Page 40 of Sapphire Seas

The three of us looked at each other, but I knew what I wanted. “We’re having four girls and two boys, but I’d still like them to be gender neutral colors, if possible?”

“That is absolutely doable. Let me get some information from you.” She handed Kes and I each a basket then Mattias followed her to the counter to fill out the forms for our special orders.

Special orders. For our dragonets. Come on, that is beyond awesome!

There you are, Kes. I wondered when it would hit you.

It hit me, alright. Nearly gave me a heart attack at Kaika’s, but now that we’re here I’m pretty excited. We’re so lucky, not only to find our mates but to find each other.

Kes, that’s one of the sweetest things you’ve said to me. I turned and kissed his cheek. “Now, let’s do some baby shopping.”

“Look at all the teeny tiny socks. I can’t believe their feet will be this small.” Kes picked up a four pack of every color available. “Their feet will be so cute!” Okay, this excited side of Kes I was totally on board with. “We should order custom onesies online with silly sayings on them.”

“That will be so fun. Plus, we need to order six of everything furniture wise. Mattias, which room will be the nursery?”

“Well, with six babies why don’t we make two with a pass through. One for sleeping and one for playing. Then as they get older we can move them into their own rooms.” A couple of Baird’s clan had been staying at Mattias house in the spare rooms, but they since moved out. “Oddly enough, we have five spare rooms so only two will have to share a room when they get older.”

“We may be able to redesign the rooms and turn five into six or even seven so we have a guest room. Those rooms are huge as they are.” Kes had a point and sent my brain into a spiral of room colors and decorating ideas.

“I’ll call the contractor in the morning,” Mattias said, adding more to his own basket. “We can get started on the nurseries right away then he’ll have time to redesign the other rooms.”

Might as well build his own home on site with as much work as he’s had at the compound lately.

Four brothers down, one left to add to the dragonet count.

Huh, we may need to consider opening our own school…

Chapter Thirteen

Mattias

To say my dragon was giddy would be an understatement. I swear that dragon preened every time we laid eyes on one of our mates. Of course, he insisted that dragons didn’t preen, we were proud creatures, nor were they ever giddy, but I knew what I felt so he could protest all he wanted to. His response was a snort as we headed back from another session on the pitch. My mates were exempt from training now that they were expecting, which meant I’d left them in bed this morning when I’d snuck away. Ironically enough, it was getting harder to do now that Kes had started clinging to me instead of slipping away whenever he woke in the middle of the night. Realization dawned on me that his refusal to remain in the bed had more to do with being worried about the eye-patch moving than his dreams.

Now that it had been eliminated from the equation, he stayed, even when he woke up scared, and allowed me to hold him through it, rather than leaving us to go outside to his favorite deck chair. In time, I knew he’d trust us with the details of those dreams. For now, I was pleased that he’d opted to cling, rather than leave. It was no small step for him that didn’t go unnoticed by me.

Stepping back inside the house I was met with silence and quietly crept up the stairs to the most adorable sight I could have ever imagined coming home to. It was a precursor to things to come, for sure and certain, because I new that with dragonets on the horizon, there would be many more moments of utter cuteness in my future. Kes had scooted into the empty spot left behind by my absence, and cuddled up behind Caspian, one hand on Caspian’s belly, his head pressed to Caspian’s shoulder as they soundly slept the morning away.

I took several pictures before heading to the shower to clean up, then back down the stairs to make breakfast for when they woke, along with one of Kaika’s seaweed smoothies for Kes, to ensure he’d eat and be able to keep the meal down. So far, they’ve been working, too. My mates came downstairs a short time later, hair damp from their shower and messily braided in their haste to get to the kitchen.

“What smells so amazing?” Kes asked as he sniffed, sighed and snagged the smoothie first, before investigating the rest of the meal.

“Crabcakes benedict with sunny side up eggs and hollandaise sauce on top,” I explained.

“You had me at crabcakes,” Kes replied as he sat down.

“Same,” Caspian added, making grabby hands at me as soon as I headed toward the table with their plates.

“How did training go this morning?” Kes asked as he finished his smoothie and started on the grape juice I’d set on the table beside his plate.

He wasn’t a fan of orange, said it was too thick and made his stomach hurt afterward. Tea was hit or miss, hopefully more hit, now that he was expecting, because there were soothing blends that would also help with the nausea. Caspian didn’t have any food aversions I’d discovered yet, but he hadn’t spent as much time on land as Kes had to know how the food would hit him, so I watched their reactions to what they ate and planned accordingly.

“There is a fresh indentation in the pitch after Caro and I pulled a low-high maneuver on Ionus that he did not expect. The look on his face was priceless, even if he did make us pay for it later when he covered the pitch in smoke and started popping in and out of it to strike us.”

“You guys get truly creative with your powers, don’t you?” Kes asked. “I always wanted to play with my ice more, to test the limits of my abilities, but with the connection between my dragon and I so tumultuous, it was always hit or miss how things would turn out. I’m glad to have the opportunity to get used to there not being a block between us. Training for that last mission was a struggle. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to help as much as you needed me to.”

“You got us there,” Caspian said.

“He’s right,” I said. “To Quint, that means everything. You gave my brother his mate.”