“It all happened rather fast. Neither of us were planning on the babies coming so quickly, but Lila’s body has undergone so many changes in a short period of time, the Celestians are insisting that we hurry the pregnancy along, for both her sake and the babies’.”
“More grandbabies! I can’t wait.” Mira claps her hands enthusiastically. “I’m just sad they won’t be born in our home waters.”
I feel a pang of guilt, but before I can say anything, Murphy does.
“Now stop it, Mira. You’ve been lucky enough to be there for the birth of quite a few of them, so missing out on it this time is not an issue.”
“But Cassie is my favorite child.” It’s her turn to whine like a teenager, and Cas and Murphy snort in unison.
“Only because I’m here right now. If it were Malik or one of the others, you would say the same thing,” Cas teases his mother, and she shrugs her shoulders unapologetically.
“The breeding dome is where all of our children have brought their mates to either activate their pregnancy or spend their breeding time together. It is an underwater dwelling. Only two of our children—three now that Cas has you—have kraken mates. The others are different shifters or even different species. Because all my children are krakens, they get the urge to mate underwater, but not all of their mates can survive that, so the dome helps facilitate the need to be underwater while giving them a safe, secure, and comfortable place to mate and breed,” Murphy explains.
“But I can shift, so we can swim, right?”
Cas’s cheeks turn pink with his blush. “Yes, you can, but I like the idea of recreating our first time when you couldn’t shift,” he says quietly, and there is no way the other two didn’t hear it, but they have enough grace to pretend not to, even if Mira’s smile tells us all we need to know.
My mate is so sweet. I can’t say I don’t want the same thing, since it was hot as fuck. “That sounds wonderful.” I put my hand on his shoulder and give it a squeeze. He reaches up, and we spend the rest of the trip holding hands.
* * *
“We’ll have a lovely dinner together and get to know one another a little better, and then the two of you can escape into the ocean,” Mira tells me as the vehicle slows to a stop in front of a large, split-level building.
It’s similar to houses on Earth, but the building materials look metallic, so it shimmers in the daylight. During the drive, Murphy told me that like Skarr, Fluxx has two moons that influence the color of the ocean. Their moons put off a green light, of all things, so the ocean looks green when you’re viewing it, but like Earth’s, the water is clear when you swim in it. Fluxx and Skarr also share the same sun, so the days and nights mirror each other, just opposite. When it’s night in Fluxx, it’s day in Skarr, and vice versa.
“That sounds great. Thanks, Mom.” Cas opens my door and helps me out of the car, and I get a good look around their front yard. There isn’t much of a garden, just a lot of scrub and succulent plants, as well as fine gravel covering the ground. It’s much like coastal areas all over Earth, where the harsh environment of the ocean makes growing things more difficult.
I feel a bead of sweat develop under the collar of my shirt. It’s hot out here, and the fresh sea air is a balm against my skin after the controlled environment of the ship in space. I lift my face up to the sun and just absorb it for a moment before taking in a deep breath and slowly releasing it. God, I missed this.
Cas presses a kiss against my temple. “Come on, let’s go inside, and I’ll show you the views on the other side.”
The house looks like it’s built into a slope, and sure enough, when we get inside, there is a living area and a corridor. “Those are all of our bedrooms on the bottom level. Dad will have put our stuff in my room. The main living areas are up here.”
He leads me up a large set of stairs, and my mouth drops open in awe as we get to the top. The top part of the house is sitting on a cliff, and as Cas and I move through an area, I don’t pay any attention to it because the view out of the glass back wall of the house is incredible.
Stretched out below us is the ocean. Cas steps up to the glass wall, and just when I expect him to hit something solid, he steps right through it. Tugging my hand, he makes me go with him, and I cringe as I step through it, but it dissolves on contact. There is a large deck out here with patio furniture dotted around it. We move across it until we get to the railing, and I look down. The deck hangs out farther than the cliff in a feat of engineering ingenuity, and there is a direct drop into the green water below. It’s crystal clear and calm today, and I can see large shadows swimming below.
“Whoa. This is incredible, but please tell me I don’t need to jump off the balcony to get to the water.” I shudder with the thought, and Caspian chuckles.
“No, there is an inner elevator that goes down to that rocky outcrop there.” He points out a gap in the cliff face below us, and I sigh with relief. “Mom used it when she was pregnant too.”
“Lila, Cassie, dinner is ready,” Mira calls from inside. A pang of disappointment rolls through me, and I look longingly at the water as my kraken pushes her consciousness forward.
Mate now,she demands, and I feel my eyes flick back and forth.
“Hang in there, love. You need a good meal for your strength before we get started. Spend this time with my family, and I promise I will make it up to you,” Cas coos to my kraken who settles back down, satisfied with his response. She’s eager to get started on the mating ritual despite my own nerves.
Lila
“Have you thought about any names for the babies yet?” Mira asks halfway through a pleasant meal. It’s not anything I’m familiar with, but it’s delicious nonetheless—some kind of steamed fish with a delicious sauce over rice with green vegetables.
Cas and I exchange a glance, and once more, I’m hit with a sense of guilt. Seriously, I’m going to suck as a mother. We don’t even have a room or anything organized for them, let alone names or belongings. “We don’t even know what sex they are yet,” I hedge, and Mira and Murphy chuckle.
“Why don’t you ask your kraken? She will know,” Mira explains, and I glare at Cas.
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” I’m kind of sick of being blindsided by all this information I should know by now.
He winces and grabs my hand. “I didn’t know about it, to be honest. I’ve been so busy with Dylan leaving and having to get Tirrian and Silac up to speed that I haven’t really had a chance to think about everything you need to know—not to mention worrying about you during your bonding with Saxon.”