Quickening, Vol. 1

By Amy Lane

Little Goddess: Book Five
Volume One

Cory thought she’d found balance on Green's Hill—sorceress, student, queen of the vampires, wife to three men—she had it down!  But establishing her right to risk herself with Green and Bracken had more than one consequence, and now she’s facing the world's scariest job title: mother.  

But getting the news that she’s knocked up takes a back seat when a half-elf hunts them down for help. Her arrival brings news that the werewolf threat, which has been haunting them for over a year, has finally arrived on their doorstep—and it’s bigger and more frightening than they’d ever imagined. 

Cory throws herself into this new battle with everything she’s got—and her men let her do it. Because they all know that whether they defeat this enemy now or later, the thing she's most afraid of is arriving on a set schedule, and not even Cory can avoid it.  The trick is getting her to acknowledge she's pregnant before she gives birth—or kills herself in denial.

• Language: English
• Publisher: DSP Publications
• Release date: May 2, 2017
• ISBN: 9781635334395

Amy Lane

Award winning author Amy Lane lives in a crumbling crapmansion with a couple of teenagers, a passel of furbabies, and a bemused spouse. She has too damned much yarn, a penchant for action-adventure movies, and a need to know that somewhere in all the pain is a story of Wuv, Twu Wuv, which she continues to believe in to this day! She writes contemporary romance, paranormal romance, urban fantasy, and romantic suspense, teaches the occasional writing class, and likes to pretend her very simple life is as exciting as the lives of the people who live in her head. She’ll also tell you that sacrifices, large and small, are worth the urge to write. Website: www.greenshill.com Blog: www.writerslane.blogspot.com Email: [e-mail] Facebook: www.facebook.com/amy.lane.167 Twitter: @amymaclane

Book preview

Quickening Vol. 1

By Amy Lane

Little Goddess: Book Five

Volume One

Cory thought she’d found balance on Green’s Hill—sorceress, student, queen of the vampires, wife to three men—she had it down! But establishing her right to risk herself with Green and Bracken had more than one consequence, and now she’s facing the world's scariest job title: mother.

But getting the news that she’s knocked up takes a back seat when a half-elf hunts them down for help. Her arrival brings news that the werewolf threat, which has been haunting them for over a year, has finally arrived on their doorstep—and it’s bigger and more frightening than they’d ever imagined.

Cory throws herself into this new battle with everything she’s got—and her men let her do it. Because they all know that whether they defeat this enemy now or later, the thing she's most afraid of is arriving on a set schedule, and not even Cory can avoid it. The trick is getting her to acknowledge she's pregnant before she gives birth—or kills herself in denial.

Table of Contents

Blurb

Dedication

Character Lexicon

Cory: Cory’s Got Her Boobs Back

Green: Human Houses

Cory: What’d I Miss?

Bracken: Weapons

Cory: Flaming Balls of Real Shit

Green: Funky Wolf Machina

Cory: New Normals

Bracken: The Care and Feeding of a Growing Worry

Cory: Tightening

Green: And Look Who Dropped In?

Cory: Two-Front War

Green: Upon Absent Lovers

Cory: The New Normal

Bracken: Not really elves with wings

Cory: Woman to Woman

Exclusive Excerpt

Cory: Mothers and motherfucker!

Amy’s Alternative Universe Romance

Readers love the Little Goddess series by Amy Lane

About the Author

By Amy Lane

Visit DSP Publications

Copyright Page

These books are for everyone who picked up a self-pubbed book written by nobody special and loved it, and has stuck with me ever since.

These books are for everyone who followed me from urban fantasy to gay romance—and then read everything in that new genre and loved it.

These books are for everyone who followed me from gay romance back to my roots—and told me that they loved the Little Goddess series too.

And these books are especially for everyone who wondered, asked me, begged for the answer to the singular question of "Goddammit, is she going to be pregnant for frickin’ ever?"

No. She is not. And this is how that happens.

