As the children were already at breakfast and eager to meet their new friends, Damon offered, "I can take them; you don't need to."
I replied, "I'll handle this. You check the kitchen, talk with Charles, and Five and Seven can take care of the shopping, so I'll go straight to my shop after dropping the kids off."
Mariella then asked, "Can I come with you? You can drop me at my shop, and then we can get the kids together."
Damon nodded, adding, "Actually, that's a good idea. You two can work only those four hours and come home with the kids, and I hope we'll have things a bit more in order here by then."
He then brought the next set of smoothies over to me.
I couldn't eat any meat, but the smoothies were somewhat helpful. I wasn't as skinny as I could be, not yet, but according to the Salvatores, if I continued eating like a "damn sparrow," I would lose a lot of weight. So, when we got home, we would eat and then assess the situation. Damon was already ready to accompany me and Wulfe to my next doctor's appointment.
Sadie had chosen a pink frilly shirt, jeans, and white sneakers. The twins wore different dresses, while Dash, who was a tiny Damon, had on black jeans and a white shirt. Darien wore white pants and a light green shirt. Amber was in a yellow dress with red flowers, Tiffany had a red dress with white hearts, and Candice wore a violet dress with pink swirls.
The men were fixing their hair while they ate. The babies would eat a little later, as the men would feed them. They had already had their morning milk and were milling about in the living room. However, since mornings with the children were hectic, especially on days they had daycare, we had arranged for the babies to eat at a different time.
Damon muttered to himself, "This is chaos, utter chaos. I mean, there's so much to do, and who does what? How on earth did you manage these past few weeks while we were away?"
I simply smiled and said, "Take it easy. Don't try to do everything at once; focus on getting things done in order. You're not alone. This is a pack, so each of us has our own duties and things to do. It's busy, sure, and chaotic, well, what do you expect when dealing with me? But it's lovely, I must say."
He grumbled something under his breath as he finally managed to fix Sadie's hair.
I told Mariella through our mother hive, "Now, do you want the little rescue or the healing project? As you mentioned, Number One has triggers that might make him lash out. Well, Number Eight is a thousand times stronger; he snaps necks and drinks you dry. So, be careful around him, but perhaps you can sense something in him."
Mariella glanced at Number One, and it was evident she was relaying my words to him.
Just as I had planned, Damon walked over and sat beside me.
"I'll handle Eight first," he said. "You two are pregnant, so no taking risks here. If he's that volatile, perhaps a little man-to-man talk would help. I'll chat about this with Wulfe, too."
Mariella pursed her lips, dissatisfied, as she was itching to try and help him or them. She simply wanted to see their reaction, unsure if I had been honest or had exaggerated.
Damon then announced, "You two will be under scrutiny. Just for you, a C-section will be the only delivery method for both of you, and it will occur around weeks 30-33. There will be no arguments. You see, darling, it's a lot easier to tend to eight healthy, tiny infants in incubators, growing, than to manage eight stressed, slightly larger but potentially sick babies, with one sedated for a week, plus two sick mothers. So, there's no chance of that happening this time. We will monitor you closely, take samples from the placenta, and run very broad infection panels. You two will be protected for a week or two before the surgery."
His voice had once again shifted to Dr. Damon's tone, meaning no arguments, as he wouldn't even listen to them. He had stated this earlier, but he wanted to ensure this was a done deal and that this time he wouldn't back down or venture into anything other than caring for us.
I wasn't sure how many times Mariella had truly been treated by Dr. Damon, not just the loving, worried husband, but Dr. Damon himself. This got me idly thinking about the first time I had truly realized just how merciless he could be. Hmm, hard to say. I started going through our history, our first encounter and moving forward from there, recalling how he was one of my doctors. I tried to pinpoint the exact time or case that had taught me the merciless nature of healing by Dr. Damon.
Mariella muttered something about over-concerned husbands prone to near hysteria. This prompted a sharp glance from Number One, and something telepathic was exchanged between them, causing Mariella to fall silent. There was an expression on Damon's face that I had not really seen much, and it got me wondering what he was thinking. I was not going to probe our bond too much; he would surely tell me if he wanted.
The expression was a mix of self-realization, almost shame, and something else. And it had something to do with Mariella. So it seemed whatever self-pondering he had done in the past had yielded some results, and he was now reeling them in. And I, his wife, was unable to help him right now, as I had no fucking clue what was going on in his head.
It was number five who said to me as I was still eating, "Baby, as you come home, then we have magic books ready for babies, so you get them to give us all the hints, tips, and information on who likes what and what are dislikes. So we can then plan those lunch bags better and give them the best nutrition, even if it is a so-called snack, as our metabolism there is no such thing as just a snack, and those are growing children. So it takes a few hours for us to make the books, and as you are working, we have time."
This time, I rolled my eyes. Sure, this was family life, but having ten dominant, overbearing husbands flooding into my kitchen, interfering with my routine while I was pregnant, was hardly ideal for me, knowing my usual attitude and sassiness, which was no less this time.
