The P.J. Stone Gates Trilogy (#1-3) (91 page)

Even Zen had started a relationship up with some young Gold Dragon. She sometimes still cast furtive longing glances in Khol’s direction, but she seemed content at least with the knowledge that he would never be hers. Everyone seemed happy … except me.

“My little Queen.” Khol murmured softly as he ran his hand tenderly over my swollen abdomen. “It should be any time now.”

I huffed with aggravation. “How do you even know? Because I look like I’m ready to pop? How can you even look at me when I’m like this?” For some inexplicable reason Khol’s ardor towards me hadn’t dwindled in the slightest, even though I couldn’t even see my toes anymore. How could he possibly find me attractive when it looked like I had swallowed a beach ball?

“You’re beautiful like this.” He splayed his large warm hand over the top of my baby bulge. “Even if he isn’t mine, my thoughts are consumed with either giving you my child to carry, or our second.”

I scowled at him. “You’ve got to be kidding me. There is no way I’m going through this ever again.”

“You’ll change your mind.” Khol whispered huskily as he kissed me tenderly. As his tongue leisurely explored my mouth he ran his hands slowly over my face and then through my hair. “I love you.” He breathed into my mouth. And yeah, okay, with how loved and cherished Khol made me feel, and with how happy the idea of a second future child seemed to make him … fine I’d probably give him whatever he wanted … if not a bit begrudgingly.

Khol shifted over me, careful not to put any of his weight on my stomach, and as he deepened his kiss I reached up to unleash his long hair so that I could delve my hands into it. I loved pulling his hair when he—

“P.J.!” Our bedroom door slammed open. “I need to talk to you!” Jenna exclaimed.

Khol stiffened above me and pulled away. “Do no locks keep you out?” He growled.

Jenna put her hands on her hips and scrunched up her face. “I wouldn’t know because the door wasn’t actually locked.”

Khol shifted away and returned fully dressed with a robe for me in his hands to which he helped me into. I hadn’t been naked … yet … but my nightgown wasn’t exactly the type for public consumption.

Jenna rolled her eyes. “I’ve seen both of you in less, and it’s not like you guys were doing anything.”

I growled under my breath. I wasn’t in the mood to argue with her. “Okay, so what’s so important all of a sudden?”

“My wedding of course!” It was then I noticed that Jenna had a plethora of magazines in her arms. I didn’t need to guess what kind they were.

“You can’t be serious?” I asked incredulously. “After everything that’s happened you want to plan a big wedding?”

“Duh. Because of everything that’s happened I want to plan a big wedding. Well maybe it won’t be big because of guests in attendance but I want a wedding with all the frills.” She speared me with an intense look. “And it’s your duty as my best friend to help me.”

“Look at me.” I motioned to my ginormous belly. “I’m about to pop. Can’t this wait until after the baby comes?”

“Khol you need to vamoose. Like now.” Jenna ordered Khol as if he wasn’t an ancient powerful dragon who could squash her like a bug. “We need some girl time.”

I didn’t miss the relief that smoothed out the lines in Khol’s forehead. Did all men hate this kind of stuff … even dragon men? “Call for me if you need me.” He said before disappearing.

Jenna wasted no time spreading the magazines all over the end of the bed. “There’s so much I need to decide! But the most important is what color should I dye my hair?” She turned her wide dark eyes towards me and I fought the urge to laugh about how serious she was taking all of this.

“Well, what colors did you pick for the wedding?” I asked.

“You mean like the overall color scheme?”

“Yeah. What other color scheme would I be talking about?”

Jenna grimaced. “Green and gold.”

I quirked an eyebrow at her. “Why do I feel like Jeremy had something to do with that?”

Jenna heaved a huge frustrated sigh. “He just won’t bend on any pretty colors … like pink or purple … or pink. And I don’t want boy blue or yellow or orange … so we settled on green. But because green is kind of boring and reminds me of grass I decided to add gold as the accent color to pizazz things up.”