I hope you love this book as much as I’ve loved having readers as wonderful as you.

Character Lexicon

CHARACTERS INTRODUCED in Vulnerable:

Cory. Corinne Carol-Anne Kirkpatrick op Crocken Green started this little adventure as a gas station clerk, and then she met Adrian, a vampire who loved her, and Green, who loved them both. She is now married to Green, Bracken, and Nicky, carries three of Adrian’s marks and so leads his kiss of vampires, and is still trying to get that degree.

Green. Vernal Green, Lord of Leaves and Shadows. The leader of most of the supernatural peoples in Northern California, Green is not a warrior. Instead he leads and heals with sex and love, and people would die to protect him.

Bracken. The youngest full-blooded sidhe on the hill, Bracken was Adrian’s lover and fell in love with Cory at first sight. He stepped away from her then, because Adrian loved her and they didn’t share well, but upon Adrian’s death, he became her full-time lover.

Adrian. Adrian started life as the sexually abused cabin boy whom Green rescued on his way to America. Adrian became a vampire so he wouldn’t age and leave Green alone, and even after he fell in love with Cory, he couldn’t survive without his ties to Green.

Arturo. Arturo came from the jungles of South America to the new world in the fifties, trying to find an easier life. He found Green’s hill instead, and instead of conquering, fell exquisitely in love (in a very heterosexual way) with a leader who would lead with compassion instead of violence.

Grace. A devoted family woman, Grace was dying of untreated breast cancer in Redding when Adrian heard her yearning to see her family grow, with or without her. He granted her wish and made her a vampire, and Grace has come to love her Green’s hill family even more intensely than she loved the mortal family she left.

Mitch. Mitch was Renny’s first lover. Renny loved him since they were kids—when Mitchell was accidentally transformed into a were-kitty, Renny actually seduced him so he’d bite her and turn her too. Mitch was skittish and independent and refused to accept Green’s generosity and live in the hill, but Renny’s heart was so twined with his that she almost lost all of her humanity when he was one of Sezan’s first victims.

Max. Max is the police officer who tried to ‘save’ Cory from Green’s hill when she first met him. In the end, Green’s hill saved him, and he ended up beguiled by a girl who was more cat than human.

Renny. Renny became a werecat to follow her first husband, Mitch, into the life. When Mitch was killed, Renny’s cat personality became dominant and nearly feral. She’s become more human since she and Max have become a couple and gotten married… but not by much.

Marcus. Marcus was a history teacher with a passion for snow skiing. He’s got curly brown hair, big brown eyes, and a teacher’s affection for Cory, who wants to document the world they’ve found themselves in now that he has fangs and a taste for blood.

Phillip. Phillip was a stockbroker with a passion for snow skiing. After Marcus found him buried in an avalanche and brought him over as a vampire, the two spent twenty years struggling with their sexuality and their boundless love for each other. What they finally decided upon was a relationship based on the sentiment I apparently can’t live without you, asshole, and that seems to be working for them.

Sezan. Part sea-nymph, part human, Sezan is what happens when someone is warped from conception on. He came to NorCal to torment and kill Adrian—but he had help.

Crispin. Crispin was the kiss leader of the Folsom vampires until Sezan arrived and brainwashed/drugged/threatened him to force Crispin into Sezan’s own vendetta.

Crocken and Blissa. Bracken’s parents, Crocken and Blissa, are a study in opposites. Blissa is a flittery sex kitten of a four-foot pixie, and Crocken looks like an undusted pile of rocks. Together (and with a little bit of Green’s magic to make everything fit the way it should) they managed to produce Bracken, whom they love to distraction.

Leah. Leah’s little brother died and Leah descended into a spiral of sex, drugs, and self-destruction. Adrian saved her from all of that, but Leah’s emotional makeup does not include any sort of monogamous relationship. Still, she misses the stability of having a small nuclear family and has spent years trying to find a balance in the hill.

