by TJ Cross
"No it won't, little dragonling," I whispered to my belly defiantly. "I won't have Everett bring centuries-old baggage into our beautiful family."
Was there a chance I could somehow 'unlock', as my mother had said, my shifter affinity? Through my mother I was half shifter, meaning surely I had to be stronger than the late, dead Jordan, who Everett had described as being from particularly weak shifter stock.
But what would I do with my life if I was a shifter? How would it change? Would I actually be able to change my form into that of a wolf's? Would it interfere with my baby -- would it leave my baby some sort of freakish wolf-dragon hybrid?
"No," I repeated, fixing my gaze, well, glare, on my belly. "You're not going to turn out freakish in any way at all. You're going to be beautiful. I know this, you know this, and your dad Everett knows this. So take your time, beautiful one, and we'll talk again later."
I heard my mother call me for dinner. I decided to leave my questions alone here, joining my parents for a carefree, pleasant meal together at the dining table -- something traditional our family had not done in a long, long time.
My father was very fond of reading books on his iPad while we were at the dining table, but tonight I could tell Mom had already told him not to do that. Meanwhile, Mom was especially neurotic tonight, practically anxious in the way she flitted around ensuring dinner would be perfect.
It definitely smelled amazing, and looked just as good when I helped her carry the main dish out from the kitchen. She had cooked crispy fried sriracha chicken on a bed of mashed potatoes and a quinoa salad.
"Quinoa?" I said in astonishment, momentarily forgetting my own more serious dilemmas in place of finding out my full-time carnivore dad had decided to start eating more nutritiously!
"Hey, it's a superfood," Dad quickly countered. It made me suddenly realize that his newfound interest in eating healthier could only have come from a place of worry -- that he was getting on in the years and was starting to think about how he should change at least some of his habits so he could enjoy as long of a life as possible.
The minor revelation of the family secret added to my anxiety over the mortality of my father. Mom and I had shifter blood, meaning it would be no real surprise if we ended up outliving most humans by up to a few decades. But Dad on the other hand was as human as any human could be, and that purity of blood meant he was as vulnerable and fragile as all other humans were.
It was strange seeing myself in a different light now, categorizing people by whether they could transform into animals or not. I couldn't, or at least did not know how to just yet, but I had already reclassified me as a shifter -- instantaneously rewriting my own whole life in a single casual thought.
Did it mean it was easier for me to be with Everett? I didn't think so. But it could have its advantages. If I was an incarnation or anchor for the spirit of Everett's long-dead love, then it would truly have been something only fate could have dictated to me. I would have had to be born that way, it couldn't have been something I picked up randomly to impress the alpha.
I missed Everett, and already I was ready to see him again. The flowers -- I hadn't even taken them with me when I ran off, meaning the bouquet he had so sweetly gotten for me was still with him.
Nobody had ever bought me flowers before. I had always assumed that I was the type of gay guy who would obsess over fitness and swimming and cycling more than romantic gestures of courtship like flowers.
But that wasn't the case. I enjoyed it as much as all the other ways Everett deigned to show me he cared for me, showed me that my attention mattered to him.
A knock... more like a kick, actually. The shifter child inside me was so powerful, I could have reeled backwards, slamming myself into a wall or something.
Deliriousness took over my various anxieties as I sat neutrally at the dining table, enjoying dinner with a giddy smile.
"Okay, what is it Finn?" my dad eventually asked.
"My baby's kicking... I can feel my baby inside me," I murmured, lost in the joy of sensing the rapid, advanced growth of the baby inside me.
All I needed was Everett. Everything would be perfect once I had him to complete this family.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I stayed over at my parents' place -- mostly at their insistence, with my dad saying he would never, ever allow me to drive anywhere if I was so blatantly pregnant.
"What are you going to say when you get pulled over, hmm?" Dad asked me. "Are you going to just flat out tell the cop you've got a giant bulge in your stomach because of pregnancy? What if he decides to call the K-9 unit to sniff you out for drugs or something? I can just imagine it, a cop laughing at you and saying, 'yeah right, if you're pregnant then I'm the Pope' or some dumbass thing like that. Eh? Eh? You gotta take care of yourself, Finn, you're my only boy. So stay over tonight."
I couldn't help but smile. His persuasive arguments left a lot to improvement, but the sentiment behind them was solid enough for me. My father was showing me more affection and love tonight than he had in a long time. And even my mother, now fully thawed from the icy response she had given me upon discovering I was pregnant, was obviously -- though quietly -- glad that I decided to take them up on their offer.
