then I shrug.

“But at the same time, I still love you. You’re not raising hatchlings without me, and I’ll still support you and our new clutch.

It’s a lot sooner than I would have liked for us to have a clutch.

” I cup the back of my neck, feeling more than a little daunted by the sudden responsibility of parenthood.

“But…” I smile and my tail lifts up behind him to nudge at his back to make him stumble closer to me.

“…I also know that there is no way on Thelia you are leaving without those eggs. If you promised Asma you would take her eggs, you’re going to do it, with or without me.

” I know my man far too well. Charlie always keeps his promises, and he wouldn’t survive the guilt of handing the eggs over after promising Asma he would take them.

“I’m just not prepared for you to ever be without me. In any way.”

“Oh thank God.” Charlie collapses against my chest and reveals just how afraid he’d been of my refusal.

I’m not over the moon, of course. If I’m not a scent match my nest is about to become a very pungent and unpleasant place for me, but I’ll do it.

For Charlie. “Because I do not want to be a dad without you. Nor was I letting you go.” I smile, glad and amused that he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

Part of me wonders what his plan would have been had I stomped my tail down and said no, but that’s by the by now.

“I think if you have any demands, having just blindsided you with ‘hey guess what, we’re dads now’, now is the time. ”

“Really?” I wrap my arms around him and playfully think off to one side.

“I suppose I should think of some demands. After all, I assume that you have assumed that because I work from home, I’ll also be the one doing all the child care…

?” I narrow my eyes on him, daring him to try and tell me otherwise, but his sheepish expression says it all.

“My? You planned it all out in that hour of you pacing in here, trying to work up the nerve to land that on my pouch, huh? You’re going to return at last to your precious lab to work on Petri dishes, and I’m going to be at home with a youngling in each arm? Allllll planned out.”

“You’re killing me.” Charlie chuckles and presses his face to my chest. Then his arms hug my waist tightly, and his chuckling stops. “…thank you Dal. I don’t know how I’ll ever make this up to you.” I smirk.

“I have many ideas how, but for now, how about we ask for Asma’s pheromones to be extracted? So I can find out if I’m a scent match to the eggs?”