CHARACTERS INTRODUCED in Wounded:

Nicky. Nicky is an Avian—a shapeshifter who turns into a bird. He met Cory while she was attending CSU San Francisco immediately after Adrian’s death, when he was working for Goshawk, the bad guy. Nicky accidentally bonded to Green and Cory in the course of saving Bracken’s life, but because he was trying to atone for his assault on Cory at the time, Green and Cory took them into their family—and their bed.

Mario. Mario was an Avian who worked for Goshawk, the bad guy in Wounded who convinced Nicky to mind-rape Cory on their first date. Mario’s wife, Beth, was killed in an assault on Green’s hill, and Green gave Mario back his will to live. Mario is midheight, stocky, and very proud of his Mexican heritage.

LaMark. LaMark is another sweet-tempered Avian who had the misfortune to meet up with Goshawk while struggling with his identity. Unfortunately, LaMark’s identity is not a comfortable one—a gay, black Avian is sort of doomed wherever he goes, isn’t he? In spite of that, LaMark is a nice guy with a sense of humor and a blinding smile.

Andres. Andres is the leader of the San Francisco vampires. In Wounded, he allied his vampires with Cory’s—and passed up on an opportunity to take both Cory and Bracken into his bed.

Orson. Orson is the leader of the San Francisco werewolves. He’s not a particularly physical fighter, but he is an aggressive advocate for his people.

Mist. Green’s old lover, Mist betrayed Green to Titania and Oberon. When Green escaped their faerie hill, Mist watched jealously as Green fought for a place of his own. Mist was responsible for sending Sezan Adrian’s way—he couldn’t stand that Green was happy, especially with someone Mist considered inferior.

Morana. Mist’s lover at the time of Wounded. She’s mostly just a smug, superior, elitist bitch who thought Green was a good lay. For that alone we despise her.

Goshawk. Goshawk was the leader of the Avians in San Francisco. He was working on world domination when he convinced Nicky to mind-rape Cory in order to get her most powerful memories to drive his power. Nicky was guilt-ridden and turned against his former leader in order to help the girl he hurt.

Timmy and Danny. Timmy and Danny were two of the Avians who were set against Green’s hill. They were captured instead and given sanctuary. Like LaMark, Mario, and Nicky, they chose to stay at the hill instead of rejoining Goshawk’s forces.

Titania and Oberon. The traditional leaders of the sidhe in England, Titania and Oberon ruled over a court full of sexual excesses and cruelty. They held Green prisoner in their famed faerie hill because nobody could provide sexual satisfaction like Green. Green hoarded his power, though, and eventually snuck himself and his lime trees out of their garden and across the sea.

CHARACTERS INTRODUCED in Bound:

Chloe. Grace’s bitter, unpleasant daughter. Chloe had to have her memories of her vampire mother and of Green’s hill wiped in Bound because she was not the kind of mortal Green allowed at the hill (i.e., she was a real bitch).

Gavin and Graeme. Chloe’s sons, they adored Green’s hill and completely accepted all of the strangeness within. Once a year they come back to the hill—Green has arranged a sham camp to cover for their chance to visit with their grandmother and all the other people they have come to love.

Sweet. Sweet is one of the more promiscuous sidhe at the hill—but also one of the most pleasant. She’s also one of the three sidhe who are known for being healers.

Ellen Beth. Ellen Beth was brought to the hill when her lover was infected with some poisonous blood. Her lover died horribly, and Ellen Beth was turned over to Sweet for emotional healing. Sweet decided to keep her, and Ellen Beth has been happy to be kept.

Erik. Erik is a werecoyote with a sad past and a long-ago history with Green, Bracken, and Adrian. He is content to live in Austin and run his own company, until he meets up with Green and Green introduces him to Nicky. Both of them realize that they have something in common—too low-key for the intense emotions of the hill, they both make better secondary characters… except to each other, where they are the heroes of their own story.

Kyle. The lone survivor of the Folsom vampires, Kyle’s beloved, a girl named Davy, was killed because she and Cory vaguely resembled each other—and because they were friends. Cory took Kyle into her kiss and forced him to want to live.

