Sold To The Dragons (A BBW Paranormal Romance Book 1) (19 page)

I had to admit, she had a point. Even though my next cycle was due the next day, I knew there really wasn't any good reason for me to wait even that long in a state of what I was sure would be high anxiety.

And so, I soon sent Blake and Steven a text, asking them to both meet me at the royal medical clinic when they had a chance.

*

Blake and Steven actually showed up at the royal medical clinic even before I did. They were waiting in the lobby when I arrived, their faces near-identical masks of concern blended with anticipation. I imagined their expressions probably mirrored my own. They were also both a little pale, like I was certain I was. Before I'd left her at her own doctor's clinic just down the corridor, Marielle had said I looked white as a sheet and reminded me to take deep, slow, steadying breaths. A task I was finding just a bit difficult.

Everything happened pretty fast. Maybe even much faster than I would have liked. While Blake and Steven waited just outside, I underwent a brief physical examination in a spacious, well-lit room. I then was asked to go into a bathroom within the room and provide a urine sample and I then had a sample of my blood taken. The whole thing took less than ten minutes. Then, I got dressed, Dr. Clark, a smiling woman with long gray hair wound into a bun, left, and Blake and Steven entered the exam room, both of them even paler than they'd been earlier. We both sat in comfortable, upholstered chairs while we waited for the doctor to return, as she said she'd do within minutes. They each held one of my hands.

Seconds ticked by like hours. The three of us didn't speak. We all just kind of fixed our gazes on different things around the room. Steven tapped his foot almost imperceptibly. Blake drummed the fingers of his free hand on his left knee. Periodically, they both squeezed my hands.

After a minute or two, we all just about jumped out of our skins when their phones went off with text alerts at the same time. They both looked at their phone screens and they exchanged glances. Stupidly, my first thought was that Dr. Clark had for some strange reason decided to text the result of my pregnancy test. I feared that this situation was confusing me and I was beginning to not think straight.

But within a second, I realized it hadn't been the doctor texting. And likely, it had been Tom. I wasn't sure how, but I just knew. Maybe just because it had always seemed to me in life that everything always happened at once. Answers to different questions were always received at the same time. And Tom was long overdue, it sure felt like, to issue a decision when it came to me helping in the fight against The Destroyers, whenever that would be. He'd been on a scouting mission around the perimeter of Ashcrest that morning, in dragon form, so he hadn't attended the council meeting that Blake and Steven had left when I texted them. So, he surely had no idea about where we were, or what news we were waiting to hear.

After they'd both put their phones away, Steven frowned, making me think I might be hearing the answer I'd been wanting. However, Blake's expression was somewhat unreadable, making me not so sure. But when he took my hand again and gave it a little squeeze, I knew. I knew he was about to tell me good news.

"That was Father. He said you're to be allowed to help in the fight by shooting arrows from the castle windows, if that's what you still want to do."

I gasped, surprising even myself with my sudden outburst of surprise and joy. But not a moment later, Dr. Clark entered the room, and another wave of surprise rippled through me. Though this one was a quieter, softer sort of ripple somehow, yet more profound at the same time. I felt as if something had quaked through me to my very core.

Dr. Clark was smiling. Which she'd been doing before, when we'd met and talked briefly. But now, her smile was different. It was even a bit wider, and her large brown eyes were twinkling just a bit more. And I knew. I just knew. I knew several seconds before she even said it. I was pregnant. I was actually pregnant.

Marielle had been right. It was simply stunning, in a word. Blake exhaled in a rush immediately after Dr. Clark delivered the news, and Steven stifled some half-strangled-sounding exclamation of surprise. But I just sat there, trembling. I managed a smile when they each kissed me on the cheek. And then Dr. Clark spoke again.

"Now, of course, it'll take a bit longer for us to run the test for paternity. Though not too much longer. An hour, maybe. I'll get started on things right away." She once again broke into a smile. "I'll be calling you, Mom, myself, and then you can deliver the news to Dad when you're ready."

Mom
.
Dad
. I was starting to feel like I was in a dream, though a very good one. Just one that was going to take some getting used to. And just one that was going to have me, as well as Blake and Steven, I was sure, on pins and needles for the next hour or two.

After congratulating us, grinning, Dr. Clark left the exam room. Blake, Steven, and I took the elevator back up to my apartment on the fifteenth floor of the castle.

Blake had just closed the door behind us when my phone went off with a text alert. The text was from Marielle. Unbelievably, she was pregnant, too. She and Alec had gotten their news just minutes before, probably at the exact same time that Blake, Steven, and I had been getting ours. After laughing briefly, almost in disbelief, I quickly texted her back, congratulating her and Alec and telling her that my test had been positive, too.

Not more than three seconds after I'd sent the message, Blake and Steven's phones began going off with text alerts, seemingly faster than they could both even scroll through their texts. At first, I thought that maybe news had traveled incredibly fast, and they were getting congratulatory messages from friends. But very, very soon, deep frowns on each of their faces told me that this wasn't the case.

