The fall before the heat, p.8
The Fall Before the Heat, page 8
“What did you see?” Rex asked, but before Lee could answer the proof was on the screen.
Our baby’s tiny little fingers were gripped around the end of a long skinny tail.
“That’s definitely a lion tail,” Rex said. “I can almost see the tuft. Not quite.” He squinted. “Well, maybe I can.”
“That’s what I saw,” Lee added. “The numbers usually average out somewhere in the middle when it comes to days. Even after years of practically living in the lab we barely understand how it happens and the why is still elusive.”
“I’ve always been curious on why there aren’t more people who can shift into two animals,” I chimed back into the conversation.
“That’s really uncommon,” Lee said. “I always joke it’s because we don’t have enough room inside our heads for the extra one. Now, let’s find out if we have a lion or a lioness.”
“Lion,” I said. “At least part of my intuition has to be spot on. My carrier will never let me live it down.”
Rex let out a soft chuckle and squeezed my hand as Lee started moving the wand again. I counted my breaths as the image changed on the monitor.
One. Two. Three. The wand passed the cord. Four.
“I was right! Well, half right!” I laughed and instinctively went to put a hand on the crest of my pregnant belly. I stopped myself just in time from getting a handful of ultrasound jelly.
“Yes, you were,” Rex grinned and kissed my hands without taking his amber eyes off the screen. “Dad’s going to be over the moon.”
“He’s already there,” I teased him. “He might land on the rings of Saturn with this one.”
“Maybe he’ll find the Starscales up there somewhere,” Lee laughed.
“I hope not, if they’re anything like the Moonscales,” I laughed.
Chapter Twenty
Rex
It was practical to move to Heartville. It was logical even. The rest of my brain was just slow to catch up and agree. I grew up on the outskirts of London at Moonscale Manor, but as kids, Lost and I didn’t get to participate in most of London. Part of me would always hold that against the past. Only now my inner kid needed to shut his mouth, because I was about to be a father.
“I want our kids to see the world before they run away to a far-off university campus,” I told Del one night as we both lay awake unable to sleep. The baby was close and turned head down for delivery.
“Which parts of the world?” Del asked, entwining his fingers through mine.
In his other hand he held a copy of his teaching certificate. We’d both managed to graduate on time despite the two-week break we took for his first heat.
“I don’t know. I want to say all of it,” I chuckled.
“Do you want the kids to see the world, or do you want to see the world?” He asked me.
“Can’t it be both, mate?” I groaned, trying to dodge the question about myself.
“I’m sure you’ll have time off. We can go on vacations. Just no war zones,” Del grinned.
“Don’t you want to see it?” I asked him.
“When you say it like that I want to say, ‘How do you think I got into this position, Rex’?” He chuckled and then he shrugged. “I figure most of it is the same. Different languages, foods, flat or mountainous – maybe, but people are people.” He took a deep breath, huffed, and laid the certificate aside and laid back down facing me. “Maybe you have some secret lion in you who wants to travel.”
“Maybe,” I chuckled. “Lions only ended up in London because of human occupations and colonization.”
“I’ve never thought about it that way before,” Del whispered.
“Well, it’s done. So don’t think about it so hard now,” I shook my head. “I wasn’t trying to upset you.”
“I’m not upset,” Del shook his head. “I’m tired. I’m excited. My back hurts. I’m starting to think my parents really aren’t going to move to Heartville with us, but I’m not upset about you wanting to see the world. Hell, we might have to see the world just to see our parents again.”
Del’s sire had come out of the war mostly unscathed but had fallen into a draconic sleep as soon as he was reunited with his mate. Part of Del believed his carrier would just crate him up and move to Heartville with us. Okay, maybe he didn’t believe it, but he thought it could work if only he could convince his carrier.
“I just don’t want our kids to feel less than, you know?” I said and kissed the back of Del’s hand.
“They won’t. We won’t let them,” Del yawned. “I mean it. We won’t let them.”
“I don’t think it works like that,” I chuckled.
“It will and love, you were never less than. If I weren’t so tired, I’d get into London’s complex socio-economic standings and what’s really wrong with things, but I’m tired. So, please, just believe me – you were always more than enough. Your parents were more than enough. Your whole family and mine were.”
“I love you, Del,” I said and kissed his forehead as his eyes drifted shut.
“I love you too,” he yawned.