Hallow. Hallow is a sidhe and a professor at Sacramento State University, where Cory and the other students attend school. He is also—by Green’s request—a counselor for the students themselves. Although Green usually counsels his own people, he felt that he was way too close to the situation as Cory’s lover and her leader to be objective or effective, and thus his trust in Hallow.

CHARACTERS INTRODUCED in Jack & Teague (& Katy):

Jack. Jack is actually a nice, quiet young man. When his sister—who became a werewolf by choice—is killed, Jack asks Green for some answers to her world and the people who would kill her. Paired with Teague to be human liaisons to Green’s hill and to go out and deal with violent and legal matters outside the hill, Jack fell utterly and irrevocably in love with his damaged, noble partner. When the two of them become werewolves (Jack by accident and Teague by choice), Jack’s transition to the hill is marred by his realization that Teague really is the great man Jack has always believed—and that means that his loyalties cannot ever be exclusively Jack’s.

Teague. Teague was brutally abused as a child and inculcated in the same ideas of hate and prejudice that killed Jack’s sister. One night while hunting a werewolf, he is injured while saving the life of a young man who looks very human—and Adrian pays him back by bringing him to Green. From that moment on, he is Green’s devoted subject. When Jack is injured and Cory comforts him while waiting for the injury to heal, Teague’s loyalty is transferred to the lady of the house, even while he pursues a relationship with Katy and Jack, whom he loves beyond reason.

Katy. Katy has loved Teague Sullivan since she was barely old enough to talk. When she found that fate had brought him to Green’s hill too, she pursued him—and Jack—with a single-minded quest for happiness. Now that they’re a family, she wants to be a part of Teague’s adventures whenever she can be.

Lambent. Lambent joined the hill just before Jack and Teague were bitten. He had always been semi-independent of Titania and Oberon, but until he ended up on Green’s Hill, he had no idea how much he’d valued his autonomy—or how much he hated the antique laws that governed sidhe behavior in the old country.

Ellis. We officially meet Ellis—a young vampire with little self-control—in Bound. He shows up again in Being.

CHARACTERS INTRODUCED in Rampant:

Tanya. A not-yet-mated sylph.

Sam. Offspring of the other and a human.

Walter. A sweet, young, newly made vampire.

Rafael. The leader of the Redding vampires.

Annette. Nicky’s unpleasant ex-girlfriend.

Gretchen. A child vampire who is eventually allowed to meet the dawn, because child vampires are such terrifying creatures in so much pain.

John and Terry. Nicky’s parents.

CREATURES:

Sidhe. High elves—lots of powers, humanoid attributes and physical beauty.

Fey. All the underclasses of elves existing at Green’s Hill—pixies, nixies, sprites, gnomes, sylphs, red-caps, trolls, fairies, etc. etc. etc.

Weres. Shapechangers, they age at about 1/3 – 1/4 the speed of a human, have super strength, super speed, and whatever characteristics their creature possesses. Were-creatures reproduce by biting humans. They probably can carry young of their own species, but interspecies mating is so prevalent at Green’s hill that no one knows for sure.

Vampires. The blood-sucking undead—but in a nice way.

Sylphs. Sexless fey, they choose their gender when they choose their mates.

Avians. The only shapechanger that’s born and not made by another shapechanger. The Avians are bonded for life with the person/people involved in their first sexual experience. If this mate doesn’t produce offspring within ten years, the Avian is doomed.

CHARACTERS ADDED from other works:

Whim and Charlie. Originally introduced in Litha’s Constant Whim, which can be found in The Green’s Hill Novellas. Whim and Charlie first met on the shortest night of the year, when a miserable adolescent Charlie was planning to kill himself. Whim’s company was too captivating for that idea to stand, but Charlie was too young for Whim to want to bind to a life on Green’s hill. What followed was thirteen-year courtship of meeting on one summer’s night a year. By the time Charlie ended up on the hill, he and Whim were so stupid in love, even the gods couldn’t separate them. But why would the gods want to do that?

