Page 70 of Sold Rejected Mate
“Shit,” Lachlan says, glancing down the hallway and toward the sound of the loud screaming. “Why didn’t anyone tell me labor could move this fast?”
“Because you would have built a hospital in your backyard,” Felix says, plopping into a chair and kicking his legs out. “And that would totally ruin the cabin’s vibe.”
Nora sits in a chair next to Kalen, calmly reading a book about marine biology while her uncle looks nervously down the hall.
“It doesn’t sound good, does it?” he asks, glancing first at Nora, then at us.
“Well, don’t look at me,” I say as Lachlan helps to lower me into a chair. “I’m not there yet, remember?”
“Mom is at nine centimeters,” Nora says, looking up from her book. “And I’m pretty sure that’s totally normal. Have you never watched TV?”
“I liked it better when you were sweet,” Kalen gripes to her, sitting back in his seat and letting out a long sigh.
“Well, I liked it better when you weren’t so anxious,” Nora retorts before going back to her book.
I roll my swollen ankles, trying to relieve some of the pressure, and Lachlan reaches down automatically, picking up my foot and dropping it in his lap.
“Maybe this isn’t the right time,” Soren says to us when we’ve been sitting in the waiting room for almost an hour, “but I’ve been thinking about something. And I wanted to run it by you.”
“Not like I’m doing anything else,” Lachlan says, then glances at me. “Unless you need something?”
A flush climbs my cheeks at his obvious devotion, at the way Felix rolls his eyes in the chair next to him.
“I’m okay, thank you,” I reply, closing my eyes, leaning back, and listening to Soren and Lachlan as they talk.
“I know we had that little flare-up the night the factory caught,” Soren says, his voice low. “But—did you notice anything about the fires?”
“You mean the fact that there haven’t been any?” Lachlan asks. “I mean, yeah, we’ve literally got that counter on the wall.”
After Lachlan and I had everything squared away, I had to meet with Xeran again to go over everything that happened after Lucian took me. I told him about the strange extractor thing they had, about what they said to me.
As far as I know, Xeran has been working hard to find the “dealer” they were going through, but he’s not sure he’ll be able to. Apparently, the market for daemonic energy is steep and greedy, and there are a lot of people trying to get their hands on it.
And once that meeting was over, Lachlan insisted I relax. That this pregnancy was going to be the best nine months—more like seven and a half, at that point—of my life.
He’s been true to his word, waiting on me hand and foot. Even getting up to take care of the chickens, which fares well for when the baby comes.
“Right,” Soren says now, drawing me out of my thoughts. “I guess I just—do you really think it was Xer’s brothers this whole time?” For a second, I feel Soren’s gaze land on me, then return to Lachlan. “After the first one, I mean.”
Lachlan is quiet for a moment, then he says, “I mean, it was Declan for a while. For the whole insurance thing. And,based on what they said to Valerie, Dallas, Farris, and Tanner needed another revenue stream, I guess.”
“But what was starting the fires?” Soren asks. “What does that have to do with getting the energy itself?”
“I think when they were pulling it out,” I say, opening an eye and looking at Soren, “it was getting loose. Some of it, at least. Enough to start the fires, keep them going.”
Soren pauses for a moment like he’s thinking. “I just wish we could have interrogated them. Learned more about those machines. I can’t shake the feeling that we’re just waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
“That’s called PTSD,” Lachlan says. “From a decade of wildfires. I think it’s okay to remain on our guard, but also just accept that sometimes shitty people do shitty things. All that shit was causing the fires—those weird marks on the trees were from that machine. Now that they’re gone, we can probably relax.”
“Right,” Soren says, pausing, then opening his mouth again. “But what—”
But at that moment, a nurse appears, clapping her hands together with joy. “The luna would like to announce a happy and healthy birth.”
Kalen is the first up, practically running, and Lachlan stands up gently, taking my hands and helping me to my feet. Before we turn to go down the hallway, he says to Soren, “Just learn to accept a good thing, alright, man?”
“Right,” Soren says, but he doesn’t sound quite convinced. “Sure.”
“We’re not really supposed to allow this many visitors,” the nurse says as we all push into the hospital room. “But anything for the luna.”
