by Sammie Joyce
“To little Jagger the Second!”
Rose couldn’t help laughing. “Shut up, Jagger, we’re not calling him Jagger the Second.”
“I say we vote on it. All for Jagger the Second?” Jagger raised his hand. Gavin was glaring daggers at him. Mace rolled his eyes, and Asher took a particularly large gulp of champagne.
“Too bad,” Rose teased. “I guess we’ll have to go with Gavin the Second after all.”
Jagger spat out a sip of champagne as everyone else roared with laughter.
“Of course, we don’t know it’s going to be a boy. How about Rose the Second?”
“No way, Mace, we are not naming our baby after me. Or after any of us.” Rose reached out to swat him, but her hand gave a painful twinge.
Gavin grabbed her wrist immediately. “Are you okay? Should we get Maria in to heal it?”
Rose rolled her eyes. “You heard what the tattoo artist said. It’s best to let it heal naturally.”
“He didn’t say no magical healing.”
“Yes, because he doesn’t know witches and dragons exist! ‘Natural’ means no magic.”
Just four hours ago, the five of them had gotten matching tattoos of rose petals. The pieces together formed one rose, with the only missing piece being for the child that Rose had only recently found out she was carrying. She was willing to bet that the moment their child turned eighteen, Asher would whisk them off to a tattoo shop to get the completing piece.
Someone knocked on the basement door, and Rose called for them to come in. Annabelle made her way down the stairs. “Looks like someone is having a good day.” She nodded toward the champagne.
“We’re celebrating.” Rose was suddenly nervous, but she had to tell people sooner or later. “I’m pregnant.”
Instead of smiling or congratulating her, Annabelle took a step back, her face suddenly paler than usual. “What?”
“We’re having a baby!” Rose couldn’t seem to wipe the grin off her face, not that she was trying particularly hard.
“Who else knows about this?” Annabelle asked carefully.
“Just Maria, us, and now you. Come on, celebrate with us. I can’t have champagne, but you can.”
Annabelle shook her head slowly, backing away. “I… I need go to.”
With that, she dashed up the stairs and vanished.
Rose exchanged a perplexed look with her dragons. “What was that about?”
Asher shrugged. “You’d know better than we would. Is she usually like that?”
“No, not at all. I was sure she’d be happy for me.” Annabelle was Rose’s best friend, and Rose usually had no trouble figuring out what she was thinking. Right now, though, she had no idea.
“I’m sure you’ll find out sooner or later.” Gavin took another sip of champagne.
Rose nodded, putting the issue from her mind. She got lost in talking to her dragons, and the hours slipped by. They were midway through a debate about names (thankfully everyone had given up on naming the child after one of them) when the basement door opened.
“Maria!” Asher stood up respectfully, though he was swaying slightly. “Care to join us?”
“Thank you.” Maria sat down on the couch, but didn’t take the glass Jagger offered her. “I need to talk to you.”
As the only one who wasn’t at least slightly tipsy, Rose seemed to be the only one concerned by Maria’s worried demeanor.
“What’s up?” Jagger asked, putting an arm around Rose’s waist.
“Word has spread that you’re pregnant. You told Annabelle?”
“Of course I told her. She’s my best friend.” Rose wondered how word had spread so quickly. There were dozens of witches and dragons in the coven. She would have thought it would take at least a week or two for everyone to hear the news.
“Some of the other witches have brought up… concerns.”
Her serious tone was finally affecting the dragons. Jagger sat up straighter, and Asher put down his champagne class. Gavin folded his arms and frowned at Maria. Mace didn’t say anything, but he still watched her intently.
“What kind of concerns?” There was a hard edge to Asher’s voice. Rose knew that any of her dragons could easily become overprotective where she was concerned.
“Think about it, Asher. What happened the last time a witch and a dragon had a child together?”
“We did.” Asher gestured to himself and his siblings.
“No, that’s not what I mean. I know your mother was a witch, but you’re not half witch and half dragon. You are purely dragon.”
That was a good point. Rose hadn’t thought about it before, but why weren’t her dragons half witch? “Why?” she asked Asher.
Asher shrugged. “Dad could never really explain it.”
“I can,” Maria said. “When your parents decided to have children, they knew full well the dangers of having a witch-dragon hybrid baby. There is a spell that will cause the genes of any child conceived to be purely dragon if it’s a boy, and purely witch if it’s a girl. That spell has to be used before conception, though. Now, it’s too late.”
“What do you mean, too late? There’s nothing wrong with our baby.” Gavin’s glare was positively dangerous, and Asher wasn’t far behind.
Maria sighed impatiently. “Think! Before you were born, before that spell existed, who was the only other witch-dragon hybrid baby?”
It hit Rose like a bucket of ice. “Hellith.”
“Exactly. Hellith is a monster. If we hadn’t banished her back to hell, she would have destroyed us all.”
“What does that have to do with our baby?” Asher’s glare matched Gavin’s, and Rose was sure he knew where Maria was going with this. He just wasn’t going to help her get there.
“Hellith may be evil because of how she was persecuted by her own people, but maybe that’s not it. What if the combined powers of a witch and dragon are simply too much? What if anyone born with that much power is destined to be led astray by it?”