Waking up in my old bed did feel especially strange, even compared to all the things I had gone through, whether it was a casual New Year's Eve party hookup with a gorgeous billionaire dragon, or the rollercoaster ride of discovering I was miraculously pregnant thanks to true love magic. Yes, I was ready to compare those stellar experiences with the sensation I had of waking up exactly like I did all those years back when I was growing up.
But there was something extremely important I would have to handle first.
Everett.
I needed to call him, to apologize for leaving, to ask him for his forgiveness. I needed to submit myself to him, to open up to the alpha dragon, to position myself so he could decide if he wanted his playboy lifestyle or if he wanted me and our baby instead.
My phone in my hands, I began dialing the number I had of him from the business card Everett's secretary Francis Foster had slipped me after my first meeting with the dragon. Then I froze and dropped my phone back on the bed and realized I had a far superior form of communication if I needed to get to Everett.
One that couldn't ever give me a busy signal...
I closed my eyes and visualized Everett in my mind, thinking on his gorgeous features -- the very same smooth, handsome dominance that had attracted me to him so strongly. I concentrated until I could perfectly imagine him in my mind, and then I reached out with my heart, with my thoughts: Everett, I need you.
That was an understatement if there ever was one. The stability an alpha as confident as himself was the perfect cure to my rollercoaster of emotions. I needed him because I felt I would eventually degrade into being more and more sensitive until there was nothing left of me except flareups of my worst emotions, unchecked and untamed by the alpha.
I needed him.
Yes, Finn, his voice reverberated in my head. Where are you?
"On my way to see you," I said aloud, hoping that I didn't just have to think the words in my head but also be able to communicate by saying them aloud -- the nonverbal thing was a little hard to master on my first go.
We've been away too long, Everett decided. I didn't know if he meant my night away at my parents', or if he meant us being effectively apart ever since the night of New Year's Eve. We belong together. We're meant for one another, and it's time we start to fully appreciate that. It's the truth. You're my truth.
I was convinced, if not for one minor snag -- nothing he said made me feel sure he meant me. The dread pooling in my stomach had me worry that Everett was only interested in spending time with me so he could channel, or perhaps even forcibly extract, my memories of Jordan.
Of being Jordan, some foggy old time ago.
No, Finn, Everett told me instead. It's not him I want. It's you. You are the culmination of all t
he love I had for him... but you're more than that. You're something truly greater than the sum of your parts. You're bearing my heir, the dragonling of our era.
"Then convince me. Make me believe you, make me fully understand you. Help me so I can commit myself to you, so I can devote every part of me to the father of my child," I said, looking up at the ceiling as I spoke -- it felt less weird that way.
I couldn't make out the rest of what Everett said to me, but I caught the gist of it. He wanted to meet.
Meet? Where?
Let me take you out on a date. A proper date. Let's start over. Blank slate. Just you, me, and the bump in your belly, Everett suggested.
"I'm game, only on one condition," I said, with an easy grin coming to me now.
What is it?
"This time, you don't get to take me to yet another stuffy old rich person place. No Howell Lodge like your my brunches with your mom, no Copperwind HQ. If you want to take me out on a date... remember, you have to actually take me out somewhere first."
Deal, I felt Everett smile, imprinting his happiness onto my skin. A tingle ran through me as I tried to process how we were able to share not only thoughts but also emotions, desires and memories through our psychic bond.
"I want to have a lot of fun with you."
Say no more.
In the end I waited for him to come pick me up from my parents' place. Mom and Dad and I talked a little bit more. I told them I enjoyed spending time with them, and even though it was extremely weird, I deeply enjoyed their company.
"We love seeing you, no matter the circumstances, Finn," my mother revealed. She sounded emotional then, and I reached in for a hug. It was one of those I love you, Mom hugs that adult children like myself never really gave their parents anymore. It felt cathartic.
I had my woefully packed backpack on my lap as I waited for Everett, who was driving all the way to see me already. It gave me hope here that the untamable playboy was now seeing a new side of himself that he never previously indulged in.
He would make such a great father. It was something he already had such massive potential for.
Our bond was growing, because even before he turned into my parents' driveway I was already standing up and alert, sensing his presence.
What a funny thought: was my sensitivity to his presence the result of my latent shifter heritage, or was it purely from the baby inside me?
There were so many things changing about me, about my body, about my mind, that the thought of learning myself anew struck me as fresh and exciting.
