Page 32 of These Little Heirs (Moonscale Heirs Duet #2)

Ciro

I knew you were supposed to complain about being pregnant, but I didn’t mind it as much as I feared.

Perhaps it was because I was in the best shape of my life when I conceived or perhaps, I just got lucky but being pregnant only slowed me down a little.

Sure, I couldn’t hunt deer anymore because Teal feared one of them cleaning my clock but there was something to be said about lying up full of kittens while he cooked elaborate meals for me.

I missed coffee but I wouldn’t be pregnant forever and whenever something ached too much, I simply shifted to my liger form.

It was as if his body was even more prepared than mine to house the three little kittens growing inside me.

Midnight, Iris, and Powder filled my waking thoughts.

Who would these little heir kittens grow into?

Would they look like me with defined feline features or have the bold, brazen features of their sire?

Would they pick up his love for dying his hair different colors?

Would the boys try to dye their manes? Would that even work?

Hell, would they have manes? Not every liger did.

Hell, maybe they’d have scales like Teal.

Up until the very last week of my pregnancy, I attended the work out class at the local gym. They had various modifications of all their workouts to accommodate carriers in every stage of pregnancy. Moving was the only thing that put much of a dent in how bloated and fat I felt.

“Soon we will nurse between sets,” my liger said as I huffed my way back up onto the exercise step and backdown.

“We’ll take the kittens on runs through the forest,” I told him. “Hell, maybe they’ll be little gardening cats. They’re going to be so fucking adorable!”

I was so lost to my workout and imagining how my babies would look and behave later in life that I nearly fell flat on my ass when I pissed myself. Only, Gabrelina’s strong shebear hands kept me from going all the way down. She’d been my personal spotter since around sixty days into my workout.

“I think I pissed myself,” I said, craning my neck trying to see the rest of my body.

“Someone call Dara!” Someone shouted from the other side of the classroom.

“YOU CALL HIM AND I’LL EAT YOUR FACE!” I hissed pulling away from Gabrelina and shifting into my cat form.

“Don’t call Dara,” Gabrelina sighed. “We call Teal. I don’t need my cousin bitching at me about how we screwed up his mate’s birthing plan and I really don’t want to wrestle Ciro either. I think he could body slam my sire!”

That was right. She was family. Gabrelina was Nim and Cedar’s daughter about ten years younger than Teal.

That’s why I agreed to let her be my spotter.

I tried to force my cat to calm down but he was already making a mewling run for it, pushing through the heavy gym doors even as the trainer called for us to stop.

I couldn’t stop, though! I couldn’t have my kittens in some dirty gym where people summoned doctors you didn’t ask for to shove their big, meaty hands inside you!

Ahead of me Cobalt darted out of Bad Wolf Cakes 2.

0 and I’d never been so bloody happy to see a not-Teal in my life.

I barreled into him and somehow, he lifted me up.

My cat yowled again, protesting being so far off the ground, but he was secure in the dragon’s grip.

My brother-in-law didn’t waste time on words.

Instead, he headed straight for home. Teal and Indigo both sprinted toward us and Teal took me from Cobalt.

My cat’s heart pounded in my ears, and I was sure I’d tear someone apart if all the people who weren’t Teal and the men who smelled the most like him in the world didn’t back the hell off.

Indigo did crowd control and Cobalt cleared the way forward. People stepped aside here and there all asking if Teal needed help getting me home. Then finally we were inside the house. Odie was already in the bathroom and Ambry was in the nursery with Baby Robin and Baby Steel.

“I got it Odie. We’re not ungrateful but he’s overwhelmed and overwhelmed cats are--- Well, he said it best himself. They’re not very nice. If we need help, I’ll let you know.”

“I’m coming in,” Cobalt said.

“Stay by the door and if he disembowels you, it’s your own damn fault,” Teal growled, lowering me gently into the warm water.

For the next few hours, I mostly remembered being agitated.

Everything was too bright, too loud, and smelled off.

Everything wanted to eat me and my kittens and Teal was the only thing that stood between us and that fate.

I’d fight to the death but dying wouldn’t help Midnight, Iris, and Powder.

It wouldn’t help any of us. I lost myself to my primal side and was grateful for the moments of near oblivion as the babies were born.

Powder came first, but we’d never tell anyone that and neither would Cobalt.

No firstborns to pass all the bullshit headaches onto.

Then Iris came – mewling as if she were ready to fight everything and everyone who wanted to eat her.

She found the teat so much quicker than Powder who Teal had to keep putting back in the right spot.

Midnight took forever to arrive. It was as if the last baby knew his namesake was late at night and took awhile to come around each night.

I swore I spent days pushing that big-headed kitten out.

Though, when all was said and done, we’d only spent four hours inside the bathroom during which Cobalt never budged up from his post by the door.

I came to some time later, tucked into the nest with my kittens nursing. I didn’t remember being washed or dried or taken from the tub but somehow Teal had managed it. I counted the kittens over and over again just as I had from the sonograms. Three perfect kittens.

Teal lay behind me, wrapped around me and the others sat on the other side of the nest playing a card game and talking in hushed voices as their little ones crawled around. Five little heirs. Five perfect little babies each one just as loved as the next.

I licked my babies, smoothing down their barely striped fur.

They were the most perfect – to me anyway.

I’d grown them after all. They’d grow up far away from the London I knew and loved and was nearly crushed by again and again but in return, they’d get to keep us, like I didn’t get to keep my parents.

I wasn’t going anywhere not when three little babies counted on me.

We all had to pick which battles we fought but this was mine.

I’d fight to stay with them no matter what because this was home.

Me and Teal and them and the rest of the family.

Heartville lived up to its name. Maybe generations of little Moonscale heirs would be born here and hidden away from all the bullshit that came along with being expected to lead a flight.

Teal kissed my furry cheek and sleep tugged at me again. It lulled me under so easily because I was surrounded by family and for the first time, I knew exactly where I fit in.

Hello and thank you for reading! Whether this is your first book in this universe, or you’ve been around since the beginning, thank you!