“Thanks, girl,” I tell her and run my hand over her head. She rubs against me and then meows, saying I can thank her by cooking some turkey with a little bit of butter and salt. “Give me a minute.”
I get up and go straight to the bathroom, having to pee so bad it almost hurts, like I do almost every morning now. I showered last night and let my hair air dry like usual. For as little as I do with it, my hair is actually in great shape. I never apply heat to it since I use magic to style it, which definitely helps. I wash my face, put a few drops of my morning sickness potion in a glass, and fill it with water.
Curling my hair with magic, I go into my closet and get out one of the new maternity dresses. It was really hard to find solid black maternity clothes in the store, and this slate blue wrap dress is so far from my usual style. I put the ties through the loops in the side of the dress and pull it around myself, tied a bow to the side and above my belly. I look at myself in the floor-length mirror and shake my head.
“Who are you?” I whisper to myself and turn to the side, looking at my profile. I’ve popped seemingly overnight, and this dress highlights the bump even more. It’s still cold outside, and the last time I went into Novel Grounds, I kept my coat on, hiding the fact that I’m pregnant from two of our non-employees because I didn’t feel like explaining anything. Lucas is right that it’s none of their business, but I can’t really blame anyone for wondering how the fuck my vampire husband was able to get me pregnant.
I take my laptop from the top of my dresser, intent on finding some darker-colored dresses to get me through the rest of this pregnancy. I pretty much live in black leggings and over-sized sweaters in the winter and dresses in the warmer months when pants are optional.
Going down the rear stairs, I go straight to the kitchen and pull out the ground turkey to make breakfast for my familiars and Scarlet. I dish up their food and grab a muffin from the pantry, sitting at the island to online shop while I eat.
“You look lovely,” Lucas says, coming up behind me. “I like that color on you.”
“Thanks. I feel way too flashy in it, though.”
“Is that why you like to wear black?” he asks, tipping his head. “So you don’t stand out?”
“Maybe?” I say with a shrug. “I never really thought about it. I just like it. And it is good to wear when you’re sneaking around outside hunting demons at night.” I look at the dress. “It’s a pretty dress, and I do like the color, but I feel like everyone will stare at me in this thing.”
“They’ll stare at you in anything,” he says seriously. “And when they see that you’re pregnant, they are going to hate me for being the one who knocked you up. You are mine, after all.”
“Being pregnant is literally a walking advertisement that says we had sex!”
Lucas smiles and kisses my forehead. “I’m going to get back to work.”
“Okay,” I tell him and open my laptop. My landing page for the internet is a news site, and I usually go right to Google. I should change it so that’s my landing page, but I’m lazy and this works. I’m about to click off when an article catches my eye.
“Oh fuck.”Chapter 29“Holy fuck,” I mutter again, not able to click over to the news outlet’s site fast enough. The article loads, and I click play on a video clip of a pretty news anchor standing along Navy Pier. The wind whips her hair around, and waves hit the pier, spraying cold water into the air.
“I’m here, where witnesses say a man climbed from the water and onto the pier. As you can see, the water is choppy today with an undertow warning. If it was warm enough to swim, beaches would be closed.” The camera pans in on the water. “A lot of people don’t realize how dangerous Lake Michigan is. There’s a deadly undertow that has claimed the lives of even the strongest of swimmers.” I lean back, hand going to my face, and watch, unblinking.
“You’ve got to see this,” I tell my familiars, who jump up on the counter and look at the computer. The news anchor starts interviewing someone who was there at the time.
“He was sopping wet,” the woman says, and the shock is still there on her face. “And he had chains wrapped around him like…you know…” Her eyes get really wide. “He’d been dumped in the water.” She shakes her head and looks right at the camera. “I’m telling you, he wasn’t human.”