I had a bit of a cry then.
Kids have never been on my radar, but I can honestly say I can’t wait to have a whole bunch of them running around this place. I know it will be hard, especially as we’re getting three deliveries all at once, but the thought of holding our children in my arms means everything to me.
Dagger kisses my belly before settling the other side of Pin. “Me, too, Princess.”
He’s the most confident of all the brothers, especially since we found out my blood is almost the same as theirs now. It’s given them all a little more hope.
“Remember, if the Braxton Hicks start coming regularly, wake us up,” Thorn says, walking in naked from the shower.
I eye his dick swinging between his thighs. It’s rare to see any of them soft. “I will.”
Dagger thinks I’m in slow labour. I’ve been feeling tightenings in my belly since early this morning, but they’re not regular at all. I personally think it’s the stress of what’s happening tomorrow that’s causing them.
We finally heard back from Gia. The samples are ready, and Pin’s set up five couriers for tomorrow. The first will collect from somewhere in Lincoln, where Gia apparently is, and the rest will meet up with the next one at various points until the last one meets Thorn in Cardiff, which is a three-hour drive from here.
Out of Seventeen samples, Myers’ brother isn’t one of them, which was suspicious to all of us, so after some digging, Pin discovered that he owns, guess what?
A group of private hospitals.
Yep. And it looks like he was treated there, so while he’s going about his normal life, no one is any the wiser that he’s a hybrid.
But what’s troubling me even more, is that he’s already set up a new ZoNaR in Cambridge, and I’m worried he’s going to try to recreate Zed-Two’s using his own DNA.
I’ve been trying not to think about it all, but even with the ZoNaR problem aside, the thought of Thorn being out of my sight is causing me serious distress. With the birth of the babies being so close, I’ve even stopped going through so much ice cream, just so none of them have to leave the house.
‘Please stop worrying, Princess. Everything will be okay.’
That’s all they’ve said since it was arranged, but they don’t understand how hard it is not to use my mind to keep them here.
Or bite them so they’re forced to stay their asses home…
Blade’s the last to climb into bed after switching off the light. He’s the opposite side to Thorn, against my back. Axe has been unable to contain his excitement at all and has decided to sleep on a recliner beside the birthing kit, next to the window.
Like the babies are going to just fall out in seconds…
“You never know,” he says sleepily.
I shake my head.
Blade rests an arm over my waist, “Sleep, sweetness.”
I close my eyes. “I am. I love you all.” ‘And you three in there.’
“We love you, too,” Thorn replies for all of them.
Hearing that, never gets old…
Fifteen
Mikka
I pace the kitchen.
Well, I’m more waddling. Fast, though.
I’m frantic, and so are Pin, Dagger, Blade, and Axe.
Thorn’s been gone for twice as long as he was meant to be, and that’s because the couriers have all been followed by multiple SUVs. If he hadn’t have decided to take Axe’s motorbike, he might not ever have lost the tails.
I should never have trusted that bitch.
How could she do this to me again?
I fucking felt sorry for her, almost regretted biting her two-faced ass, and now look? She tricked me, tried to get us captured, and probably to save her own ass. Again. As far as I know, they were all treated in Myers’ private hospital and are all in on this shit.
We all know he saw that server. He could be planning anything…
“Sweetness, you really need to relax. He’s almost back.”
I stop waddling and snap my head to Blade. “That’s not the point, is it? I want to murder that bitch.” If I weren’t loaded with the most precious things in the world to us, I’d be in one of my boyfriends’ cars and on my way to find her right now.
I swear it.
He comes over to hold my arms. “We’ll get her, alright? She can’t hide forever. We’ll find her. But right now, you need to relax. Thorn is almost home, and then we’ll all be together again.”
I grind my teeth and hear Thorn telling me to sit down somewhere. He even suggested I took his brothers to bed, but how the hell could I enjoy that when one of us is out on their own and being followed by God knows who?
“Come on.” Blade takes my hand. “We’ll wait for him out front.”
The rest of the brothers follow us to the door. I can't say I'm not relieved he’s safe, I’m just so fucking angry. I’ve never felt so murderous before, over anything. I should’ve ignored her message. I should’ve just left it alone this time.
If anything had happened to him because of those samples, I hate to think what I would’ve done. I was already annoyed because he wouldn't even let anyone go with him. So for this to happen…
He says I’m a stubborn pain in his ass? He’s a fucking pain in my head, ass, and heart.
And he has the nerve to laugh.
We stand out on the drive and watch the bike come into view down the dirt track. The brothers all visibly relax, and I rub my belly because the babies’ movements become almost frantic. These babies know things. They can sense things, whether through me or on their own, I don’t know, but they definitely do.
I’ve noticed they’re always more active when Thorn and Blade are around, even when they return after being somewhere else in the house, they act exactly how they are now.
Thorn parks up the bike and then pulls off his helmet as he casually strolls over to us. He gives me a look, his lip twitching at my scowl, but I just glare harder.
That’s not working on me this time.
He walks up to me, rests a kiss on my forehead, and then passes me a padded envelope that he retrieves from his leathers. “Calm down, Angel. Everything's good.”