Chapter Twenty-One
Del
Rex and I spent the majority of the last days of my pregnancy in bed. If asked later on, I might lie about how my hormones made me unable not to have him, but that wasn’t true. Rex was sexy as ever, but I felt like a beached whale. My back ached and getting up to use the loo or stretch my legs took a mammoth effort.
Rex became my legs for everything he could during those days. He sprinted back and forth between the bedroom and the kitchen, bringing me snacks and drinks. He ran down to the corner store when I wanted a slushie and some mint chocolate chip ice cream.
Mostly, he cuddled me while we parsed out the details of our future. Our home in Heartville was ready for us. Everything we’d need besides our baby and our personal belongings were already inside the house waiting for us to arrive. I imagined the house holding its breath, nervous to meet us too. Had it heard about its future occupants? Was it excited that I’d exchanged secret emails with Liam Moonscale, the first mate of Heartville, about trying to find a puppy for Rex and the baby?
My mate dreamed about his dog some nights. The dreams always left me in a weird juxtaposition of being cold like a ghost was in the room and feeling all warm and fuzzy, because he was so happy with Apricot in his dreams. Sometimes he dreamt of a faceless toddler following the pooch around. Yep. We were going to need a dog. Liam Moonscale was more than happy to help. He wasn’t even surprised about my request.
As my time grew closer, I slept more in the day than I did at night. It was as if some ancient primal parental part of me remembered that danger dwelt under the dark skies. Even under the light of the full moon I lay awake wishing I could sleep on my back again. I imagined if I could lay flat and stretch my limbs until every bone in my body popped that the ache in my back might ease up.
It was technically two days after my due date that I ‘wet’ the bed during my lunchtime nap. We’d prepared with pregnancy sheets and a nearby bag of everything we might need for a homebirth if our little boy came out too quickly. First babies could take a long time, though, and ours did.
We had more than enough time to pile into Rex’s car – he carried me out of the building – and make it to the on-campus hospital. The pain and the rush of knowing our baby would arrive soon mingled in my mind. My contractions came closer and closer together even as everyone around me talked about centimeters and crushed ice chips.
After the ultrasound where we discovered our baby was a lion, I decided we had to carry on whatever tradition that Rex’s parents started by naming him, a wolf, Rex. Our son was to be Lupus. I thought Canis would be a nice name, but Rex said it was too close to cannabis.
Lupus. Lupus. Lupus.
I chanted the baby’s name inside my head in between contractions and pushes. It was the only thing that kept me going once my labor hit the six hour mark.
“We’ve got a head,” Lee finally said, wiping sweat from his brow.
“You’re doing so well, baby,” Rex whispered in my ear. “We’re almost there. He’s almost here.”
Lupus. Lupus. Lupus. Lupus. Lupus. Lupus. Lupus.
I lost myself to the pain and the instinct my body carried deep within its DNA. My body knew how to have a baby. It was just slow on getting started. Time stopped when Lupus’s first wail broke through the beeping sounds of the hospital. Rex howled, throwing his head back, and the baby cried louder.
“Brute!” I huffed, wanting to laugh, but too tired to. “You’re scaring him.”
“Meow? Is that better?” Rex laughed before kissing my forehead.
“You can learn to speak cat later. Get your furry tail down here and cut the cord before I take your job,” Lee teased him, as he looked the baby over.
Seconds later, I squeezed my eyes shut as Rex cut the now clamped cord severing my biological connection to Lupus.
“We did it!” My wolf cheered inside my thoughts. “We did it! We carried him all the way into the world!”
If he was upset that his ‘pup’ turned out to be a kitten, he didn’t show any signs of it. His tail wagged from inside his inner sanctum, shaking me up.
Lupus only rested on my chest for mere seconds before he was whisked away to be cleaned up and I was moved to a recovery room. My stomach growled, but my head buzzed with too much excitement to worry about eating just yet.
Clean and on clean sheets, Rex and I waited in the bed for Lee to bring back Baby Lupus. My fingers trembled, aching to hold him close and feed him his first meal. His wails preceded him down the hall. My eyes misted over and Rex kissed my cheek.
Lee tiptoed into the room carrying our baby wrapped in a soft yellow blanket. His wails stopped as soon as I slid my hands underneath him to take him from Lee. Baby Lupus’s mouth froze in a funny silent cry until his lips shut and he blinked up at me. I kissed his forehead and then I counted his fingers and toes. He was perfect even as he groped the air for the tail he held onto most of his time inside of my womb. He didn’t have it out and I wasn’t sure how to explain to a newborn how to bring his tail out. So I laughed instead, because he was the cutest thing and most beautiful person I ever laid eyes on.
