by Honor James
“Very clear. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt our baby girl. You know that, right?” she asked and looked up at him with her worry there and clear on her face. “I want our girl, every bit as much as you want her, honey.” If not more.
“I’m not so worried about the baby. I’m worried about you, love.” He frowned at her. Cupping her face, he looked down at her. “Babies are quite well protected. The womb affords them a great buffer, especially once they are established. But you could hurt yourself and do damage that we might not be able to fix, love.”
“Yikes, yeah, I hadn’t thought of it like that.” She hadn’t even been thinking of the damage she could cause herself, just her child. “Well we will make sure that I don’t hurt myself. The exercises I was thinking of didn’t have weight to them, just rubber bands used in physical therapy.” Which reminded her, they would need to order her some.
“There are plenty of such things in the gym,” he told her honestly. “But I’m thinking you never got there during your tour of the house,” he teased with a grin. Dropping a kiss to her lips, he turned and headed for the pool.
Dahlia had the grace to flush at his statement and shrugged. “You are right. I hadn’t gotten to that part of the house. Where is it by the way, the gym?” She assumed it was in the basement. That was the only floor she hadn’t made it to so far.
“Downstairs with the bowling alley,” he said and laughed at her look. “I’m serious, there’s a bowling alley down there. Only two lanes, but it’s a great way to release tension.” Throwing balls down a lane to take out little pins with a bit of skill and strategy was great.
“Great googly moogly,” she muttered and shook her head. “I never would have thought there would be a bowling alley down there.” She shrugged and then added, “Actually I’ve been spending time in the attic. Some of the things up there are truly stunning and seem to hold such a whisper of the past that it’s hard not to want to touch and feel the things up there.” Silly, she knew, but there it was.
“It’s all stuff I managed to save of my past,” he told her honestly. “There’s not a lot, but what’s there is all I’ve got that was truly mine. That and a few things of my parents, except the books. Those are in the glass display in my office to protect the pages from more damage by the elements.”
“My favorite thing up there is the rocking chair. Would you mind terribly if we bring it down so that when our daughter is born I can rock her and nurse her from it?” The feeling of the rocking chair was of such joy and happiness. She truly wanted that to be a part of their nursery.
“Of course I don’t mind,” he told her honestly. “I’ll bring it down tomorrow and we can choose a room you want for the nursery. Maybe start fixing it up for our little one while I’m home with you,” he suggested, stopping by the pool to sit on a lounger and pull off his boots and socks.
“Are you sure that it’s not too soon to think about a nursery for our child? She is after all only barely conceived.” Well, not really, but kinda. “Are you sure that it wouldn’t be like inviting trouble into our lives by doing that so soon?”
“Well, we can always wait for the first ultrasound if you’d like,” he said with a shrug. “But it still makes sense to choose a room, especially if we need to add a connecting door from our room to it,” he pointed out. “It is needed anyway at some point since I’m sure we will be having more than one child.” Davyn hoped so anyway. “And the construction would need to be done before we did anything else after all.”
This had her smiling, and she nodded. “Yeah, you are totally right on that.” Happiness radiated from her. “Thank you for thinking of that,” she murmured. “So yes, yes, we will need to choose the room that we will have for the nursery, need to have a door installed to connect to our bedroom, and we will begin decorating it for our new little one that will be here far too soon.” Or not soon enough, depending on her mood.
Lips twitching, he bent to hide his grin, stuffing his socks into his boots. Standing with his face composed again, he shrugged. “Figured it would be easier than running into the hall and then into the room if we put in a door. I’d recommend the room on the north side of the house. Gets good light but nothing direct. Plus that way we don’t have to go through the closet wall to get into the room. But I’ll leave it to you to decide.” Now that he’d put that seed of thought into her head. Tugging off his shirt, he folded it and dropped it onto the lounger. Pausing, he looked at her. “Am I the only one swimming tonight?” he asked with a grin slowly curling his lips.
“Oh no, honey, you aren’t the only one who is going swimming tonight,” she assured him as she began to peel out of her clothes. “I think that you will eventually need to take me shopping so that we can get swimsuits, because when our little girl comes along we can’t go skinny dipping the way that we are now, honey.”
“True,” he grumbled, ditching his jeans. “I should probably buy some boxers, too.” He didn’t own underwear. He was more into wandering around naked. “Likely some pajama bottoms as well.” Davyn wrinkled his nose. He hated pajamas to begin with, but he likely could survive with bottoms, and if not, really good locks on the bedroom door.
“I think that I will need to buy some as well,” she teased with a smile. “I think we will need to adjust a lot of our ways when the child comes along, won’t we?” she asked as she stripped until she was finally naked. “Yep, we will have to make changes, but they will be worth it, won’t they?” In order to have their child, very worth it.
“Anything for our baby girl is well worth it,” he told her. “I’ll have to find baggy ones with drawstrings though. Otherwise I’m going to be fidgeting like I’ve got ants in my pants. But there will need to be some adjustments, like a lock on the door to the pool area and anything else little hands might be able to get at.” Including his office with all the old papers. He should really get a safe for that kind of stuff.
