He does some swift calculations. “So he would be born in April?”
“Or she.”
“Or she,” he smiles, “of course.”
“Yes, I think so. I’ll need to go to the doctor to be certain. I looked it up and April would mean a diamond birthstone. As if that means anything. I think finding out I’m pregnant is turning me a little crazy. I was already looking up names online.”
He laughs. “A diamond birthstone is very fitting for your aura,” he says, “clear and brilliant.” He picks me up and spins us around again. “I can’t believe this. We’re going to have a baby.”
“So you’re okay with it?” I ask.
He sets me down and meets my eyes. “Okay with it? I’m more than okay with it. I’m amazed … and ecstatic … and delirious.” He pulls me close again and plants his lips on mine. “I can’t believe this,” he says again, shaking his head.
I laugh. He does look quite dazed.
“Have you told anyone else yet?” he asks.
I shake my head. “I thought you should be the first.”
He smiles and in the back of my mind I picture myself trying to explain my pregnancy to my mom—I have a feeling her reaction will not be quite as thrilled as Alexander’s. Not by a long shot.
“Forget surfing, let’s go celebrate,” Alexander says, starting to take off his wetsuit.
“Wait,” I say, “I actually like the idea of just celebrating out on the water. I like sitting on our boards together and waiting for the waves with you.”
He smiles and pulls me into his embrace. “I like waiting for anything with you,” he says as he kisses me softly in the late summer sun, the sound of the breaking waves our only audience.
“There’s something I haven’t told you,” I say after we’ve finished surfing for the day and we’re sitting on our towels in our swimsuits warming ourselves in the sun. I glance over at Alexander as he runs his fingers through his wet, tousled hair and leans back on his elbows.
“You’re having twins?”
I chuckle. Our feet are next to each other in the warm sand and I nudge his foot and toss some sand at his ankle with my toes. “I could be,” I say, “for all we know. But that’s not what I’m talking about.”
“What is it?” he asks.
My eyes trail over his hard, muscled torso, noting the long, curved scar that starts under his heart and traces down over his ribs and disappears near the end of his ab muscles where his board shorts hang low on his hips. I shiver a little as I think about how Avestan’s Maker, Malentus, wounded him so badly.
“It’s the reason I think I might have gotten pregnant that first night we were together,” I say. “I heard something.”
He meets my eyes. “What do you mean?”
“As we were falling asleep that night I had a memory from when I was in the ocean. A memory of hearing my dad’s voice telling me to protect the baby, at all costs. I thought I imagined it … it didn’t even make any sense … but now that I’m pregnant I can’t help but wonder if it was real.”
Alexander sits up from his reclined position. “It sounds real. And, regardless, your dad is right. Our child will be unlike any other being—not a mortal or a sprite or a guardian but something else, and very powerful.”
I consider his words. I like the idea of having an especially mighty baby but I also know what that could mean. “So Avestan will come after us?”
Alexander avoids the question. “Let’s talk about that later,” he says, “for now let’s just enjoy the mind-blowing fact that we’re going to be parents. We need to get you an appointment with a doctor to confirm it.”
I nod. “And to make sure all’s well. But what if the doctor looks in there and it has wings or something,” I say. “How the heck will I explain that?”
Alexander laughs. “I don’t think that will be a problem, but you do tend to surprise, Miss Jane.”
“As do you, Mr. Ronin—the guardian who supposedly couldn’t get me pregnant.”
He laughs. “Touché. I should have realized that nothing with you is ever impossible.”
He leans over and kisses me, softly at first, and then in that way he always does that makes my knees weak and my heart swoon.
End of Chapter Two
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