One
Out of all the lies Liz told, it figured her seeing two blue lines after peeing on a stick would be the truth.
>Pop the champagne corks! Light up the stogies! Liz is officially pregnant.
Bishop’s texted response, when it came, prompted my stomach to growl.
>>Liz is one olive short of a pizza.
“Hadley,” Abbott chided, drawing my attention away from my phone. “You might as well stop glaring at the ultrasound photos.” He tugged them out of my hand. “You’re not going to bully the child into revealing its secrets.”
The prints were still warm from the machine, and each was as blank as a photo taken with a finger covering the lens. The baby’s magical signature kept shorting out the imaging equipment.
I didn’t like that.
To be fair, I didn’t like much about this situation.
Not Ares turning on her friends and pack to protect her whackadoodle mate and their unborn child from the consequences of Liz’s zealotry. Not the swath of innocents cut down in the coven’s path to owning Atlanta. And not Ares’s abduction of my family that almost culminated in a slower and worse death than the bomb she saved them from would have granted them.
“How sure are you she’s pregnant?” I leaned down, one ear nearly touching her stomach, pretending to listen for a tick-tick-tick noise. “For all we know, she swallowed one of those bombs the coven loves so much, and it will explode nine months to the day of implantation.”
“We’ve been over this.” Abbott eyed me over the rim of his glasses. “There’s a heartbeat.”
“Or a timer counting down.”
“The baby also kicks.”
“Those could be levers moving into position under Liz’s skin.”
“Midas?” Pinching the bridge of his nose, Abbott shot his gaze past my shoulder. “A little help?”
Sliding my focus onto my mate, I couldn’t deny the kick in my pulse that came just from looking at him.
His golden-blond hair was growing out, slowly but surely, but I wouldn’t care if he went bald. The bright spark in his aquamarine eyes was recent, a huge improvement over the shadows that once haunted him. Unable to stop myself from staring, I let my gaze trace the now-familiar arch of his cheekbones, the hard line of his jaw, and the soft curve of his kissable lips.
He caught me at it, of course, and a smile twitched at the corner of his mouth.
“She’s watched too many B movies.” The Spock to my Kirk straightened from his lean against the wall. “She’s got conspiracy theories for days. Weeks. Months. Years…”
“How can I be expected to marry a man who makes fun of me?” As I pivoted to face him, I made certain to place my left hand just so, and my engagement ring caught the light. As it sparkled, with a little help from my wiggling finger, I waited for him to enlighten me. “What kind of life would that be?”
Flashing my bling caused Midas to smile, which had been the point, and I struggled to stay grumpy in the face of his simple happiness.
“I apologize.” He wiped a hand across his mouth, but his grin remained, and I was happy they stuck more often these days. “Will this earn me forgiveness?”
Midas reached into his pocket and pulled out a golf ball-sized piece of chocolate wrapped in gold foil. He held it out to me, its packaging glittering under the fluorescent lights…
A blur of shadow smudged the edge of my vision, and I yelled, “No.”
Too late.
Ambrose swiped it off Midas’s palm and gulped it down with glee.
Truce or not, I thought at him, pull that stunt again, and I will end you.
The shadow horked a thumbnail-sized glob onto the floor like a momma bird feeding its baby.
Not gonna lie. I threw up in my mouth a little.
Even if I was into regurgitation, and I wasn’t in any way, it was mostly crumpled foil.
“What’s wrong?” Abbott ripped a blood pressure cuff off Liz. “Did you drop it?”
“I dropped it, all right.”
Down the gullet of an uppity shadow who believed we were BFFs now.
Noticing my attention on the floor, Abbott craned his neck. “Did it roll under the equipment?”
“No.” I kept my head down. “I’m offering a moment of silence for the fallen chocolate.”
Midas snorted then coughed, but it was too late. I heard him, and I couldn’t stop a smile from blooming.
Amusement crinkling his eyes, Abbott indicated a nearby basin. “Can you hand me that rag?”
“Why is she sweaty?” I wrung out the icy water then handed it to him. “She’s all clammy and shaky.”
In my line of work, I had run across addicts desperate for their next hit in better shape.
Blotting her forehead, Abbott frowned. “It appears to be an allergic reaction to the anesthesia.”
“You mean you don’t know?” I faked a gasp and clutched my chest. “And you call yourself a doctor.”
“I’m not omniscient, Hadley.” He chuckled. “I’m doing the best I can, but pregnancy complicates things.”
Witchborn fae complicated every single little thing. One more hurdle barely rated a sigh of annoyance.
“You’re tired.” Midas rested his hands on my shoulders. “You’ve been going nonstop since we discovered the archive.” He began a massage that left me putty in his hands. “You need to rest.”
The instinctive urge to shoot him down and keep on trucking got crushed beneath my exhaustion.
“Okay.” I didn’t have enough fight in me to argue. “I’ll take a nap. A tiny one. Like thirty minutes.”
Midas and Abbott exchanged a glance over my head that smacked of them handling me.
Oh, sure. They would say it was for my own good, but I think they were scared of me when I got hangry.
Though, to be fair, I had no clear memory of the last time I had eaten or slept. And that jerk shadow had stolen the mouthful of caffeine that might have made all the difference in my cognitive ability.
Just for that, I was going to ask Remy to wrap gas station meatballs in truffle foils from Ambrose’s favorite chocolatier. And then…sweet revenge. Or not-so-sweet revenge. Which was the whole point.
Let Ambrose get a taste of how it feels to think you’re getting a treat and then bam.
Goddess, I really was tired if I was plotting revenge on, essentially, myself.
“I’ll send the ultrasound photos and recordings to Bishop along with Liz’s file,” Abbot promised. “The information will be with your team when you wake.”
“Thanks.”
Out in the hall, Midas waited until the shadow made himself scarce before reaching into his pocket a second time. He pulled out a small brown tulle bag tied with a black ribbon that made dull clacking noises when its weight shifted on his palm. The smell hit me, and I moaned, perking instantly.
“Gimme.” I lunged for them. “Gimme. Gimme. Gimme.”
“Nap first.” He snatched them back. “Chocolate-covered espresso beans later.”
“You’re so mean.” I buried my face in his side, trusting him to guide me to the elevators. “Why do you hate me?”
“I also sourced you a copy of Moon Cats Colonize the Sun.”