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I don’t know why, but something about the way Shannon says that has me going still.Takes some time…
“What about us?” I’m not rude enough to point out that she doesn’t look like she’s carrying any kind of demon baby, either. So unless she only just found out she is… “How far along are you?”
“Best guess?”
I nod.
“Just about a year.”
“A year?” I squeal. “You’ve been pregnant for ayear?” Wait a second. If she’s been pregnant for a year and she’s still expecting to show, then… “How long before the baby is here?”
“You want another guess?”
Honestly? I’m not so sure I do anymore. “Just tell me.”
“Demonesses are pregnant for three years. Since we’re half human, I’m hoping this baby gets the eviction notice somewhere around eighteen months or so, but I won’t know until then.”
My jaw drops.
Shannon nods. “Lucky me, right? I figure I got knocked up my first time with Mal even though I only just found out a couple of months ago myself.” Shannon gives a two-finger salute to my ceiling. “Thanks for that, gold moon.”
Gold moon? “What do you mean? What does the gold moon have to do with any of this?”
“Don’t you have your mate’s essence? I mean, you’ve gotta or else there wouldn’t be a li’l Loki on the way.” Shannon pauses, then cocks her head, her ponytail settling over her shoulder. “Really? That’s his name? Not a nickname like I gave Mal?”
I nod. Loki’s name—despite me having a similar reaction when I heard—is the last thing on my mind right now. Because Shannon was right. Idohave Loki’s essence. True, I’ve learned it’s better not to delve too deeply into his memories in case I see what it’s like when he was lost in the shadows on the edge of Sombra. Now that he’s slowly becoming the male he was before he banished himself out there, those memories are fresh and new and full of love for me. I prefer those, and when I search them for any mention of the gold moon, all I get are flashes of the gold light splashed across my naked body as we mate… and a sudden headache that has me rubbing my temple.
Weird.
Shannon thinks so, too. “You okay, Kennedy?”
No. “I’m fine. And if Loki knows about the gold moon, it’s not anything he passed on to me.”
“I’m not surprised. I used to think of the essence swap like a download of Mal right into my brain. I know better now. If Mal thinks something is common knowledge, then it isn’t important enough to imprint on his essence. Same for me. Even after a year with him, we’re still having miscommunications here and there.” Leaning forward, concern in her petty blue eyes even as a teasing look flashes across her face, she pats my knee. “Remind me to tell you about Mal’s first Christmas with me and just what he thought a Santa Claws was.”
I don’t know Shannon all that well. She was a repeat customer who I ended up stealing from, whether I meant to or not. And while she’s acting like we’re old buddies, trying to comfort me in her own way, I’m barely listening to her right now.
Oh, no. I’m too hung up on something she said before—and the way my headache vanished as suddenly as it came.
And that’s not all. The bond I have with Loki, the tie that tells me that he’s on the other side always… it’s suddenly dim, like he knows I’m struggling to process my emotions and he’s giving me space.
I can’t sense him. For the first time since our eyes mate and our bond snapped into place, he’s gone.
I almost get up to go to him. Only Shannon’s expectant expression and the way she keeps saying ‘year’ like that has me staying in my seat, still stroking Freya’s tail.
A year. She keeps saying a year. I didn’t correct her before because I’m trying to come to grips with the little surprise that I’m freakingpregnant, but I don’t understand how she could be with her Sombra demon for a year now if it’s only been six months or so since I sold her the grimoire?
But then she mentions Christmas andthatcatches my attention. Beneath her comforting pat, my whole body goes rigid.
Christmas is in December. When I was in Jericho last, it was May. Add that to the fact that I’m the one who sold Shannon theGrimoire du Sombrain the first place and that was only… four months ago? I haven’t really kept track of how many days have passed here in the demon world—I gave up shortly after we came to stay in Nuit—but I distinctly remember seeing four, maybe five gold moons rising up over the shadows.
In Nuit, it’s always an event. The reddish-black moon is constantly out, the only source of light we have, but once a cycle, the gold moon begins to rise. It takes about three days from start to finish, and when it’s at its highest, even the ash fields on the far side of Nuit glitter with the color. It doesn’t do anything to quench the constant heat. In fact, when the gold moon is out, we all experience a different kind of heat.
And, suddenly, I think I know what Shannon is trying to tell me.
“The gold moon… is it some kind of aphrodisiac here in Sombra or something?”
“You could say that. Only it doesn’t just affect the bonded couples who live on this plane. If they’re on Earth like Mal and me, it does the same thing. Obvious,” she adds, nodding her chin at her nonexistent belly. “And while it gets us going, that’s only ‘cause the whole point of these demons finding their one true mate is to start a family. You have sex on the night of the gold moon, it doesn’t matter how good your birth control is. If you’re bonded, you’re as good as pregnant.”
