Page 81 of The Dragon's Perfect Omega
I hurried to his side. "I'm sorry. I came as fast as I could." And he couldn't even have been here long, but I guess my mother hadn't been kidding when she said things were going quickly. "I'm also sorry that I had to abandon the groceries. I know you really wanted that ice cream."
"I really don't care about ice cream right now!"
"You don't care about ice cream? Impossible," I tried to joke with him, taking his hand. "You've been wanting to eat nothing but since you came here."
"That's because the temperatures on this island are fucking ridicu—aah, Oh God, I'm going to die." He squeezed my hand—hard.
"Give me another push," the doctor instructed.
Zim only huffed.
I kissed his forehead. "You're not going to die. You're going to get through this. And then we'll have two beautiful children. You just gotta pull through this."
"And push," the doctor said, as if to add to my words.
My mate groaned, sweat running down his face. I hated seeing him in pain. Sadly, there was no way around it, but maybe I could distract him at least a little bit. "I bought you a prized melon," I told him.
"A what?" He shot me a confused look. Clearly he had no idea what I was talking about, orwhyI was talking about it at all, but I thought it worked to take his focus off his suffering at least for a second, so I just went on.
"I found it in the grocery store. It was huge." I gestured with my free hand. "There was a sign saying it had won a prize at a fair for how huge it was."
"I'm pretty sure whatever I'm pushing out of me right now is bigger," Zim claimed in between labored breaths.
A short laugh escaped me but then I bit my lips when Zim glared at me.
"Do dragons have freakishly huge babies or something? Someone should have warned me. Goddamnit."
"Freakishly huge melons? Yes. Freakishly huge babies? No."
"Stop talking about melons!"
"Okay, okay. I could tell you about milk instead? I spilled milk all over my foot when the grocery bag broke."
Zim only looked at me as if he couldn't believe that I was being serious, or that he'd let me put two babies in him.
"Let me guess, you don't want to hear about milk either?"
He shook his head, and then he squeezed my hand again while my mind raced trying to come up with the next thing to say.
"Almost there!" the doctor say.
Zim only gave a strangled cry in response.
"Have we settled on names?" I asked him.
"Yeah." He glared at me again. "Yesterday. Remember?"
"Sorry, no, I forgot," I lied. I didn't mind if he got mad at me if that gave him something other than his discomfort to think about. "What are we calling these kids again?"
"Mason and... Lucas... or..." He paused to breathe. "Teagan and Sage if they're girls."
"What if we have one of each?"
Zim didn't respond to that question, his face contorting in pain. I glanced at the doctor, about to ask how much longer this was going to take—when I heard the cry of a newborn.
"We have a little girl!"
My eyes snapped to the baby. It wasn't freakishly huge, but from where I stood, freakishly beautiful, even before the nurse took the little one to clean her up. "Did you hear that?" I turned back to Zim. "We have a daughter!"
