Page 24 of Matched By the Dragon

I sat on my haunches watching them chow down. Baby bears often got hungry at night, but this was the first time they made it so far from their crib. They were okay, though. They were safe and they knew it. They felt safe enough inside their home to come all the way out into the kitchen and hunt watermelons. I wanted to cry from relief. Safe and they knew it. Safe. They’d never grow up flinching at every loud sound sure it meant hell was about to break loose. My cubs were safe and at the moment they were very happy.

Chapter 8

Durin

The Hemlock Wolf Pack, Star’s Territory

Life took a surreal turn after we exchanged our claiming vows. Surreal because it was so normal. It was as if something snapped into place inside our heads. Sure, we made a great team before but now with our mating link wide open we worked together better than ever. I never understood how some true-mate pairs just worked together ‘silently’ without talking or even looking at each other. Now I knew. The true-mate magic wasn’t just about talking to each other without having to speak. It was truly being linked to your other half well enough to not only pick up random thoughts and emotions, but to know what they’d do next. Bears weren’t pack hunters, but I sort of wanted to go out hunting with Brad. I’d put money on us being able to work together to take down something big like a moose. Only hunting a moose had risks. Lots of them. I wasn’t about to put us both at risk while we had two cubs at home. Plus, maybe more on the way. Almost definitely more on the way from how much we romped every night after the twins went to bed. This number increased after the third night when Brad decided to leave a big mixing bowl of frozen fruit *hidden* under a pile of pillows. We watched on the baby monitor as the cubs climbed out of their crib. Almost headed for the door and then smelled the hidden fruit. It took them a few minutes of searching to locate where the scent was coming from and not long to knock away the pillows. They had their snack and passed out on the pillows, but they stayed in the bedroom where they were safest. They even had fun while doing it. So, every night that we snuck off to the guest room we came up with new and interesting ways to hide fruit.

Our life fell into a comfortable rhythm over the next few weeks. We did everything together. As we settled in, Brad started inviting Alby and his family over more often and he started having his weekly one-on-one lunch with him again. The first time he took the kids. The second time they stayed home with me. We fell into a rhythm of alternating so we each took turns having the free time.

About three weeks had passed since our claiming vows, give or take a few days, and I was up early cooking breakfast. For whatever reason, probably our ‘nighttime routine’ I woke up ravenous. I was hungry enough to go hunt that proverbial moose down and eat him by myself. Maybe my bear planned on taking a hibernation nap inside his inner sanctum or something. I was making a full spread of gravy and biscuits, fried potatoes, bacon and more. I even snacked here and there as I went. It was still dark outside the kitchen window and the cubs were still out cold. I put my ear phones in and jammed out to my favorite songs until a shudder passed through me. For a moment, I thought I’d be sick. From ravenous to sick? What was going on? Oh fucking hell! If I was sick, the kids were probably going to be sick too. Alphas didn’t get sick often. Not much got past whatever our alpha genes did. If I was sick everyone else would be really sick.

FUCK!

A groan reached my ears coming out of the bedroom where we all slept. Shit! My nausea passed almost as quickly as it flooded into my body, but Brad wasn’t so lucky. His feet pattered across the floor into the bathroom. Not wanting to burn the bacon, I turned the stove off and made a quick trek for the bedroom. He’d shut the bathroom door but he was sick. The sounds were a dead give away. Both babies were standing up in their little bear forms looking up at me. Then at the bathroom door.

“Mate,” I said gently over our mating link, hating to bother him while he was sick. “Do you need me in there or do you want me to get the kids out of here?”

“UH…” his thoughts were blank and I wanted to kick myself in the furry ass. I should know exactly what to do, but my instincts were torn. The cubs obviously needed reassurance that everything was okay, but I needed to know that Brad was okay too.

“Morning….” He said. “Morning sickness…. I’m pretty… pretty sure. Take care of the kids and I’ll be out when I can. Like eat the bacon quickly or toss it out. I was hungry. I was so hungry when I woke up to hearing you cook. Then you started the bacon and I almost died.”

“Sorry, mate,” I said, but turned to pick up the boys.

They both stared over my shoulders, smelling worried as I carried them out of the room. The half-cooked bacon and the plate of finished bacon went outside with us. I wasn’t about to let them scarf down bacon grease because even for a bear you have to worry a little about your arteries and a lot about exploding butt syndrome. Especially the latter at their age, but I let them have at the fried bacon. At their age the meat was enough to distract them from their worries. I left the back door open so that the house would air out.

“Well, I guess we know where the ravenous gnawing in our belly came from,” my bear said, sitting on his haunches inside his inner sanctum. “And the nausea.”

I should’ve picked up a pregnancy test the last time we were in town. We joked about him being pregnant so much that I should’ve thought ahead.

“It’s morning sickness not the plague,” Brad chimed into my thoughts over our mating link. “Stop beating yourself up. This is one half my fault.”

“I… I hate that you don’t feel well, mate,” I told him while the kids looked up at me from the empty bacon plate wondering what they’d get to eat next. I went back inside and made them plates of fried potatoes and gravy and biscuits. Since they were still shifted, I sat down on the back porch swing and let them eat outside.

“Do I call Alby? Do I call the clinic? Do I call Raziel? Who do I call?” I asked over our mating link.

“Why would you call Raziel?” he managed a chuckle over our link.

“I don’t know. Most of these dragons are like secret doctors or something,” I said.

“No. I’ll text Clyde when I can. He’s the doctor who fixed me up after everything. He said I shouldn’t have trouble with the next delivery unless I walked miles and miles afterwards again.”

I hadn’t put it together that he’d walked from this house all the way to Alby’s on foot after giving birth to twins. It was a fucking miracle he was still alive.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Please don’t dwell on that too much. I have orange gummies in the nightstand. They’re morning sickness gummies. I picked them up last time we were in town.”

“I’ll grab—”

“Don’t you dare leave those babies outside by themselves. I will bite your tail off!” he growled over our mating link.

“Sorry, mate, instincts.”

“Well, your instincts better start focusing on the babies. I can handle this part. It’s not like you can puke for me. You watch our babies. Let me handle this.”

An hour later, Clyde stepped through the back gate. The cubs had wanted to go play ‘roll down the hill,’ but I kept them busy enough close to the back door. Brad could say he was alright all he wanted to, but I wasn’t going too far from him. He’d managed to make it to the bedroom and grab some of the orange gummies. They had settled his stomach enough to sip some water.

I’d only met Clyde once at the temple, but everyone knew who he was. That same ‘everyone’ either thought he was an asshole or a saint. He saved Brad’s life. So, he could be as much of either as he wanted to for all I cared.