“So—what? You think we should try to cast a spell on our child to make sure they only have one set of powers?” By Mace’s tone, he didn’t think much of the idea.
“Not a chance,” Jagger snarled. “We’re not taking away parts of our child. They’re perfect as they are.”
Before Rose could speak up her agreement, Maria cut in.
“Even if we wanted to do that, we couldn’t. Performing magic on an unborn child is an art we gave up on generations ago. It almost invariably kills them, or at the very least, causes them to be born severely deformed. It’s to do with the magic growing inside them being interfered with by a foreign magic. That’s not an option.”
“Then what is your point?” Rose didn’t like Maria’s grim tone one bit. “We won’t know how our child turns out until they’re born—and even then, it’ll take years and years for their personality to fully develop.”
“I’ve talked with some of the other witches. To be honest, I didn’t even think of this until some of them brought up the problem of how Hellith turned out, which is why I didn’t say anything to you when I found out you were pregnant, Rose. But they’re right. We barely survived Hellith. We can’t have another baby that turns out like that. We think you should end this pregnancy.”
Rose got the shield up around Maria just in time as Asher lunged for her throat.
Mace and Jagger wrestled him away, but both of them looked like they were on the brink of abandoning the attempt and joining his attack on Maria. Gavin made no move to stop Asher. Rose grabbed his arm, though she knew that she wasn’t nearly strong enough to stop him if he decided to break away.
“Stop it!” Jagger and Mace managed to pin Asher to the floor, and Rose knelt down beside him. “Asher, stop. We’re all adults. We can talk about this.”
“I am not letting her kill our child.”
“Neither am I,” Rose said calmly. “That doesn’t mean we should kill her for asking.”
Asher finally calmed down, and Rose remo
ved the shield. Maria seemed shaken, but not entirely surprised. “Just think about it. I know you don’t want to cause the extinction of our races any more than I do.”
It was on the tip of Rose’s tongue to tell Maria that she was removing her as temporary head of the coven. The job was Rose’s by right, but she had asked Maria to lead for a while as she learned more about her powers.
She forced herself to take a deep breath. She didn’t want to do something rash that she’d regret. “Maria, I think we’d like to be alone for now.”
“Of course.” Maria wisely left.
Gavin was growling under his breath, and Jagger’s hands were clenched into fists. Mace looked slightly sick, but Asher seemed to have regained control of himself. As the clan leader, he had to be able to put his emotions aside and make logical decisions, which he was generally very good at—until someone threatened Rose. Apparently, the same applied for their baby.
“How dare she?” Gavin stood up and started pacing.
For once, Jagger had no joke or lighthearted comment to make. Rose went to sit beside Mace, who looked nearly as bad as she felt. She was shaken by the thought that Maria—their leader and healer—thought she should abort her pregnancy before their child even had a chance to live.
“How serious about this is she, do you think?” Asher looked to Rose. Rose knew Maria the best out of all of them, but this time, she had no idea what Maria was thinking.
“I don’t think she would have suggested it if she wasn’t pretty serious. It doesn’t matter, though. We’re all agreed—we’re having that baby. It doesn’t matter if Maria disagrees. It’s not her decision.”
Rose’s words seemed to calm some of the violent energy in the room as they filtered in.
“I still don’t like it.” Jagger’s usual easy smile had been replaced with a scowl. “She’s a healer—she shouldn’t even suggest that!”
“I understand why some people would end a pregnancy, Jagger. Just because I don’t want an abortion personally doesn’t mean I don’t support other women who do have them.”
“No, I didn’t mean that—if someone else wants to do it, that’s fine. But Maria must know that you want to keep this baby. If you didn’t, you would have brought up the topic of abortion with her yourself. Trying to get someone to have an abortion they don’t want… that’s just wrong.”
“She was just suggesting it.” Rose was also annoyed at Maria, but she was trying hard to remain diplomatic.
“Fine. She suggested it, and we said no. Conversation closed.”
Rose squeezed Mace’s hand. “Agreed.”
“We need to think about the whole situation. No, I’m not saying we should do it.” Asher quickly held up his hands, backing a step away from Gavin. “I just mean we need to consider what’s best for Rose and the baby. We want to keep her stressors as low as possible. Maria is suggesting this based on what she’s heard from other witches. That means that at least some of the coven think Rose shouldn’t have this baby. I don’t know how pushy they’re going to be about it, but if they’re going to upset you over this, we may want to leave, at least until the baby is born. We also need to consider whether we should trust Maria with your pre-natal care. We may be better off with a human doctor who has no reason to be prejudiced.”
Asher had a good point. Rose wanted to believe that her coven would support her and that Maria would remain impartial enough to give her good medical care, but people did strange things when they were afraid. The scars of the battle with Hellith were still fresh. If some members of the coven thought that their child might be the new Hellith, what would they do?
A glance at her other dragons showed that they were positively alarmed by Asher’s statement.
“You’re right.” Gavin resumed his pacing. “We should leave, at once.”
“I know some peaceful places where we could stay until Rose gives birth,” Mace put in.