“Green and gold? That’s going to be—” Her puppy dog face got to me as she hung on my every word. “Interesting?” I more of asked than stated. “Ummm … well … ” What could I say about her atrocious color combo? And then a light bulb went off. “You can still change the accent color, right? Just as long as you stick with green?”

“Yeah.” Jenna eyed me speculatively.

“Lime green!” I exclaimed in triumph.

A huge grin broke across Jenna’s face. She immediately understood me in only a way she could. “Brilliant! He never said what shade of green! Lime green and—”

“Black!”

“Yes!” Jenna pumped her fist in the air. “It’s perfect!”

I shook my head and laughed. “Jeremy is about to learn a very important lesson through all of this.”

“Yeah, don’t mess with me and a color scheme!” Jenna donned a smug smile and picked up one of the magazines. “Lime green hair then?”

I imagined Jenna in a wedding dress with perfectly coiffed lime green hair. It was so perfectly her. “Of course. So when is this extravaganza going to take place, and where?”

Jenna tossed the magazine she had been looking at over her shoulder and started flipping through another one. “It’s going to be here, of course, because, duh … it’s beautiful and I kind of have an in with the Queen that resides over this land.”

“You did, until you burst in on her and her
Anam Cara
when they were about to—”

“You and Khol are always about to.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “When did you become more of a sex fiend than me anyways?”

“When I bonded with Khol, apparently.” In the past I would have blushed and tried to avoid the conversation, but I no longer was embarrassed by my sexual appetites. I loved Khol, and he loved me, so I had nothing to be embarrassed about.

“I always knew you had it in you.” Jenna threw another magazine over her shoulder.

“I hope you plan on cleaning all of those up because I won’t be able to bend over to pick them up.” I groused. This baby needed to hurry up and decide to be born already.

“What about you?” Jenna shot me a questioning glance.

“What about me?”

She motioned to one of the magazines in her hand. “Are you and Khol going to lock it down and make it official?”

“I don’t know how much more official I can make it with him. We’re
Anam Caras
.” I shifted uncomfortably, fighting the urge to lay down again to relieve the pressure on my lower back.

“You know what I mean, you were raised human. You always thought you’d get married.” Jenna tossed two more magazines onto her ever growing pile on the floor.

“Unlike you—” I gave up and eased myself back on the bed. “I never put much thought into what my arranged marriage would be like, or have you forgotten about all of that?”

“Yeah, whatever.” Jenna said distractedly. She then appeared in my line of vision from my vantage point of lying flat on my back. “Are you really that tired that you can’t even stay sitting up for like five minutes?”

“Look at me!” I raised my arms and let them flop right back down beside me. “I’m like a beached whale! I’m lucky I can move at all!”

“He’s due soon though, right? Because I wanna have my wedding soon and I don’t want my Maid of Honor to be as big as a house.”

“Because my pregnancy is all about you!” I yelled. “Seriously … you need to leave now.” I’d held my temper in for as long as I could but Jenna really had a way of pushing people sometimes. She scurried out of the room, without taking the bridal magazines with her.
Of course.

But then as if conjured by her words a cramp tore across my abdomen. I clutched at my stomach with alarm. “Khol!” I cried out. “Khol! I think—” I gritted my teeth as another spasm took hold of me. “I think it’s time!” Khol had explained to me that the delivery of a dragon baby was a lot quicker than a human’s. Pretty much as soon as my contractions started … my baby was coming.

Khol appeared before me, his face dancing with delight. Seeing that he wasn’t worried in the least helped to calm me down a bit. “Shhh … my little Queen. I’m here and all will be fine.”

As another contraction stole through my system Khol reached out to run his hand over my arm. My entire body relaxed and my eyes began to flutter shut. Khol and I had discussed this. With his power he could essentially give me a pain free delivery … every woman’s dream. The only catch was that I would be completely knocked out doing the whole process.

Khol pressed his lips to my forehead. “Trust in me, my little Queen, and when you awake you’ll be able to hold you’re new born son in your arms.”