“Yes, we will need to have fencing put up around the pool and also a cover that we can put over the top so that our child would never fall into the pool.” She didn’t want anything to happen to her child, their child. “I also think that we will need to make sure that we baby proof the house,” she said. “So much to do, so very much.” She shrugged. “But thankfully we have ten months to get this all done.”
“Ten months?” He looked at her and blinked slowly before grinning and snickering. “Oh are you in for a shock,” he muttered and dove into the pool. He wanted some serious distance before he told her anything.
“Pregnancy is forty weeks, honey, and since we are only maybe three weeks in I think that it is safe to say that we have at least nine months before our baby comes out, honey,” she told him honestly. “So why would you think I’m in for a shock?”
Treading water with the width of the pool between them, he shook his head. “Wraith pregnancies are different, my love,” he told her with a smile. “The child grows for three months and then goes into a stasis of sorts for six months before it then begins to grow again for another eight months before being born.” Grinning as she did the math, he chuckled. “That would be seventeen months, love of my life, or more or less a year and a half total.”
Dahlia watched him and frowned. “What?” she asked with a growl and began to swim closer to him. “I’m going to be pregnant seventeen months?” she demanded. “No. This is un-fucking-believable. Are you serious?” Holy hell, she was going to be bigger than a damn house, and how in the world would she be able to move around when she was that big? Oh lordy.
Catching her, he held her to him. “You will be normal sized,” he told her softly. Brushing a kiss to her cheek, Davyn chuckled. “The baby goes into stasis for six months, darling. It’s just part and parcel with the pregnancy of a Wraith child. Even if she never shows the signs of being Wraith, she carries the genetic materials, and therefore the pregnancy is the same.”
“As terrible as this sounds, I hope that she’s at least a little like you,” she admitted. “I want and need
for her to be safe. I need for her to be able to protect herself as you can. I really hope for her to be able to protect herself from everything.”
“Baby, even if she’s not, we’ll teach her everything so she can protect herself, love,” he promised softly. Brushing his lips to her cheek, he hugged her to him. “I’m not going to let her get hurt, sweetheart, I promise.”
“Thank you for that.” Dahlia looked up at him and smiled. “For knowing what I need in order to feel more comfortable, for being able to give me that without hesitation and without question. Also thank you for ensuring that our daughter, when she finally makes it into the world, is taught just as you would a son.”
“Who are you kidding?” he snorted. “I’m teaching her more than I would a son. I know what boys think, and she’s damn well going to know just how to put them down for the long count. Bonus of being a doctor, my sweet little mate,” Davyn said softly. “I know how to inflict maximum damage with minimum effort.”
That had her snickering, and she nodded. “Well, then it’s a good thing that she has you as her father, love, so that you can teach her everything that she needs to know,” she said with a smile. “And I love you for it, too. I love that you are willing to give our girl everything she needs and more.”
“Same as I would do for you, Dahlia,” he told her with full honesty in his voice. He couldn’t lie to her to begin with. It hurt something inside just to think about giving her any sort of white lie. “If you ever want self-defense lessons, let me know. I’ll give you all the same knowledge I’ll be one day passing to our baby girl.”
“I think that would be the best idea. I very much would like to have them, Davyn, because I do not think that I want to ever be at anyone’s mercy.” She wanted to simply live. She needed to feel safe as she lived as well. “So that I can protect our daughter as well.”
“Then I’ll teach you,” he said with a smile, hugging her close. “But first we will run tests to see what we need to adjust in your diet and get your body settled with that. No need to stress it out with too many things at once. Which can wait until tomorrow at the earliest,” he told her, brushing a kiss to her cheek. “Tonight is just us, together, in all and every way we can dream up.”
“Oh I love how you think,” Dahlia all but purred with a happy grin. “God, I love you, Davyn, but for now we should swim.” So that they could then go and enjoy the hot tub, ah yes, the hot tub. “Because I am so looking forward to having that time with you.” Naked. Oh yes, naked.
Chuckling, he hugged her to him. “You just love my naked body,” he teased her. “But that’s all right. I adore your naked body as well, so we’re even.” Pressing a kiss to her lips, Davyn loosened his hold. “Let’s swim for a half hour or so, and then we can go and sit in the hot tub.” Which reminded him he had to go and turn it on and make sure the temperature was low enough for her.
“How about you work on turning down the high temperature on the hot tub, and I’m going to do a couple of laps before you dive in and distract me, because you are so very distracting.” When he was around her, she forgot everything. Nothing mattered except him.
Releasing her, he winked and let her loose before swimming to the side and hauling himself out of the water. Padding to the hot tub, he opened the control panel and made the adjustments. Lifting the lid, he folded it and set it aside against the wall. Turning the water on, he went back to the pool and dove back in.
Doing laps, Dahlia surfaced and brushed her hair out of her face to look at him. “Get it going for us, darling?” she asked as she swam toward him in a slow doggy paddle. “I hope so, because it will be fun to be able to have that in a little bit to get into. To relax and all that fun stuff.”
“I reset and locked the controls so the temperature can’t be changed.” He’d used a combination lock on the control just to be safe. “It’s set just below the max allowable heat for a woman during pregnancy.”