Mage Street, Hemlock Mountain, London, Spain, or Heartville: It didn’t matter where we settled as long as the three of us stayed together forever. READ ON to discover who Del and Rex bring to Heartville with them. <3
Hello lovelies!
I wanted to drop a note here, first, to thank you all for reading this book and the previous ones in the series and maybe my other series too. I feel so lucky that I get to write stories and share worlds with every reader who picks up one of my books. Each one opens up a little more of the Hemlock Universe.
To begin with, I thought we’d see Rex and Del in Heartville in this book, but then as the story grew to life, I realized there were some interesting openings to bring more of Mage Street to Heartville if I just held off on their move to the next book. Don’t worry, they’re Heartville-bound and Nurse Charlene and Dara will have help at the clinic.
Some house keeping notes:
1) Sergei’s parents will have a resolution at some point. This is planned. I don’t know what they’re going to do yet, but yep. They will have some resolution and I’ll update you guys (via stories of course) as soon as they let me know what’s going on. I’ve mentioned this one a few times, but included it here just in case anyone missed it before. I will say these two are taking longer than even I expected to work out his stuff.
2) Cord? Yep. He’ll have a book coming up eventually. I feel I sorta owe him a HEA after everything Ginger did to him. For a lot of the war, we’ve been in Heartville and have had a distance between the characters and the war, but for me, at least, Cord really brings it to us in Heartville.
3) This one was new to me, but a few readers have asked questions that I’d love to answer in slice of life stories. For those of you who don’t follow my FB right now my life is noisy. I’m not making the noise. No one in my house is making the noise. It’s just noisy on my street at the moment. It shouldn’t be this way forever. If/when it ends slice of life stories that never quite fit into the books might be a possibility. I have one in mind where Wrynn and Darian (the mates from Omega Studies) go on an anniversary trip. It only seems fair to start with them, since they started the whole universe of books.
4) We have family trees! Really – trees in the plural! Thanks to the awesome Riley Morgan! Thank you so much!
Happy Reading, & Loads of Love! Here’s to 2024 being the year the world shines a little brighter!
XOXO
~Maggie
Reading Order for Maggie’s Books
This has been much asked for, and despite posting it on the blog and FB I always get folks asking. So, if I remember, it’ll be tucked in here at the end of every book. It’s also always posted in my FB group (Hemlock Wolf Pack.)
The First Omega
Omega Studies
Omega Sight
Omega Magic
Healer’s Oath
Omega’s Homecoming & Ardan’s Oath
Claiming the Shaman
The Sleeping Omega Prince
Omega Rebellion
Skystead Wolves
Mated for the Holidays.
Saving Cinder
Freeing Fenrir
Crow King’s Heir
Alpha in Distress
Sky’s Homecoming
All the Pieces of Us
As Long as You Need Me
Omega Midwife
Pheromone Swap
Making Room for Love
Behind Dragon Wings
Interview with a Captive Dragon
The Other Mr. Claus
Yuletide Bites
Stay with Us
Guardians of Glitter Bomb
To Save a Sidhe
Dead Mates Society
The Love We Choose
The Love Right in Front of Us
Alphas of Lore
The Vampire and the Beast
Catnip & Mistletoe
The Practice Alpha
Alpha Unleashed
Alpha Misunderstood
The Pride of Glitter Bomb
The Age of Lions
A Worthy Bear
Stuck Between Two Bears
Omega in the Stars
Just a Wolf
Canton: A Memoir
Wildlands Omega
A Wilder Alpha
Omega’s Fall
Alpha’s Curse
Alpha of My Heart
A Wildlands Yuletide
Omega’s Second Chance
Alpha’s Sacrifice
Omega’s Return
The Little Hemlock King
The Kissing Wars
Haunted Mates
Keeper of My Secrets
Invisible Alpha
Banished Alpha
Kiss Me Better
Surrounded By Scales
Fanged Secrets
Omega’s First Love
Deck the Halls with Harpies
A Yuletide to Remember
The Wolves At My Sides
The Fall Before the Heat (You are here!)
The Whole Fang and Kaboodle (Coming soon but maybe under a different title.)
Maggie Hemlock, The Fall Before the Heat