“Sure it is.”
He rubs my belly and his babies settle.
Just like that.
Every time.
“Come on, let's take a look at this shit.”
We make our way up to the lab, but I’m still simmering with fury. Dagger and I set up the samples to run in silence while I try to calm down a little. They feel me in their minds the most since I woke up, and I don’t really want to be subjecting them to my foul mood.
We run all seventeen samples, and I’m surprised that they’re only going to take twenty minutes to karyotype. I didn’t hold much hope for these from the moment Pin got the first call about his guy being followed. They’re probably random samples that Myers stole from some unsuspecting patients in one of his hospitals.
“I wouldn’t hold your breath on these. They’re not complex.” I see my mobile flashing and almost crush it in my hand when I see that Gia’s had the cheek to message me.
Do you have them?
Thorn stands behind me and reads the message over my shoulder. “Don’t cuss her out just yet. Ask her what abilities she has first.”
I sigh. “Fine.”
Yes. Running them now. What abilities do you have?
She types.
Our sense of smell is better, we can move faster, we're all stronger than before, but we can't do that mind control shit that you talked about Thorn having. We can't hear thoughts either.
I read out the message.
“That’s interesting. If it’s true,” Dagger says.
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.”
And what about food? What are you eating?
Girl, I've still been eating KFC, but when any dead zombies come close, we act crazy to eat them. We shift like you did, and we have scars now.
“So they hunt vermin zombies, too,�
�� Thorn muses.
“Sounds so.”
Have any of the zombies you’ve partially eaten changed to be like you?
No. We can only make normal ones. One of the girls tried.
“They sound like a budget version of us,” Axe says.
That makes me smile. “Right.”
She texts again. Is it ready yet?
Not yet.
MDP beeps, and I click open the results in Multiview, courtesy of Pin’s new code.
“All samples have fifty-two chromosomes, no SARA antigen, and no extra thirteen.” I turn to Axe. “You were right. Budget.”
He chuckles. “So what does it mean? And why did she give you real samples if she was just looking to screw you over?”
“It means they’re useless, and she probably didn’t think we’d get this far with them.” I turn off my Mac and then read the latest message from her.
Hello? Do you know anything yet?
“Can I tell her to go fuck herself now?” I ask Thorn.
He smirks. “Knock yourself out.”
I quickly type out a message.
Yeah. I know you’re a basic zombie and a double-crossing cunt. You better hope I never see you again, ‘cause I won’t stop at just a bite next time. Now go fuck yourself.
I send the message and then block her before sending a quick reply to a message from my brother.
“All done.” I look up at my kings. “Food? I’m hungry.”
Sixteen
Thorn
I look down at my Angel, curled up and fast asleep on the living room couch. She's hugging a half-eaten bowl of melted ice cream and still has the spoon in her hand. This is the second morning in a row that I’ve found her like this.
I gently pry the spoon and the bowl from her, and although she stirs at sensing me here, she doesn’t wake. Her mind subconsciously tells her what’s going on in the world around her, it has since she transitioned for the second time. It could even be the babies that keep watch over her.
I leave her to rinse out the bowl and load it into the dishwasher. She's gone through two tubs of strawberry ice cream a day for the past three days. She had been trying to resist the cravings for it, but she couldn’t. We’ve all been telling her not to, but she doesn’t want any of us leaving her to get her more.
She hasn’t quite ordered us not to leave the house, but yesterday she did tell us how hard it was to not make us do what she wants with her mind. She had to literally tear herself off Pin last night because of her urge to bite him, too.
I think that’s why she’s down here again. She’s scared of not being able to control herself. And no matter how much she practices her new abilities, she can’t suppress the urges.
‘I'll run and grab some while she’s asleep.’ Axe enters the kitchen and grabs his hoody from the island. ‘I’ll be quick.’
‘Make sure. If she wakes up and you’re not here, they’ll be hell to pay.’
‘Trust me, I know.’
I sit up on the island so I can watch over her from here. I’ve never slept much, but since she came along, I’ve slept even less. I love to watch her sleep, and I hate not being awake when she is.
Axe grabs his bike key off the kitchen side. ‘I’ll be twenty minutes. Tops.’ He gives Mikka a longing look before he finally leaves.
He doesn’t want to leave her either, but his desire to keep her happy always wins out. He worships the ground she walks on. Craves her affections more than any of us.
He’s never been like this with any woman, but none of us have. We’re all one hundred percent hooked on Mikka like a drug, it’s not even funny, and the closer it’s gotten to our babies’ arrival, the more extreme our addiction to her has become.
I soak up the sight of her curvaceous body. She’s wearing a robe, but her left breast is exposed and so is half her belly. Her beautifully round belly. No woman has worn pregnancy as gracefully and as sexily as she has. She’s almost painful to look at without touching.
She suddenly moans in her sleep, and I feel her body react to the contraction. She’s been in slow labour for days now. Dagger checked her last night and confirmed it. Her cervix was at three centimetres, but not even hours of sex has brought on full labour.
