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Everard arrived a day and a half later, just as the sun was setting. He marched into Sebastian’s home without any announcement, made his way to the bedroom, and shooed out all the servants with little regard to their protests.
“He still lives, I see,” Everard noted as he inspected a haggard Peregrine. “That’s promising.”
“Can you fix him?” Sebastian asked, desperate past the point of rising to any of Everard’s barbs.
“Let me see.” Everard put one bare hand onto Peregrine’s pale brow. “He’s feverish. That probably means rot.” He lifted the blanket that covered Peregrine’s hips and made a face of disgust. “That smell is worrisome.” He moved Peregrine’s body so that he lay prone. The omega didn’t protest. He was entirely too weak.
“What ails him?” Sebastian asked. “None of it makes any sense.”
“There is rot inside of him,” Everard murmured. “His inner tissues are damaged, and it will require magic to fix. Quite a lot of it. He’s also lost far too much blood. I will need to get to work immediately to see if I can fix this, but I fear it might take a miracle.”
Sebastian’s heart bled, and as much as he did not want to ask, he had to know. “And the eggs?”
Everard lifted his gaze and looked Sebastian in the eyes, a pitying look on his face. “There are no eggs, brother. There never were. Now, leave me to work my magic. The babe is gone, but with some luck, I will be able to save your omega.”
20
Sebastian
Present Day
It was good to have the boys around. They all came and went, except for Arsaces, who had volunteered to temporarily move in to assist with the “adulting,” as he insisted upon calling it. Relying on one’s children did seem, at some level, to be wrong, but the part of Sebastian that needed to protect Perry at any cost welcomed the assistance. With Arsaces there to take on Sebastian’s other responsibilities, he was able to better focus on what mattered most—Perry and their whelps.
At five months into his pregnancy, Perry had begun to show. Sebastian could not remember a time when his pregnancy had been so pronounced, although he supposed it was possible that it had happened before. Whatever the case, it was not common, and it gave him hope that perhaps this time, it would be different, and nothing—not nature or crazed omegas—would take their child away.
On this particular day, Perry lazed in the atrium, reading Kafka’s TheMetamorphosis, while the children ran to and fro. Maximus, who was the largest of the bunch, had climbed onto Pake’s back. The massive tortoise plodded forward slowly, seemingly as delighted by the arrangement as the whelp who rode him. A pity he’d been too small to do it when their first clutch had been young—the whelps would have loved it, Sebastian was sure. Childhood in the 1500s was not as entertaining as it was today.
“Be careful of tiring Pake out, dear,” Perry called after Maximus as the tortoise carried him off. “He is quite old, you know, and may very well fall asleep if you push him too hard.”
“You’ve done it now,” Sebastian murmured in Perry’s ear as their seven other children rushed off in pursuit of their pet. “All the boys will want a turn. Poor Pake, having to ferry eight-year-olds around the atrium.”
“He loves it and you know it.”
Sebastian stroked Perry’s belly. “And soon he’ll have another to ferry. Do you think he’ll love this one, too?”
Perry’s cheeks went a pretty pink, and he slid his hand over Sebastian’s. “Yes,” he whispered, and kissed him sweetly. “I think he will love this one very much, too.”
The children had all left their line of sight, and by the sounds of their laughter, were rather far away. Sebastian took advantage of their absence, rekindling the kiss and fanning its flames until Perry gasped and pulled back. “Sebastian…”
“Yes?”
“We mustn’t.”
“Here, perhaps, but there are other rooms. The children are old enough that they can be left unattended for a short while.”
Perry glanced toward the last known location of their brood, then cozied up to Sebastian, sliding one of his legs down Sebastian’s thigh. “You are very naughty, Sir Dragon.”
“And you are incorrigible.”
Perry dimpled. “Quite. Now, are you going to keep telling me what a bad, bad boy I am, or are you going to capitalize on it?”
At that exact moment, there came a great many groans of disappointment from the boys. Perry, ever intuitive, wiggled away, and not a second too soon—the boys trudged by dejectedly a moment later.
“Why the long faces, dears?” Perry asked sweetly as they passed.
“Pake fell asleep,” pouted Elian, who looked most dejected of all. “Maximus was the only one who got to play.”