My heart leaped with anxiety, but I did trust Khol so I let go and let his magic carry me into a deep sleep.

“Choose. But quickly, my magic will only hold you here for so long.” A strange voice said.

“You would still choose him over me?” Khol growled.

“No—you don’t understand!” I heard myself croak with desperation. “I still love him but
—”

A baby crying stole my attention from the sightless vision I was having … at least I thought that’s what it was. But none of that mattered as I blinked my eyes open to Khol beaming down at a crying baby in his arms. He met my eyes, his illuminated far brighter than I’d ever seen them, brighter than I thought possible and with two words he answered the question we’d all been waiting for. “My son.” He croaked.

Equal parts sadness and happiness swept through me. How could my son’s birth be both the best and worst moment of my life? To give Khol a son made my heart feel ready to burst with joy, and yet a part of me, the sad part had wanted some small part of Bryn to hold onto despite me being bonded with Khol. “Let me hold him.” I said through the tears I hadn’t realized I’d been shedding. As I reached my arms up Khol placed my son lovingly within them. I stared down into his seemingly perfect face. “He’s healthy?” I asked without looking away from the tiny wrinkly face that held the most vivid green eyes I’d ever seen. He stared at me blindly but when I touched his nose with my fingertip he smiled a toothless grin that stole all of my heart.

“You’re both perfect.” Khol hovered above me and gazed down at the both of us, his happiness palpable.

“I didn’t feel any pain … none at all. And I feel … fine now.” Maybe giving birth wasn’t that bad after all.

“One of the many perks of having me around.” Khol stated as he ran his large hand over the thick head of red hair on our child.

“Can I come in yet?” Jenna asked from her position of already being inside our room. Without waiting for an answer she hurried towards my little family. “Wow, look at all that hair. No doubt he’s yours, huh Khol?”

“None.” Khol said.

Jenna reached out a finger and our son’s little fist grabbed it. She giggled. “He’s so friggin’ adorable. Seriously … I’m not just saying that. I would tell you he was cute even if he wasn’t, but I’m telling you he actually is.” She stared down at him for another moment and I let my gaze linger on him as well. He really was perfect, absolutely perfect. “What’s his name?” Jenna asked.

I glanced up at Khol. “Well—I don’t know. We haven’t really talked about it.”

“You definitely should name him something short and not some long complicated dragon name, to which he’d get a nickname anyways. Why not just shorten the process?” Jenna started making faces at our child and his little face scrunched up like he was going to cry. I didn’t think babies could see that clearly so soon.

“He’s dragon.” Khol answered my question without missing a beat. “Our senses develop faster. And I’ll repeat he’s dragon therefore he should bear a traditional dragon name.”

I shook my head. “No. You’re my
Anam Cara
and I don’t even have a clue how to pronounce your full dragon name. Please don’t do that to me … or him.” I smiled down at our child. “What’s your name, little guy? Is it—”

“Lestat?” Jenna offered with excitement.

“Jenna! What? No.” Fortunately my little guy frowned. “See he doesn’t like it. He gets to decide.”

“What? I like the name Lestat it’s—”

“A vampire’s name. You really want me to name my dragon son after a fictional vampire?” I quirked my eyebrow at Jenna. “Hey, where’s Jeremy by the way?”

“Oh, he didn’t wanna interrupt you guys. He said he’d visit and meet your little guy later.” Jenna started cooing. “Whatz wrong wit Lestat?” She asked in baby talk.

“No Lestat.” I stated more firmly.

“Fine.” Jenna huffed. “So what then?”

I gazed down at the little round smiling face of my son, his green eyes staring up at me intently as if he too was waiting for what I’d say. I ran my fingertips over his red hair and smiled. “Liam. His name is Liam.”

Khol placed a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “I like it.”

“Yeah I guess it’s not that bad.” Jenna chimed in, and I knew that was the best I was going to get out of her since I wasn’t going with her suggestion.