My otherself stirred within me in response to my mate’s distress, but only with the desire to comfort him. My dragon wasn’t worried, and it was the thing that gave me the most confidence that Devin’s symptoms were normal, even when they differed from what the other two men had gone through. He really did seem abnormally large for as far along as he should be, but my otherself reassured me that our mate was okay.
Still, I wanted to make him feel better.
“Do you want me to go get some pistachio ice cream, baby?” I asked, rubbing his back with one hand and resting my other on the swell of our child.
His food cravings were adorable, and it made me wish my island wasn’t quite so remote. I hated being away from him. I knew that there was nothing here that could hurt him, but I missed him when we weren’t together. I know he didn’t like it when I left, either, but the pregnancy had made him a slave to his hormones.
“You’ll be gone half the day,” he complained, reading my thoughts. I could already tell he was going to say yes, though, and right on cue he said, “But we do have a lifetime together, and ice cream… well, that’s something I really, really could use today, now that you mention it.” He bit his lip, looking sheepish, then added, “With cinnamon, if you don’t mind. Um, we’re out. Again.”
The sun had barely cleared the horizon, and I knew I could easily make it to the mainland and back before noon. Missing the morning with him was a sacrifice I was willing to make to keep him happy.
“I don’t mind,” I said, rubbing his belly as I leaned down to kiss him goodbye. “But when I get back—”
“Oh, my God! Maks, did you feel that?” Devin interrupted excitedly, the ice cream temporarily forgotten.
I had. A gentle bump against my palm. He was beaming, and I realized I was holding my breath as we both waited to see if it would come again. Then… the lightest flutter, but definite motion. Our child.
My otherself rumbled in approval, and when I finally left, the miracle of feeling our child move within Devin’s body kept me smiling all the way to the mainland.
22
~ Devin ~
I felt guilty asking Maks to leave the island on such a silly errand, but at the same time, I had to have it. Had to. Pregnancy was the weirdest, most wonderful thing.
I puttered around the house for a while and then Skyped Sarah to tell her about the baby moving. She had been my best friend forever, and comparing pregnancy symptoms isn’t something I ever imagined I’d get to do with her, but I was loving it.
Before we’d left Washington, Wes and Dane had thrown us a baby shower. They’d gotten us everything we needed, and then some, and had it all shipped to Nova Scotia so Maks could ferry it out to the island once we arrived. After I ended the call with Sarah, I headed to the nursery to continue one of my favorite pastimes—getting it ready for the baby. I was hoping it would keep me distracted enough that the time without Maks would pass quickly, but before he returned I got hungry and had to take a break. I was always getting hungry.
I made a quick lunch and took it out to the bedroom balcony—my favorite place—and ate it while I stared at the empty horizon. The Atlantic stretched before me, smooth and flat today, uninterrupted from here until it hit the coast of France, where Maks had grown up.
Two hundred years. I couldn’t fathom it. He didn’t look that much older than me, and he’d told me that since we were bonded, my own aging would slow to match his. It was mind-boggling, and I couldn’t wait to hear more about the things he’d seen and done in his long life.
As if I’d conjured him, my eyes picked out a dark speck on the horizon in the now-familiar shape of dragon wings. He didn’t often fly during the day, but the island was so remote that being seen wasn’t much of a concern here. My heart leapt as it always did when I got to be with him, and I gathered up my dishes and took them to the kitchen, then headed out to the beach to greet him.
Except… my steps faltered. There was no sign of him. The mainland was to the west, and I’d seen him approaching from the balcony that faced the opposite direction. I walked around the house to the other side, and sure enough, a dragon was approaching the island from the east. The sun glinted off the silvery wings, but these weren’t the white-silver of my mate, this dragon was a silver-blue, almost gray, the color of gunmetal. Dane’s dragon was black, and I thought Maks had mentioned that Anik and Ben to the north were both shades of red. I didn’t know who this was.
My stomach clenched with nerves, and I instinctively reached for my mate through our bond.