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Nesta was lounging on a couch in one of her favorite parts of the House when she sensed him. Cassian had been gone for weeks handling unrest in Illyria, and she’d been anxiously awaiting his return. She hadn’t expected this.
“Nes!” he shouted, running through the halls. “Get the other Valkyries, we’ve got to go. The rebels are planning an attack and I need backup.”
Nesta was on her feet in seconds, her book and the blanket from her lap clattering to the floor as she ran to the Library where she knew Gwyn and Emerie were working on their Valkyrie chapters. When she reached where they were working, already panting hard, the two looked up at her in alarm
“What’s wrong Nes? Did something happen?” Gwyn said, obviously nervous for her response. Emerie’s eyes were scanning over every inch of her, trying to find the problem.
“Yes, something’s happened, but now it’s not that.” Gwyn’s shoulders visibly relaxed as tension left her body. Nesta continued to speak without responding to the change in her friend’s demeanor. “Cassian is back, the rebels are planning an attack and he needs the Valkyries as backup. We have to leave now. Time to suit up ladies.”
Nesta turned to leave the room, her friends already standing behind her, when she halted. “Before either of you ask, I am fine. And I have perfume.”
Emerie’s cackles followed her as Nesta began to sprint back through the house, stopping at the armory where the Valkyries kept their leathers and weapons. Once they were dressed, the women met Cassian, Azriel, and Rhysand up at the training ring. Azriel and Rhysand would help winnow them all to where the rebels planned to attack before leaving to handle the war camp leaders.
Cassian went to stand by Nesta, but was quickly intercepted by Emerie, who took his arm and walked him over to where Rhysand stood. “You're with me, general,” she said and her tone was commanding enough he went along with her. But something curious had caught his mind, or more his nose. Something was off about how Nesta smelled to him. He couldn’t place it however, and before he could question anything further, Azriel was winnowing away with Gwyn and Nesta.
“What’s wrong brother?” Rhysand gave Cassian a questioning look. Emerie huffed in response. “What’s wrong is that the rebels are attacking and you’re taking entirely too long, High Lord .” Both Cassian and Rhysand stared at Emerie with brows raised, shocked at her tone, but also unsurprised at the comment. For Emerie, the desired effect was cast and Rhys and Cassian both forgot what they were about to question a moment before. Within seconds, they had joined the other Valkyries on the battlefield.
The rebels had started their assault, and Nesta and Gwyn were already out on the chosen field, facing off against them. Azriel was already gone, off to play his own part. Gwyn’s long red braid seemed to twirl in slow motion behind her as she slashed through multiple soldiers in one move, taking down half the front line in the first swipe of the battle. Before she could settle for another blow, Nesta was working in time with her. As one set up, the other struck, but the Illyrians kept approaching.
Emerie let out a battle cry, racing forward to join the fray with her sisters. Cassian stood back a moment, taking in the surroundings. It was a battle easily won, albeit bloodily. But he didn’t mind that one bit. These Illyrians had been causing unrest for far too long, and were part of one of the camps that still eagerly engaged in wing clipping. Emerie fought as if she knew this too, and was viciously attacking the left flank while Gwyn held the right. Nesta was at the middle, catching any who her sisters drove her way.
Cassian, having taken stock of the situation enough to have developed a plan, went to fight by her side. But as he approached, he noticed that scent again. Cutting down rebels left and right, Cassian finally reached his mate’s side, tucking his wings and putting his back toward hers as she continued to fight.
“Hello Nes,” he crooned, someone buttery smooth even in the heat of battle.
“Hello Cass, come for a social call have you?” she knew what that tone meant, he couldn’t fool her anymore. Something was bothering him.
“Your scent. It’s different. What changed?” Each phrase was accented and grunted out with the thrust of his blade through a different rebel.
“Oh, nothing major. Just a new perfume I’m trying.” Nesta panted each word out as she used her boot to push a particularly large Illyrian off her blade where he’d fallen.
“Out of breath so soon?” Cassian tried to play it off, but was secretly getting worried. Had she gotten out of shape while he was gone? No…the other Valkyries wouldn’t let that happen. Was she sick? Had something else happened while he’d been in Illyria?