“Wait—wait! Let’s not panic, now. We don’t have enough information to make that kind of judgment.”
“We’re not putting you or our child in danger.” Jagger folded his arms, mimicking Gavin. Though the two of them were twins, their personalities were so different that Rose seldom thought of them as looking similar. Right now, they looked almost identical. If the situation wasn’t so serious, it would have been funny.
“Neither am I. I know stress isn’t good for pregnancies. If we need to leave, then we will, but if possible, I’d like to stay here. I love living with the coven, and it’s possible that in a few days they will all have calmed down. Let’s just see how this plays out.”
Asher nodded slowly. “Waiting will be wise. You’re right, we don’t know the full situation yet. But at the first sign of trouble, we’re getting you out of here.”
“Agreed.” Rose sighed in relief. Sometimes, stopping her dragons from overreacting to perceived threats to her safety was exhausting.
“We should find you a human doctor.” Mace was already on his phone. “I’ll look up a couple and do some research into them. We want to find you the best person.”
Rose nodded. She still wanted Maria to examine her, but there was no harm in having a human doctor as well. “I also want to talk to Annabelle. I… it seems that she’s one of the ones who is worried about the pregnancy, judging by her reaction earlier. Perhaps I can allay some of her fears.”
Rose wanted Annabelle on her side. When the entire coven had turned against her, Annabelle had been there for her. Apart from her dragons, there was no one she was closer to.
Asher put his champagne glass carefully on the table. He would never drink in a potentially dangerous situation, and it was clear that he hadn’t yet decided there was no danger. “We should go to the dining room. It’s almost time for lunch anyway, and we’ll get a better idea of what the rest of the coven is thinking that way.”
The five of them started ambling toward the dining room. Rose’s heart sank as they passed people in the corridors. From the looks she was getting, it was clear that a large part of the coven was more than worried about her baby.
None of them said anything yet, but she didn’t know how long that would last. Maybe Asher was right. Maybe they should leave before anything else went wrong.
Chapter Two
Rose closed the door behind her, grateful to be away from the stares. It had only been less than a day, and she was already getting tired of people looking at her like she was a bomb about to go off.
It wasn’t just the witches either—most of the dragons were thinking along the same lines. None of the dragons had been stupid enough to suggest she get an abortion in front of Asher, but a number of them were giving Rose the same nervous look, as though they expected a monster to explode from her stomach at any moment.
Annabelle gestured for her to come inside. “How are you doing?”
“I’d be a lot better if everyone didn’t know I was pregnant,” Rose snapped. “Who do you think is at fault for that?”
Instead of apologizing, Annabelle held her head high. “You didn’t tell me that you wanted to keep it a secret. You were delighted about it—I never thought it would be a problem for me to tell anyone.”
Rose knew that Annabelle was right. If she’d asked her friend to keep it a secret, Annabelle would have. That knowledge didn’t improve her mood. “Did you have to tell the entire coven? It’s one thing not keeping it a secret, but quite another searching out every witch and dragon individually to tell them.”
“Seriously, Rose? Do you really think I did that?”
“Well, didn’t you?”
“No! I told Wendy and Jade. I doubt they went searching out every witch and dragon either. The news just spread fast. People are scared.”
“Of a baby? You do all realize that human infants are born completely helpless, right?”
“We’re not worried about when it’s born. We’re worried about what it will grow up to be.”
“My baby is not an ‘it’!”
Annabelle sighed. �
��Sorry. Do you know the gender yet?”
“Not yet. We’re going to book an appointment with an OB. Hopefully they’ll be able to tell us.”
“Why not Maria? I’m sure she’ll be able to tell you before a human doctor would.”
“I’m not sure… she doesn’t think I should have the baby. What if I can’t trust her with my baby’s health?”
Annabelle nodded slowly. “She’s pretty insistent on the abortion thing. She even tried to recruit me to persuade you.”
“What did you tell her?”
“What do you think I told her? I told her to fuck off!”
Rose smiled for the first time in hours. “Thanks.”
“That being said… I think she’s right.”
“WHAT?”
“I’m not going to try to convince you—that’s your choice to make. But I worry about the future of our coven. I’m not sure if we can deal with another Hellith.”
“My child is not going to be another Hellith! She only morphed into a monster because her own family tried to kill her. Our child will grow up loved and will be a valuable member of the coven.”
“I hope you’re right, I really do. Look, Rose, I’ll support you in whatever you decide. I just thought you should know my thoughts on the matter.”
As much as she wanted to be angry with Annabelle, Rose felt her annoyance sliding away. She couldn’t really be mad at her friend for being honest, even if her honest opinion was stupid.
“Just don’t expect the rest of the coven to be as supportive. They’re determined.”
“So am I. People will realize eventually that I’m not going to change my mind.”
Over the next few days, Rose started to reevaluate that assumption. Five separate witches who she barely knew came to talk to her, trying to convince her to get the abortion. Two unfortunate dragons tried the same with Asher. There was now a team of builders patching up the two dragon-shaped holes in the walls.
Maria was as determined as ever. She changed the focus of their lessons from actually learning spells to going over the dangers a creature like Hellith posed.