"Hey, handsome," I said as I walked out the door of my parents' place and towards him in his sleek, matte forest green Cadillac. "Fancy seeing you here."
He looked at me with eyes that were ready to devour me, ready to devote himself to me. I felt the pang in my heart, cautious but also ready to give myself up to the alpha. "Had a feeling you'd be here. Literally. Strange, isn't it? These feelings of ours, the way they transmit so easily between us..."
"Ahem, me having to spell out the location in mind-communication doesn't quite qualify as a feeling, Everett."
He laughed. "Could've just looked at a map instead of following my instincts. Would have gotten here twice as fast, and I wouldn't have needed your psychic coordinates either."
I went in a circle around his gorgeous car, admiring it -- what else would mark the wealth of an undying dragon with Illuminati-level riches? He watched me patiently, showing none of the confusion or disbelief that had marked the Everett I had known since I first blurted out to him that I was pregnant.
Our actions were one thing, I realized, but it was our thoughts, our feelings, our emotions that had blended and bonded together. There was a unity at work when we were together.
I eventually stepped into the passenger's seat, pulling at the door handle and slipping right inside. He leaned forward to kiss me on the cheek, with impressive gentlemanly chasteness, and placed both his hands on the steering wheel.
"So, no stuffy rich old people places," Everett said. "I thought about picking some fun adventure... but in the end, I decided I wanted to experience life as you understood it best. How about you decide?"
"I'm pretty hungry," I confessed. Yes, I could do with some food -- the more exotic the better, if my womb had any say in it at all. The cravings! Last night I woke up in the middle of the night and burrowed to my parents' pantry, eventually settling for a box of Cocoa Puffs which I had with stiff ciabatta bread.
"What do pregnant men like to eat?" he posed the question to me.
With a smile and a light touch of my hand to his lap, I paused to think. "I'm carrying a dragon inside me... so I want to know instead, what do dragons like to eat?"
"Preferably innocent, beautiful men named Finn."
"Can't have me for dinner every evening," I pointed out. "There's only a hundred and thirty pounds of me, you'll run out with that sort of appetite."
"Five of those pounds must go to your balls, because you're one daring guy to be teasing an alpha dragon like this..." he murmured with a flash of lust in his eyes.
"Go on, what do dragons like to eat?" I insisted.
"Spicy food. The hotter the better. Thai, Indian, Vietnamese, that sort of thing."
I instantly knew where I wanted to go. "There's a fabulous Malaysian restaurant in the university area. Really authentic, really delicious. Do you like Malaysian?"
"A chicken satay is practically dragon fast food," he grinned. "Lead the way."
It wasn't long at all that we got to Sebbie and Sheena's, a hip little hole-in-the-wall Malaysian place I had taken Jodie and Rufus to about a billion times. Their menu was limited to about a dozen staples, from rice dishes to noodle dishes.
"You should try the beef rendang," I said, vouching for the dish's quality. "It's really delicious. Dragons are big on the whole carnivore thing, right? Your mother talked about your steak habit."
"Can't fight nature," he joked.
"I might try. Our kid's going to have a really nutritious, proper diet. Gotta start early. Food pyramid and all," I said, winking at him.
Everett rolled his eyes at me, returning his attention to the menu. It was nice: a little break from the chaos that was my pregnant life. He even held my hand as he looked at the menu. "Do I have it with rice or something?"
"That's a good idea. They offer glutinous or sticky rice here, but I'd say go with steamed rice," I said. It was nice having this one area of knowledge where even the immortal dragon knew nothing about.
"Perfect. You'll order for me," he said.
The waitress, Simone, flashed me a wide smile as she recognized me -- and it widened when she saw the hunky alpha in the tailored suit holding my hand. "Finn! Apa khabar! Been a while. What do you feel like today?"
"Hey, Simone. This is Everett, he's my dashing accessory for the day," I grinned.
"Pleasure," Everett murmured, unable to keep his eyes off me. I loved the intensity of his attention on me: total and incomparable.
"He's having the beef rendang with steamed rice while I'm having the char kway teow -- those are stir-fried hawker flat noodles with seafood," I said, turning to explain to Everett.
"Sounds delicious."
"It's the best," Simone nodded, taking my order. "This guy knows his food. Hey, looks like you've had one char kway teow too many, with that sort of weight gain!"
"Simone!" I laughed, for once not shy about my baby bump but rather pleased that it's noticed. It had to be because I was with Everett... being with him made me want the whole world to notice the baby that I carried for him. His heir.