We’ve all felt her tiredness and frustration, but she never complains. She just says the babies aren’t ready yet, but that she can feel how close they are. I’m pretty certain they’re communicating with her subconsciously, which blows me the fuck away.
I’m still recovering from the shock of them changing her from inside the womb. Everything inside me is telling me they’ll survive. None of our babies have felt how they do. They are so damn strong, and sometimes, I think their presence is as strong as if they were here already.
I just want them to get their shit together and come out.
This waiting isn't anything new for us, but it has been a hell of a lot different than all the times before it. It’s just hard for us to forget all the losses we’ve suffered. Yeah, the tests Mikka’s performed have reassured us, but we all know that nothing is certain with us until it actually happens.
It’s not just myself and my brothers that I worry about if they don’t survive, I also worry about how Mikka will handle it. If they don't survive, how will she cope? As intelligent, determined, and formidable as she is, losing a child, let alone three, has the power to crush the strongest of people.
We should know.
The five of us have barely made it through each of our losses. No matter how many times we’d been through it before and tried to prepare ourselves for the worst, it still broke us. I haven't forgotten any of their faces, or the cries from the women who birthed them.
Or mine.
But if this doesn’t work with Mikka, there won’t be any running away to lick our fresh internal wounds. We’ll have to face the heartache head on. Look at the woman we love and who carried our blood everyday while that pain heals. There was never any plan to take the babies from Mikka like there was with the women before her. We only ever wanted the babies from the other women, not them.
Until her.
She moans again and I mentally note the closeness of this contraction to the last. She doesn’t wake, but the pain from this one is stronger.
‘Bro? What’s with Mikka? I swear I feel like I’m being called back to the house.’
‘She’s still asleep, but her contractions are gonna wake her soon. Just get back here. Maybe she knows you’re gone.’
‘I’m just at the checkout. Ten minutes.’
The rest of my brothers, minus Axe, make their way down to the kitchen one by one, with Pin being the last to arrive.
‘Thorn?’ Dagger takes a quick look at his Princess on the couch. ‘Did she just fall asleep? ‘Cause I swear she just woke me up.’
‘Me, too,’ Pin says.
Blade stares at Mikka. ‘And me.’
‘I don’t know, but Axe just said he felt called back to the house, too.’
Dagger shakes his head. ‘You think it was her, or the babies?’
‘I wouldn’t put it past the babies.’
‘Me either,’ Blade agrees. ‘Those babies have skills, I’m telling you now.’
‘Trust me.’
He finally tears his eyes away from Mikka and back to me. ‘Axe better get his ass back here. She’ll kill him if he’s gone when she wakes up.’
‘I told him.’
‘I’m almost back. Chill.’
Mikka moans, but this time there’s no ignoring the pain that comes with it. Blade gives me a look, asking if I've felt it, and I nod. There’s no mistaking that for a false alarm.
This is it.
She calls out for us in her mind before moaning again. “Kings?”
Dagger disappears as the rest of us go to her, but he’s almost immediately back beside us.
‘Shit! Is she? Shit!’ I hear Axe as he pulls up outside.
‘Get the fuck in here before she drags you in.’
Yeah, Mikka can d
o a lot with her mind now, and from a distance.
“We're here, Angel,” I tell her as I kneel beside her with the rest of my brothers. She looks between us all, but then her attention diverts up and over us to Axe, who enters from putting the ice cream in the freezer.
He kneels beside Pin, after leaning over him to kiss her forehead. “I'm here, too, babe.”
She nods before lowering her eyes to me. “They're ready.”
My gut knots, and so do my brothers’.
“I’ve got everything ready, Princess.”
She gives Dagger a soft smile. “Thanks, Doctor Clarke.”
“How bad does it hurt?” Axe asks her, trying to hide his own worry from his voice.
“It’s not too bad right…” She inhales deeply and closes her eyes to breathe through another contraction. “…bad,” she exhales.
Dagger nudges me. “Bring her upstairs.”
I wait for Mikka to give me the go, and then we take her up to our bedroom. Dagger’s laid towels over the bed ready, so I rest her down on them, so she’s near the edge.
He sits beside her and after helping her out of her robe, he tucks some pillows under her head and shoulders to get her comfortable. Once she is, he rests a hand on her stomach to feel for their positions. “Little Princess is lowest down. Do you feel the urge to push yet?”
My heart skips a few beats when I hear my daughter’s coming first.
Mikka shakes her head and then looks up at the rest of us. “I can feel how nervous you all are. They're gonna be fine. Trust me.” She closes her eyes as her hand goes to her belly with the start of another contraction.
I want to believe they’ll survive, more than anything.
I sit beside her to caress her belly. I don’t want her feeling our worries when she has more important things to focus on, so I slip inside her mind to replace the pain with endorphins instead.
“That's good,” she breathes. “Keep doing that.”
‘I won’t stop until you tell me to.’
She moans and I feel her belly tense again, differently this time, though.
“Dagger—Ahh—” She suddenly pulls her legs up and apart. “I think I need to push!”
Babies For My Zombie Kings: A Reverse Harem Romance (Zombies Rule The World Book 2) Page 9