Shepherd and Jefischa. Shep and Jefi were the two angels in Guarding the Vampire’s Ghost—their job was to make sure Adrian didn’t do anything he wasn’t supposed to while in the anteroom to heaven. Trouble was, heaven doesn’t do vampires, and nothing about Adrian was like Shep and Jefi were expecting. Including the way they were coming to feel about each other.

CHARACTERS WE meet in Quickening:

Iris Masterson. Bad guy’s assistant—although that’s not what she wanted to do with her life.

Conno. Werewolf made specifically to be a soldier in the bad guy’s army—but he got away and got imprisoned.

Dylan. Half elf psychic busted for a poker game—then imprisoned to keep him out of the bad guys’ radar.

Cami. Half elf psychic friend to Dylan, who begs Green’s help to get Dylan out of jail.

Cerise. Another reluctant werewolf

Dr. Nieman. World’s worst obstetrician

Cory: Cory’s Got Her Boobs Back

I AM too stupid to live.

Really? I asked for the umpteenth time.

Green, my day-lover, the warmest, most patient man I knew, narrowed his overlarge emerald-green eyes in frustration. Which part of ‘pregnant’ are you not getting? he asked suspiciously.

I looked from him to Bracken, their extraordinarily beautiful, sidhe-perfect anime features blurring in the face of my complete panic.

"The part where I have tiny humanoid beings growing in my body!"

Bracken grunted and placed his large, wide palm on my T-shirted abdomen, then closed his eyes.

"Holy mother of fuck!"

Bracken yanked his hand away as though burned. Green placed his own hand there, this time skin to skin, and the pain went away.

I caught my breath and looked at my due’alle accusingly. What did you do to me? I asked, almost in tears.

He sent me a look full of remorse—and stubbornness. In Brack, that was always a lethal combination.

You were being obstinate, he said unhappily. You know what being pregnant means. You even know how it happened—

I opened my mouth to protest, then remembered that pain. Green—Green—hadn’t reprimanded him for the pain. That told me more than I ever needed to know about me being a complete pain in the ass.

I overrode your wills, I said quietly, the pain adrenaline fading quickly. They’d told me this. In a moment of need—and an assertion of my independence, if I was being honest with myself—I’d lain with each one of them, and….

And won.

You know that moment in an argument—any argument—with a loved one, when you actually win?

And then you feel like shit for having forced the issue—because really, how important was it that you were right when you were, in fact, in a relationship based on love, trust, and being considerate of your lover’s feelings?

Yeah.

I’d had that moment.

I was right. I was fully capable of deciding who I would kill for and who I would die for, and that yes, I might have been the queen of the vampires and the ou’e’eir to the leader of all the supernatural creatures between Crescent City and Grapevine, but I was not too precious to risk myself when the cause was worthy.

Excellent.

I was right.

Do you know what being right gets you when you’re in bed with someone whose birth control depends on his will? Do you know what happens when you override that will with being right?

Apparently, it gets you knocked up.

And when you have two sidhe lovers, it gets you knocked up twice.

With one semester to go before your degree.

My degree. I was pregnant with twins, and I hadn’t graduated from college yet. Hur-fuckin’-rah! I was right!

You did, Green said quietly. He extended his arm, fully expecting me to cuddle, go boneless, to trust, but I couldn’t.

I turned miserable eyes to him. I’m sorry.

Don’t be, Bracken said, surprising me. I felt his hand in my hair tentatively. You… you were right, and we were being stubborn. But you’re pregnant now. And it’s not just you in there.

He flicked my head gently, and I managed a crooked grin. I’m pretty sure that’s not where they’re hanging out, I said softly. I looked at Green again, and he shook his head.

Pretty sure you’re right, he said, one corner of his wide, mobile mouth pulling up.

