I hid it well though, from all but one. ‘Need me to hold your hand dad?’
‘Little dragon, I’ll turn you into a fish!’ His laughter wrapped around my heart pretty much the same way his mother’s had just an hour ago.
“What are you two talking about now?”
“How did you know we were speaking to each other?”
“I can’t quite hear him yet, but whenever he’s talking I get static in my ear. How come you can hear him and I can’t?”
“You get to carry him, it’s my only connection until he’s born; jealous?”
“No, but I’m hot!”
She tugged at the thick sweater I’d bought her, or had Dennis get her at any rate. Because my male relatives had yet to leave my home he’d been under strict orders to buy only clothes that covered her from head to toe.
She’s complaining about the thick cable knit sweater now that in all fairness might be too warm for the late spring weather. But I wonder what she would’ve done had I been able to talk Dennis into making a quick trip to the remote desert of the middle east for one of the burkas worn by the women there.
Modern day society gets up in arms at the lightweight burkas worn by the Saudis today, if they only knew that this manner of dress goes back much further, thousands of years in fact, and can be even more restrictive according to region, they’d really lose their shit. Personally I’m beginning to like the idea.
The others hadn’t really seen her when I brought her home that night and I knew from eavesdropping on them just to make sure they weren’t giving a running report back home as to what was going on in my house, that part of the reason for this was because they wanted to get a good look at her.
“Leave it!” I brushed her hand away from the sweater and held it in mine as we walked out the door into the early evening. I gritted my teeth and refrained myself from turning right around and taking her back inside when I saw that everyone was there, waiting.
Her sisters looked nervous as hell surrounded by my kin, but the calming shield I’d put around the property once they showed up was helping to keep them relaxed and more at ease than they would’ve been without it.
I only did that so that their worry and angst wouldn’t affect her and my child in her womb. Her pregnancy isn’t quite stable yet, and though I do not foresee any mishaps, not as long as I’m here, from now until she gives birth I’m going to watch over her like a hawk with its young.
I glared at the men when they all turned to look at her on our approach and they bowed their heads in respect. “Your highness!” That was for her; where the hell was my respect when they descended on me unannounced and uninvited? Even her sisters got to their feet and bowed to her.
“What’re you doing?” She rushed forward to help them up and the four of them started crying like they’d been separated at birth twenty-years ago. She could have no idea that she’s not allowed to cry or she’d endanger everyone around her. I’d spent the last day fucking her, not teaching her vampyre etiquette.
So it was Dennis who stepped in and defused the situation before my dragon escaped and burnt everyone in my English garden to a crisp. He got the ladies settled and came over to my side. “You’re going to have to throttle it back young master, this is what women do.” He said the words out the side of his mouth like I was an imbecile.
“Go feed her, she hasn’t eaten since this morning.”
“And whose fault is that I wonder?” He mumbled the words under his breath but I heard them all the same. I left her sitting at the table with her sisters and walked to where the men were standing a few feet away, keeping a safe respectful distance away from her.
“Okay, you’ve seen her, you know that everything went well, when are you leaving?” There was a lot of throat clearing and quick affirmations that they would be leaving soon. They didn’t know about the baby because I’d shielded that knowledge from them more to give her time than anything else, so no one stuck their nose in my shit.
Her sisters kept giving me looks, which I ignored and out of respect I stayed away from their conversation though it was obvious that I was the topic of choice. As my uncles and young Vespasian started to leave I felt the shift in the air. ‘Grandpa monarch, how long have you been here?’
‘I arrived when your dragon lifted his head a few minutes ago. He hasn’t done that in the earthly realm in over four hundred thousand years so I thought something was wrong.’