“Thank you very much for that, sweetheart. I very much appreciate it. We both know that I love the hot tub and I never want to chance doing anything that would hurt our little girl. Ever.” It would be such a great long pregnancy, and that sucked.
“I heard that,” he teased with a grin as he lazily pulled himself through the water. “It’s not my fault the pregnancies are so long, but there’s a reason for it I’m very sure. I have no idea what, but I’m determined to figure it out.” Somehow.
“I’m sure that there is a reason for it, and I know it’s not your fault, baby, but it will still suck like crazy to know that I will be pregnant for as long as I will. I will get over it of course. It just seriously sucks.” But in all honesty she wouldn’t change it for anything at all.
“For the first nine months you won’t even notice, except maybe for a few cravings. It will be like everyday life. It’s after the stasis period that your body will start to go through the changes until you give birth,” he told her. “Or that’s what I know from the papers I have.”
“I’m so sorry that you have had to put together on your own what should have been taught to you as a child,” she whispered, “I’m with you now though, darling, and that is all that matters. Right now all that matters is that we are together. We will do research together, figure all of this out together as well.” She smiled and added, “Somehow.”
“I hope so,” he muttered quietly. “I worry about what else we’ll find though.” She hadn’t exactly been very happy about the mating process. Though it was the worst of it all, he hoped, he just didn’t know what else they’d have to face.
“Whatever we find we will face it together. No more secrets, no more half-truths. From here out we will be in this one hundred and ten percent together, right?” she asked softly. “We will do research together. We will visit places together. We will do everything together, right?”
“I can promise no more secrets, but the half-truths…” He sighed. “I’m working with half-truths, darling. Everything I have is half of what is out there to find, or less. But I agree fully with everything else, Dahlia. I never meant to keep anything from you, baby. I just didn’t know how to tell you something I found hurtful and knew you would see as such.”
“I know, honey.” She touched her hand to his cheek. “Believe me, I know, love. What I meant about half-truths was with each other. I never want us to have half-truths with each other,” she told him softly. “That’s what truly matters to me.”
“Then I swear it,” he told her, pulling her into his arms and shifting to tread water. Brushing his nose to hers, Davyn breathed her in. “I never wanted to hurt you and never meant to, Dahlia. That is the truth. I hated having to show you that, to let you see what I’d found. While I would never give you up, I swear, if I knew a way to bring your parents back into our lives, I would, love.” No matter the cost.
“I know, but you can’t. They are gone,” she whispered and sighed. Her heart was heavy, but she had him in her life as well. “What matters is that we are together,” she assured him. “You know that as well as I do. What matters is us, darling.”
Nodding, he hugged her to him and kissed her lightly. “And our baby girl,” he whispered softly. Who would be nearly a year and a half in the making before they got to hold her. That sucked, but it would be fully worth the wait.
“I heard that thought,” she teased with a grin. “It will be forever before we can hold our little girl, but, Davyn, it will be all right. No, I’m not going to like it, sweetheart, but that’s all right because it means that we will have even longer to prepare for our baby girl.”
“Which may be a good thing, because I know absolutely nothing about kids,” he told her honestly. “I think we should take a couple of classes and see what they can tell us about them and throw out the crap we don’t need to bother with just because it’s rhetoric of the day.”
Unable to help herself, Dahlia began to giggle and shook her head as she did so. “Oh Gods, that’s utterly priceless. You are a doctor and don’t know anything about kids. That
’s, I don’t know if it’s funny or terrifying.”
“I know their bits and pieces, how they are put together, and the basics of pediatrics, but that’s about it. I studied to be a surgeon, love. I’ve never even operated on a child, let alone spent very much time with them. Except for my peds rotation, which was way back, not a single child in my life. I don’t have a family with kids, and I don’t tend to hang around in the same groups with the mated men and women who have kids.” He shrugged.
“Well, we will do what we need to do then. Maybe some of the others that are bonded and have children will let us babysit for them so that we can spend some time practicing and playing with the babies?” Hopefully they wouldn’t break someone else’s child. Hopefully.
“I’d recommend the Dragons. They are built a little tougher,” he teased with a grin. “Not that we’ll mention that to them when we ask to borrow their kids. It probably wouldn’t do us any good if they knew we had no clue what we were doing ahead of time.”
“This is very true. Especially with as protective as they are of their children.” Aiden and Allister seemed to be protective of their kids, but even more so over Amelia, such a sweetheart. “Think that they will let us take Amelia for the day?” she asked hopefully.
“We could ask,” he said, gently brushing a finger over her cheek. “It would be nice to practice with a little girl,” he said with a smile. Brushing a kiss to her lips, Davyn leaned back. “Let’s go and sit in the hot tub, darling. It should be right at temperature now.”
“Sounds good.” She smiled and turned her face into his hand and sighed. “I think it would be nice to practice with a little girl as well. It doesn’t hurt that Amelia is just such an amazing little thing as well.”
“She is pretty amazing,” he agreed honestly before moving his hand and going to the side. Pulling himself up, he turned and held out his hands. “Come on, darling, I’ll pull you out and we’ll dash carefully over to the hot tub.”
