Fuck.
Exos’s sapphire gaze flashed with interest.
He’d misted back to the Water Kingdom with us. It was technically my night with Claire, and I had intended to take her to dinner with my father and his mate, but I’d postponed that dinner to brunch tomorrow. I needed to calm my little queen down first.
“Nine weeks,” she said for the umpteenth time, shaking her head.
“Yes, that’s roughly sixty-three days,” I informed her dryly.
So much for my calm approach.
She spun to face me as though she’d forgotten I sat on our bed a few feet away. My gaze immediately dropped to her tits, those beautiful dusky nipples were completely visible beneath her shirt, and she hadn’t even noticed.
Perhaps my mist blanket had been a bad idea.
But I absolutely didn’t regret it as the fabric started to mold to her chest.
“Days?” Claire repeated.
I rolled my eyes. “Come on, little queen. Sixty-three days is plenty of time. Nine weeks. Would you prefer to be carrying around a faeling for nine months? That’s an awfully long time to be pregnant, don’t you think?”
Exos grunted beside me, whether in agreement or to chastise my directness, I wasn’t sure. I also didn’t care.
“How am I supposed to gather all the requisite approvals for the Interrealm Fae Academy in sixty-three days?” she demanded. “You should have told me about this before I agreed! You knew how important that academy is to me. And now there’s no way I’ll be able to get this done, Cyrus. I’m going to have a baby in nine weeks!”
“Technically, it’ll be closer to seven now,” I murmured, which was apparently the wrong thing to say, because she screamed.
I flinched.
Exos groaned.
And I recalled the warnings from the Healer about Claire’s impending hormonal changes. Phase two came with a lot of physical and mental imbalances, nurturing instincts, and general nesting practices. It was the longest of the pregnancy periods and the hardest.
Phase three was the one I rather looked forward to.
But I wouldn’t get into that now with her.
Instead, I focused on what her real concern was here—the Interrealm Fae Academy.
“Little queen,” I said softly.
“Don’t you ‘little queen’ me,” she snapped. “You got me pregnant!”
I chuckled. “Indeed, I did. And I don’t regret it.” Even with you yelling at me, I thought, pushing off the bed to stand in front of her. “Little queen,” I repeated, taking hold of her shoulders. “You have five mates.”
“I’m aware, but you’re the one—”
“No, Claire. That’s not what I mean. You have five mates who can help you and will help you with the academy. We all know how important it is to you. The hard part is already done. Now we just need to arrange meetings with the fae to encourage them to agree. Do you know what Exos and I happen to be very skilled at?” I arched a brow, waiting for her to consider my words and hear what I was saying to her.
She nibbled her lip, her blue eyes flashing with consideration as she fought her instinct to rage instead of reason with me. “You… you like politics.”
“Yes,” I replied, lifting one hand to her heated cheek. “And we are very skilled at convincing fae to do what we want.”
“Like make babies,” she grumbled.
My lips twitched. “You want a faeling just as badly as the rest of us do. Don’t let a little time shift convince you otherwise.”
Her mouth parted to argue my choice of “little”—something I cau