Page 55 of Within the Veil

"My powers are fully functional, growing, I have five Fae mates, three of which are previous Kings, or rather a leader in Ryder's case, one who is an all-powerful Djinn, a Queen by birth right and an Earth Elemental from one of the strongest familes. Then you want to throw in three sentinels and a giant lioness and babies that glow when they are hungry or angry. So I think we can manage to get close enough to Charlie to let her know I exist."

I start my wobble-pacing once again, ignoring the hands that reach out to steady me. I swear my belly grew another half inch in the time I've been standing here. Which means...

"Here, eat this the babies want a sandwich and sit down so you can digest it better." Grayson puts a giant hero sandwich in my hand and forces me to sit, and my belly starts to glow in response. I take a happy bite and laugh at Grayson's scowl.

"Dude, they don't want any more smoothies. You can't blame them. That meat protein shit you tried to make looked like Goblin shit," Ryder laughs. He isn't wrong.

While they can't talk to us, they seem to be able to share their feelings about certain foods, and when they want them. Or in this case,don'twant them. They have been adamant about no more smoothies and I silently cheered them on. Not that it stopped Gray from making me chug one at least once a day for the nutrients.

"I'm sure they won't like school either, that doesn't mean they aren't going," he grumbles in response.

Shea blinks and stares at my belly in fascination. Oh right, he's been gone.

"You're glowing," he says, jaw slack.

"Yup," I say through a mouthful of food and I point at one of the thousands of people in the room to explain. Because I mean...sandwich.

Hunter huffs a laugh from where is leaning on the wall, arms crossed doing his intimidating man pose. Good look on him though.

"It is a long story and we can fill you in with more details later but in short, goddess, glowing belly, Keepers, more powers, talking glowing belly," he looks at us. "Did I miss anything?"

"Giant library!" King punches the air and I nod enthusiastically.

Hunter rolls his eyes, "yeah that."

I scoff as I eat my food.Thatis the most important part here.

"You also said glowing belly twice," Luca points out with a smirk.

"Well, can you blame him? She's like a nuclear reactor on Goddess steroids. At least it's nice purple," he adds with a quirk of his head as he stares, rubbing his chin in thought.

I look down at the gentle purple hues that shine through my top, chewing thoughtfully. Gentle only because they are getting fed... sometimes, my belly looks like a purple neon sign outside a Vegas strip club. Only except instead of 'Girls, Girls, Girls,' it's 'Fae, Fae, Fae, Fae and one Ring to Swaddle Them All.' Laughter breaks out in the room except, of course, from Shea who is clearly still processing in confusion.

He bobs his head mindlessly, his green eyes crinkling at the sides as if he is trying to see if he is the butt of a joke. As if I would have time, or space underneath this top, to stuff lights to play a prank on him. Hate to break it to him, but nope, all true. All crazy. But such is life. Especially mine.

I polish off my food and sigh happily as Oberon passes me a glass of clover crack juice.

"Fuck this is good. Anyways, as I was saying, before being sand-wich-ly interrupted. It was delicious, by the way, my giant love bug," I blow a kiss at Grayson, and he winks back.Hot merman King Fae,I think wistfully.

"If you think about it. Charlie has all of Shea's purple essence, which I'm just going to call Shea's iced coffee because the other image..." I wrinkle my nose, "gross. So, she has Shea's Iced Coffee..."

"Wait, what flavor of iced coffee?"Ryder cuts in.

"Does that matter?" Zane growls.

"Of course, it matters. Visuals are important," Ryder snaps back.

"The King of Spears, everyone," Zane mutters with a sarcastic clap. I burst out laughing.

Shaking my head, I add, "Okay, chocolate mocha iced coffee."

Ryder nods, "With whipped cream?"

"And chocolate sauce on the whipped cream?" Jensi adds.

"Absolutely. Although, that all sounds delicious and essence doesn't. So we will go with plain iced coffee with shitty syrup from a gas station..."

Ryder opens his mouth but is cut off with Zane's frustrated yell,"Cut it out..." Zane growls, tugging at his long hair and I roll my eyes. Fine. Although I admit I have been more likely to break off into a tangent recently. Apparently it's a side effect of pregnancy, baby brain and all that.