But I had to get ready to take the kids and Mariella and go back to work. Just daily, I thought about what my life would be like after this. How in hell's name could I go back to being a fearless leader and do what I had to do? When this was so damn perfect, but I had time left, and maybe, just maybe, what might seem perfect now might lose its luster over the years. And if the babies and kids continued to grow this fast, it meant we would have a nice collection of teens with a few years' age gap by the end of this, and I might just have it to that point.
My first set of five was now two years and six months old, while the next set was eight months, and a new batch was already on the way. They did grow much faster than human children; consequently, the first set was nearly equivalent to over three-year-old humans. The babies were just beginning to walk, so several months ahead.
If this accelerated development accumulated into years, it would take thirteen years in total, and we were currently in year three, with ten years left. Put crudely, we would be screwed. Damon looked at me as if he had snatched my idea, performing his own mental calculations.
He then said aloud, "Well, if we base the oldest being right now, like three years and three months, or a bit older developmentally, meaning they would gain something like three months surplus per year, it would take the next ten years at least thirty months. And it might accelerate, so over two years older than they originally are, meaning they would be about fifteen to seventeen. But we will see it then."
Mariella remained silent, then confessed, "I am not sure I can live with eight hormone-driven teenagers for long."
Damon smirked, looking down at her, "Add your six, my love. They are now about ten months, maybe a bit more, so they would be at least fourteen years old."
Mariella muttered, "God help us all."
I was silent but smiled at Mariella's almost desperate tone.
It was Number Four who spoke to Mariella, "If there are my children in the mix, I want names like Heidi, Maria, or Cynthia for girls, and for boys, hmm, Frankie, Jonathan, or William."
Mariella was quiet.
Number One looked at me and asked, "Do you have ideas for ours, baby?"
I let out my breath and answered calmly, "Of course, I have been rolling names around in my mind, but I am not yet sure about them. Daniella and Danielle. Fiona and Violet. Christy and Zara. For boys, hmm. Liam, Brian, Connor, Danny, Rex, Owen, Nate, so yes, and many more. But I have no idea just yet. For me, they are still my little lemons inside me, no names just yet."
Damon was quiet for a moment, then said, "Thanks, my love. You have given me an idea, and I shall also think about this. Let's see what we two can come up with at some point."
I had already finished eating and was preparing to get up and take my dishes, but Damon got them first. He took them, carried them, and put them in the machine while Number Three helped Mariella. I was idly pondering how to get him back a bit, as I didn't need quite so much TLC right now.
I had also been experiencing a constant, mild headache because Wulfe had once again placed several spells in my mind. As I had recently reminisced, there were things to deal with. However, not all of it was bad; some of it was just nostalgic longing, a normal missing for those I had lost.
I recalled our good times, and as I took a deeper breath, I detected a slight hint of pink peppercorns coming from Number One and Number Two. This indicated jealousy, or rather, it was a scent in their pheromone cocktail telling me this. It made me roll my eyes internally.
This meant he was all over me because he was jealous, likely having witnessed my good times with my core group, whom I had lost, in memories. His pheromone cocktail, a heady scent of sharp, pungent passionfruit, the smell of wild jungle winds, burning forests, a hint of the deep sea's waves, and a bit of strawberry, now had an undertone of those peppercorns and a bit of popcorn.
This told me about his need for care and his protective side, which emerged more strongly when he smelled of popcorn. If he leaned more towards Dr. Damon's side, there would be a hint of metal. Of course, there might be other undertones. My brain deciphered all of this automatically, providing me with information about his current mental state. It didn't mean I knew everything, but I knew a lot.
What I hadn't told anyone, not even Wulfe, was that Colin had spoken to me before this time began. He had mentioned wanting, one day, to arrange a special room with specific pheromones and map my brain with a certain type of scanner to delve even deeper into the neurophysiology of pheromones. He had hinted that he might discuss this with Samuel as well, despite Samuel focusing mainly on infections. However, this was a new area that no doctor had ever studied, and Samuel had ideas about it.
This little snippet was in my mind, and one of Wulfe's spells found its way there. This made Wulfe look sharply at me.
As was his current modus operandi, he didn't ask permission and coldly sent this idea to Number Four, who once again looked at me like a hound dog and said out loud, "Well... This is an interesting study, and we can certainly try something. While I'm not sure if our scanners are what's needed, if Damn Ferrel thinks he'll be the only one studying this, he's sorely mistaken."
Number one and two exchanged a telepathic glance, and the mood in the kitchen became significantly more charged. Number four was deep in thought. Despite the many salvatores I'd taught them in the art of pheromones, they were always eager to learn more, so I simply assigned them another project to handle. Fine.
However, it was soon time to pick up the kids, work a few hours, and then continue with our family life, week by week, to see what kind of life we could build. I also realized that perhaps, just perhaps, all the drama, troubles, and crises we had experienced until now had been necessary.
Maybe we needed to grow into this role, into this family, and now we were at a true starting point, beginning our lives as a real family for the next ten years, with the past few years serving as a sort of rehearsal. Well, one can never know for sure, right?