The Unexpected Yuletide Baby (Starscale Mates #3)

Chapter Thirteen

Clarence

Time tiptoed by us as if it meant to pass unnoticed. The day our ‘big’ ultrasound arrived, Marria’s children were plagued with the dragon pox. She wasn’t coming anywhere near my mate or child for months. I’d pay her full salary but her job for us was done. That was one risk I wasn’t willing to take.

That morning, we lay in bed with the baby making a new plan since Marria was benched from the birthing team. It only took a pot of tea and a couple hours for us to figure out exactly how to play it all by ear.

“We’ll notify the hospital we may need help,” Medwin said. “We always advise flight members to do that. We’ll make sure there is a cellphone that’s always on the charging crystal just in case we do need to call. Teal will be on standby, but you’ll deliver them unless something goes wrong. If it does you call, and Teal takes over medically while we all try to make our way outside to meet the rescue team. I’ll make sure to get weighed the week I’m supposed to have the baby. So they can be prepared for that in case I shift.”

“Sounds doable,” I nodded. “Now, we wait for Teal to wake up and give him the honors of performing this big magical exam.”

“We do,” Medwin nodded back at me, sipping his tea. “Let’s get Sunny on the monitor too, if we can. I feel so bad that he’s so far away while all the excitement happens. We can invite Indigo and Cobalt too, if they want to come.”

“I bet they will,” I chuckled. “Every baby we have puts them one more step removed from being flight leaders. If not, Cade, then probably Sunny. If not Sunny – well, right now them. Eventually, Acadian, probably.”

“Eh, I plan on living forever just to save them from all the headaches. For our kids and their kids and their kids too,” Medwin laughed.

Right before lunch we all gathered in the ballroom where the camera was set up to communicate with Sunny. We managed to get Cade and his mate, Eston, on the phone too. This was our first time having an ultrasound that might tell us a tiny bit about who our baby might be.

Teal’s hands trembled but he didn’t smell nervous. His scent whispered of excitement as he sat down on the coffee table for easy access to his grandcarrier’s exposed belly. I always wanted to take a chomp out of Marria. That urge wasn’t there with Teal.

Cobalt and Indigo sat on the nearby loveseat. Cobalt held Acadian to his chest and rocked him gently. I hoped all the time spent around the baby would calm down their weird and uncaring dating tendencies. I wasn’t so much worried about the family name these days as I was about what might catch up with them after they found their mates and had hatchlings of their own.

I pushed the future out of my thoughts as the portable monitor filled up with our baby. They were still in their human form. Some shifter babies shifted around this point during the pregnancy, but our little one was furless and laying like she was a starfish. So starfish like that we could indeed tell that if the stars aligned correctly our baby was a girl.

“Clarence!” Medwin said my name, grabbing my hand as if I arranged for our baby to be a girl as a late Yule gift. “She’s going to be so cute! We’ll have to pull the sewing machine out!”

“Does it still work?” I asked him.

“Coconuts in Frost’s Pit! I don’t know,” he laughed, his eyes still glued to the screen. “She’s so perfect!”

And she was as all babies are perfect. The first old fashioned sonogram we received from the doctor that showed Cade’s egg at the smallest it could pick up was still seared into my mind and I carried it around in my wallet. It was our first photograph of him after all.

“We can get you a new one,” Cobalt laughed. “We’ll get you one that you can feed patterns too and all that. A couple guys back, one of my boyfriends was into fashion design. Learned a lot of useless stuff about sewing machines.”

“Not useless,” Medwin shook his head. “Not useless at all. If society collapses, you’ll have something to put on your ass.”

“Maybe I’ll stay bare assed if society flies out the window,” Cobalt smirked.

“You probably would,” Medwin shot him a fake annoyed look.