I took his offer of a hug then. I laid my head against his shoulder, then extended my arm so Bracken could do the same thing.

Just because I was right, I said, doesn’t mean I did the right thing.

It took me five hundred years to learn that, Green said in wonder. You’re doing very well.

Bracken nuzzled my cheek and, very carefully, put his hand on my abdomen again. I felt nothing but a little bit of hardness there, like I’d had a very full meal, except lower.

What did you do? Why did it hurt? I asked, half-afraid he’d put the pregnancy at risk in an effort to get through to me. I should have known better.

Just talked to it, he said. One of them shares my gift. It was painful to have us talk through your blood.

I noticed the way he said one of them. Elves did not pass down their own traits in the DNA. In fact, nobody really knew how elves and trait heredity really worked. Bracken’s parents were both lower fey. His mother was a pixie—three and a half feet of sex kitten with violet hair. His father was a redcap—same height, but built like the forgotten corner of a rock quarry.

Bracken was six feet six of beautiful, broad-shouldered, mostly smooth, pale-skinned, big-eyed sidhe perfection.

For all I knew, I was carrying a rock quarry and a pixie in my womb—but somehow I didn’t think so.

I blinked very slowly, wrestling with one thing at a time. Does that mean I’m going to bleed out every time I pop a zit? Yes, it was a gross analogy, but my skin hadn’t been this cluttered with acne since I was a junior in high school. Click. Oh, hell. Of course I was a big pimply mass of estrogen. Fucking Jesus—this was not going to get better.

No, Green said, his eyes meeting Brack’s. In fact, we’re pretty sure the other one has my healing power. We think it was, perhaps, the Goddess…. He trailed off delicately.

Trying to make sure I don’t die of my own stupidity?

The lingering tension that had been present since I’d first gaped at Green and said "Oh fuck no!" began to dissipate.

Not stupid, Corinne Carol-Anne, he said softly. Just very, very young.

I usually railed at that. I’d finally reached twenty-two, right? Hell, there was a time I didn’t think I was going to live past twenty—and given how many scary things had tried to kill me, getting here was quite an accomplishment.

But not now. I had never felt so young in all my life—not even the morning I’d woken up in Green’s arms and we’d realized that our vampire lover had died the night before, and it was the two of us alone and grieving.

I snuggled in more tightly, and Bracken got a little closer. His hand brushed my breast as he did so, and my nipple gave a little shriek of pain. I gasped but kept it to myself—because hey, what girl hadn’t endured a boob shot when snuggling with one of her ginormous husbands, right?

Bracken grunted and stared at me through eyes the color of a weedy, brackish pond in shadows. That hurt, he stated.

Yeah. The girls have been a little tender ever since Monterey….

Just that quickly a kaleidoscope of our adventure down by the sea flickered behind my eyes. In particular, there was the moment when Teague, our alpha werewolf, and his husband, Jack, passive-aggressive pain in my ass, had both teamed up to protect me.

"Oh hell. Was that why Jack decided to side with me? Because I’m pregnant?"

Dammit! Of all the…. I’d wanted to win Jack over with my leadership abilities, or with my ability to protect his lover, who was one of my captains and one of my best friends, or even with my friendship with their wife, Katy, whom I both adored and was dazzled by.

You have a problem with that? Brack asked curiously. Yeah, Brack’s brain worked along straightforward lines—as long as the result was that I was protected, he didn’t give a crap why.

I would have liked it if he’d just thought I was a good enough leader to serve, I grumbled. I mean, what’s a girl gotta do?

Bracken pulled out from under my arm, his eyes blazing. He ran a distracted hand through his dark hair, setting it on end like an angry hedgehog, and stared at me.

"That’s what you’re worried about? he asked, sounding outraged. Do you know how many dangerous, foolish things we did in Monterey? And you’re worried that Jack followed you for the wrong reasons?"

I shivered—which was one of the by-products of having an emergency field transfusion of his blood, which I didn’t remind him of, because hey—one more thing to be pissed at me for, right?