Then Blake took a call, listened briefly, and hung up without saying a word. After exchanging glances with Steven, he looked at me, furrowing his dark brows. "They're coming. The Destroyers. Our scouts just caught sight of a group of hundreds of them, maybe even thousands, flying toward the city at great speed. So, it's now time. Steven and I will immediately go to mobilize the army with our father. And of course, considering the recent news, we'll more than understand if you've changed your mind about-"

"No. No, I haven't at all. I'm still going to help. My longbow is propped up in the hallway, ready to go, and I'm ready myself. Ready as I'll ever be, anyway."

Steven grabbed my hands, his expression pleading. "I'm begging you not to do this. Right now, all the other women in the castle are slamming all the windows shut, and-"

"I'm not all other women. I'm about to fling the living room windows open, because I have to. I
have
to, Steven."

His and Blake's phones both began going off again with incoming calls, and Blake more or less shoved him aside and took my hands in his own.

"Remember, shut the windows if any dragon fire gets too near, or if any Destroyers get too near, themselves, period."

  I nodded. "I will. I promise. I'll shut the windows."

"Good." He took my face in his hands and planted a rough kiss on my mouth. "I love you, and I believe in you. I'll see you again, hopefully not before too long."

I nodded again. "Be safe. Promise you'll come back to me in one piece."

"I will. I promise you that."

After one final kiss, he dashed out the door, calling for Steven to follow. And after giving me a hasty kiss and telling me he loved me, Steven did, after a couple of backward glances, his expression agonized.

And then, I was alone. I locked the door, as if a Destroyer would actually be coming in that way, but it just made me feel better. Not that I was feeling necessarily bad at all, though. I was honestly feeling pretty confident. Really, everything couldn't have worked out more perfectly. From me having enough time to improve my archery skills, to Tom eventually giving his consent for me to use those skills, and not a moment too soon, I could hardly have planned everything any better if I'd tried.

Even including my pregnancy. Now, knowing it was do or die time, so to speak, I felt a little extra motivation to try my best and take out as many Destroyers as I possibly could. Not that I'd really even needed any extra motivation in the first place.

While the skies darkened outside, I opened two of the largest living room windows. One faced the west, and the other the north. It was only then I realized that I had no idea what direction The Destroyers would be coming in from. Blake hadn't said, and I hadn't thought to ask. However, I figured that once the battle really got going, the fighting would probably be taking place on all sides of the castle, so it really wouldn't matter. There would also be the option for me to shoot from the kitchen windows, which faced east.

After getting my bow and my bag of arrows, I went to stand by one of the living room windows, experiencing just a slight wave of nausea. Though, to my relief, it passed within a minute or so. For what felt like at least a dozen times that day, a little ripple of something electric rippled through me while I thought about the cause of my nausea, which I now knew for sure wasn't chicken left unrefrigerated too long. I was going to be a mother. And I was about to prove that I was fit to do the job.

I was about to prove that I was brave and bold, able to overcome any and all fear and just
act
. At the very, very least, I wasn't going to allow myself to freeze up in complete cowardly panic like I had the last time I'd been within a few thousand feet of a Destroyer.

Soon Marielle called, asking if I was all right. I said that I was, then asked her the same thing.

She chuckled, though not quite as heartily as usual. "Well, I'm okay. Though just so nauseated and dizzy I can barely even stand. Something just tells me this might be a more difficult pregnancy than my first. But, of course I'm over the moon anyway, though I'll be grateful when this attack of sick feeling passes. I'm down here on the ground floor library, where I'm resting on one of the couches. And where I think I'll remain for however long the battle lasts. Alec is escorting his mother and Ava over here right now to keep me company as we speak."

She went on to ask if I was sure I didn't want to join them, and I said completely sure.

"I wouldn't miss what's about to happen for the world. I feel confident, and I feel ready. Now I just want The Destroyers to hurry up and get here."

We soon hung up after making each other promise to call frequently to check in.

For the next half-hour, I paced over the jewel-colored rugs covering the stone floor of the living room. Periodically, I glanced out the windows, looking for any sign of The Destroyers flying in with their red war paint-smeared faces. But the only dragon shifters I saw were Ashcrest's own, mobilizing for battle and lifting into the air, mighty wings flapping.

Looking through a pair of binoculars, I even caught sight of Blake and Steven. They were two of the largest Ashcrest dragons, and like all the others, their scaly hides were the same color as their eyes while in human form. Blake's hide was a coal-gray, and Steven's a deep, dark blue, almost navy.

I watched them, along with the rest of the army, for a while before going back to my pacing, bow in hand and bag of arrows on my back. Somewhat to my surprise, I began to feel like the simple act of pacing was helping to keep my nerves at bay because I just wasn't getting any.

A few butterflies of anticipation maybe, but nerves, as far as the anxious, scared kind, no. Obviously wanting this feeling to continue, I just kept putting one foot in front of the other, walking the length of the spacious room before turning back and heading the other way. I was essentially marching, as if ready to lead an army of my own.

I eventually became so engrossed in my task that it took me a moment or two to even register what was happening when I heard loud roaring coming from outside. The battle had begun. And without me having even seen The Destroyers make their entrance.

Now my heart finally began hammering. Though I still wasn't scared. Just eager to help. Just eager to show my own self what I was made of.

After dashing over to the east side window, beyond which several hundred Destroyers were charging a similarly large group of Ashcrest dragons. Both groups were already breathing fire, and the whooshing noises the act made began rising above the sound of roaring.