Pregnant With Alpha’s Genius Twins

#Chapter 235 – The Forest’s Parting Gift

We get to work, then, all of us. The boys gather firewood while I check our supplies in the tent. They

went untouched by wildlife by some continued magic with which the forest blessed us. I gather some

dried meats and granola bars to supplement the forest’s gifts and head back to the fire circle where

Victor is coaxing a tentative flame to life.

I sit down comfortably next to him, watching him work.

“After this,” I consider aloud. “I wonder if we’ll to never camp again, or if we’ll want to go camping every

weekend. We’re either going to be totally burned out or obsessed.”

Victor glances at me and then towards our sons, each stumbling towards us with their arms full of dry

branches. “I think with those two, we’re going to tend towards obsessed.”

“Yes, but I am the Luna now,” I say, setting my shoulders and sitting up primly. “And I may decide that I

am an indoor sort of girl –“

Victor laughs, sitting back and looking towards the newly-kindled fire. “But you’re outnumbered,” he

says.

I look at my boys and narrow my eyes. “Alvin can be persuaded. I can feel it. Then it will be fifty-fifty,

and swing vote goes to the Luna.”

Victor gives me a grin as the boys drop the firewood next to us. “Now you’re just making up rules.”

“Yes,” I say, raising my chin. “And you must follow them all blindly, as is my Luna right.”

“I want to make up the next rule!” Alvin shouts, setting us off on a new conversational bender that turns

into a game where each of us makes up a rule in turn that everyone has to follow. We’re almost

collapsed in laughter a few hours later, tied up in knots between Ian’s rule that everyone has to talk like

a monster and Alvin’s that everyone has to sing their sentences to the tune of their favorite pop song.

We pass a sweet evening this way, Victor and I curled against each other while our children gambol

before the fire, playing and laughing and shouting at each other and us in turn. We all eat our fill from

our supplies, no longer worried about making them last, and from the little forest fruit bundle which

seems to continue replenishing itself no matter what we take.

I think I eat about five tiny apricots, each sweet and tangy and full of juice. “How did the forest even

make these,” I murmur to Victor, biting into my sixth. “They won’t even be in season until May.”

“Maybe the forest has a magical greenhouse,” he mumbles sleepily against my hair, not really caring if

he makes sense. “And the ghosts tend it as a hobby.”

“Probably,” I sigh contentedly, taking another bite. As I chew I think, passively, about the last time I had

an apricot. It was a while ago. At one point apricots were my favorite fruit, but somehow they’ve fallen

out of favor in recent years, be replaced by apples and pears.

I consider this, trying to figure out why, and suddenly I remember a moment when I was very pregnant

with alpha’s genius twins, laying on my couch, munching on apricots while I watched reruns of The

Nanny on my little TV. Apricots had been pretty much the only thing that hadn’t given me heartburn so

late in my pregnancy, and the only thing, really, that I had wanted to eat.

Suddenly, I freeze, looking down at the half-eaten apricot, pressing my other hand low on my belly.

“Are you all right?” Victor asks, his peeking one eye open to look over at me.

“Mmhmm,” I hum, slowly raising the fruit to my mouth, grateful for this final gift the forest has given us.

“I just…forgot how much I love apricots.”

“I’ll get you bundles of them when we get home,” Victor sighs, laying down on the forest floor and

putting his head in my lap. “I’ll plant you an orchard of them, if you want.”

“Maybe you should,” I murmur, raking my hands through his hair. “We might need them.”

We spend the night out under the stars, the four of us. Alvin ducks into the tent to gather us up some

blankets, covering us gently as we stare at the fire. Just as I begin to drift off to the sound of my sweet

sons whispering to each other, a few motes of magic make themselves visible in the canopy of leaves. I

don’t wake Victor to look at them, don’t notify the boys. Instead, I just smile as I watch them, pleased to

keep their little dancing display to myself. Sometimes it’s nice to have a secret, even if just for a little

while.

I fall asleep watching them, my head on Victor’s chest, my twin boys cuddled up on either side of us.

And in this moment, I know myself to be perfectly happy.

I am less happy a few hours later when I wake up quite stiff after my night on the forest floor.

“Ooof,” I groan, sitting up and stretching out my stiff muscles. “That’s it,” I declare to the men in my life,

who each blink awake next to me. “I’ve had enough of the forest. I need to go home, where there are

mattresses, and indoor plumbing, and wifi. And celebrity gossip websites. In other words: civilization.”

Ian just rolls onto his back, sighing contentedly. “Not me. I could stay out here forever.”

“That is because your bones are made of rubber,” I say, tickling his belly so that he giggles and curls up

like a bug. “But I am aged, and delicate, and my bones are made of twigs. I need to sleep on soft

things.”

“I’m with mama,” Alvin agrees, rubbing his eyes and looking up at me supportively. “I want my bed.”