So instead of arguing, I actually thought about what he was saying. Then I wished I hadn’t.

’Cause, well, we’d jumped out of a helicopter to be caught by my magic and my magic alone, which was a first for me in the flying department. We’d stood up to a gigantic rabid wolf pack with nothing but exhausted, injured werewolves and a few tired Avian shifters as support, and I’d….

Oh God, I’d….

I’d been forced to mass kill again, when I’d sworn I’d never do that. Not on purpose. Not so soon after having to issue a death warrant on vampire children because they’d had the bad luck to be turned by a pedophile and would never be sane, never be safe, never be human again.

In my mind I went back to that moment, the lot of us trapped under the force field I’d erected out of magic and desperation in a back alleyway. We’d been just far enough from the sea for us to lose the smell of hope. The rogue wolves had been throwing themselves against it for what seemed like forever, and I’d been growing tired. I could make the shield lethal. I’d been able to kill with my power from the very beginning, but I just kept hoping they’d see sense, that they’d stop somehow, that I wouldn’t have to waste so many fucking lives….

And I’d been teetering between trying to fight our way out and simply making the shield enough to kill them all, when Teague—my captain, my right-hand man, my friend—had looked at me and whimpered. His back end had dropped then—as it should, since he’d been recovering from breaking every bone in his body less than a week before—and I’d seen it in his eyes.

Please.

His mates were there, Jack and Katy, and he wanted them to live.

Or that’s what I’d thought.

Instinctively I placed my hand over my lower abdomen, thinking of what we could have lost there. What Bracken had known I’d been risking.

You didn’t say anything, I whispered. I looked over my shoulder at Green. He was gazing at me levelly, with no apologies and no regrets.

No, Green said. He and Bracken were staring at each other as though they were reliving a terrible conversation of their own.

But— But why? Why would two men who had made my health and welfare their bloody science for the past two years not protest, not try to protect me, not try to talk me out of my own stupid pride when I had their children on board?

You never would have forgiven…. Bracken looked around the living room like he was looking for words. "Anybody! he burst out. Any of us. You, me, Green—hell, the children-to-be. And if, Goddess forbid, anything had happened to Teague, it would have been— He stood for a moment and flailed his arms. Cory-ageddon. You would have self-detonated. This whole… baby thing would have begun under a—"

A black karmic funk of epic proportions, I supplied, feeling a little queasy just thinking about it. Of course, since I’d been feeling queasy pretty much for the past two and a half weeks, that was no big news. But…. I could have died? Well, I could have died a lot of times in the last two years. I kept arguing that I would be fine—there were no promises, and my entire purpose was protection.

But….

Nothing.

I asked for this? Quiet revelations do sometimes sound like questions. I did. I… I said I knew best, and… and….

And we trusted you to know best, Green said quietly. We trusted you with you, and our children.

I closed my eyes, somewhat reassured. That’s…. But I couldn’t do it. Maturity had apparently gotten me into this mess. It was time for honesty to get me out.

"Terrifying!" I wailed, and then I dissolved into stupid tears on Green’s chest.

Bracken sighed and plopped behind me, and I cried until I fell asleep.

I remember saying once that I knew how bad things had been before I fell asleep based on how many people were in my bed when I woke up. The worse things were, the more people.

It was somewhat reassuring, then, to wake up and find Bracken—and Bracken only—sitting next to me, reading on his Kindle. (I had gotten him into the habit of romances when I’d been really sick once, and quite frankly, they’d been taking over our home. Since Green’s hill burrowed into the better part of a small mountain and our population kept growing, the e-reader was really a most awesome investment.)

I blinked for a second, disoriented by the nap, then tried to place the time, and then tried to place the entire feeling of wrongness around me.

Where’s Green? I asked muzzily. That should clear things up, right?

Getting reports from Arturo, he said cagily. Sidhe couldn’t lie—oh no they couldn’t—but they sure could tap dance around the truth like pros.

Something I should know about? I asked, eyes narrowed. Sidhe weren’t the only ones who could tap dance.

Probably, he admitted, setting his Kindle on the dresser and sliding down to put himself on my level. But you and me need to have a little talk first.

Everything inside me—heart, stomach, mood, blood sugar—all sort of sank down into despond in one go. We were going to talk about this now. Now.

What…. I stopped because his brow furrowed, and I held up my hand. Maturity, right? Okay, Brack? I don’t want to get into a big hairy argument, okay? I said quietly. "I mean, I just took a nap in the daytime, and my boobs hurt, and I’m probably going to have to eat in about five minutes because that’s how I’ve been running for the last two weeks, and I didn’t know why. Okay. Maybe not completely mature. Anyway, just tell me what you want. I mean… not in a bad way. But you want me to know something or acknowledge something. This is my fault—I get that."

He held up a finger, and I paused for breath.

Not your ‘fault,’ he said quietly. But go on.

I just… I need to know what you need from me so I can tell you if it’s something I can give.

His grim mouth twisted in the corners in what was almost a smile.

All right, he conceded. First of all, there is no blame here. Green and I didn’t see you grow up. It’s that simple. You kept trying to tell us—with words, with actions—and we didn’t see it. We know you better than that. We should have seen it. You needed something from us, and you took it.

I was wrong, I said. Because even when you’re right, winning for the sake of winning apparently didn’t do anybody any good. Wrong to force it. That’s… well, it’s sort of the opposite of what I was trying to prove, actually.

Then Bracken did a wondrous thing. He smiled.

Goddess, I love you, he said baldly. "You…. Just when I’m afraid we’re going to kill each other, you say or do or realize something, or make us see it, and we’re all right again. You asked me what I needed from you?"

Yeah?

Gently he reached out and traced the contours of my face. "Take care of yourself. Not just because of our children. Take care of you. Don’t do the safe things because of the babies, or because Green and I will worry. Do them because you have people who love you and make you happy. Do them because you have something glorious to look forward to. Stay safe and unharmed for the same reason you got pregnant. Because you deserve more than to live in pain or fear or frustration. Can you do that?"

I opened my mouth and then closed it.

All of the things…. It sounds easy, doesn’t it? But everything I’d done in my life that I was proud of, I’d done for them.

I, uhm…. I swallowed and sat up, crossing my arms.

Bracken sighed and followed me, leaning against the headboard. I thought of a piss-stupid question.

"Oh God. If Jack and Teague know—does Nicky know?" Nicky, my accidental lover, had become an integral part of our family—and one of my husbands. Nicky was an Avian shifter, and by a freak accident of preternatural magic, he’d become bonded to Green and me in a giant sexual energy explosion. We’d made the best of a bad situation, and all of us—Bracken included—had come to love Nicky. What the four of us did in our marriage bed was both sublime and unfettered by jealousy.

But it would totally suck for him if he was the last to know.

Oh yeah, Bracken snorted. He knew in Monterey—you almost gave him a heart attack.

Okay. So Nicky knew. Jack and Teague knew. Do the vampires know? They’d been sort of… squeamish about taking my blood lately, come think of it.

And Bracken was nodding slowly, an ironic smile on his face.

Fuck.

"So is there anybody who doesn’t know?" I asked, feeling a wave of complete mortification wash through me.

Bracken nodded. Your parents and Andres.

My eyes widened and I threw myself into the pillow next to me. I get dibs on telling Andres, I mumbled. The sexy vampire might finally stop macking on me once I got bloated and fat—although he might still mack on Bracken, and I could totally deal with that. Brack and I were bound—nobody outside our marriage bonds got to bed either one of us alone without possibly turning Bracken into a puddle of ectoplasmic goo. (The Goddess spells got weirder the longer you were in the community. That one always seemed particularly cruel.) But if I was there….

Well, I had been there—Bracken inside of me, Andres inside of him—and it had been lovely, and I’d never apologize