Cassian was drawn from his revelry as blades clashed in front of his face, Nesta’s blocking the blow from the Illyrian he hadn’t seen charge from the sky. He’d been too distracted thinking about his mate, her labored breathing, and that gods damned SCENT.
“Alright,” Nesta exclaimed, pressing back against the soldier and deftly pulling a knife to slit his throat while she kept her blade locked with his. “You’re too distracted, General.” She shouted across the field, wiping and resheathing her knife as she advanced on another rebel. “I’m going to put some distance between us, try not to get killed, okay?”
With that, she pushed further into the throng of Illyrians, taking on two or three at a time. Cassian was still lost in his thoughts, but at least now he was fighting again. Pulling his second blade from his back, he went to work cutting down rebels. He figured they’d gotten through about half of the group when the realization struck. She’s more fatigued, but she’s definitely not sick based on how she’s taking down rebel after rebel. And the perfume comment was more worrying than comforting. Nesta appreciated simplicity, and perfumes did not fall into that category.
By now, the three Valkyries and Cassian had surrounded most of the remaining rebels, and worked them into a square of sorts, with each point being held by one of them.
Cassian was beside himself as he swung through the rebels, trying to get close enough to scream across the field to his mate.
“NESTA WHAT IN THE CAULDRON IS THAT SMELL. IT IS TOO DIFFERENT AND YOU HATE PERFUME, WHAT IS GOING ON.”
Nesta only sighed and kept fighting, but Cassian noticed that Gwyn and Emerie caught each other's gaze as they fought across from each other. Smiles were growing across both Valkyrie’s faces as they continued their assault to beat back the rebels. Unable to contain herself any longer, Emerie called out to Nesta, “Has the General really not figured it out yet?”
“No, the General has not .” Nesta emphasized the final word with a particularly well placed thrust through two rebels at once, blocking their overhead blow with a second sword she’d pulled out.
Gwyn could be heard giggling from over where she danced around multiple rebels, all trying to get a hand on her, but unable to as she fought deftly with her knife and sword in hand. Giggling. Mother save him, but these females knew something Cassian did not and he was going to find out what. His blades began to move faster as he cut his way in a path across the square toward his mate.
“I have trained with you females long enough to know when something is going on that I’m not privy to.” He was huffing the words out between blows, using the rising inner panic for his mate to fuel his blade arms. “One of you better tell me what’s going on RIGHT,” he thrust his blade through the chest of one rebel, “NOW,” and sent his second through the neck of another.
Gwyn and Emerie were closing ranks behind Cassian, keeping the small remaining group of rebels contained as he approached Nesta. Only a few rebels stood between Cassian and his mate when Nesta finally gave in.
“I’M PREGNANT YOU DUMB BAT.” Cassian froze.
Of course. Of course his mate is pregnant with their first child and he is finding out in the middle of a battlefield while she is covered in blood and running through an Illyrian twice her size with a made weapon. If Cassian didn’t have gray hair before, he did now.
Once his feet worked again, Cassian ran for his mate, cutting through the remaining rebels between them with more precision than he had on the battlefield in Adriata all those years ago. As he came up behind his mate, Nesta turned with her blade already halfway through a strike. Cassian blocked her blow easily as it came down overhead, and having sheathed his second blade moments ago, wrapped his free arm around her waist.
“Nes…” her name from his lips was barely a whisper, but it sent shivers through her entire body. “Tell me this is real…”
“Cassian.” She said, breaking from their bubble slightly to block a blade that was aimed for her mate’s back over his shoulder. Cassian kept his own sword hand at the ready behind Nesta.
“This is real. We’re going to have a baby.”
“Oy!” Gwyn called, breaking them from their near perfect little bubble. “I love that you two are having a moment right out of one of our books over there, but we could really,” she grunted as she took the force of a blow through her sword arm, “use some help to finish this off.”
Nesta broke away before Cassian could respond and sprinted off toward the Illyrians who had gotten past their border. Cassian whirled toward the other Valkyries ready to fight on multiple fronts for multiple reasons. “Mother save you both for letting her come out here today when you two both KNEW. How could you let her fight like this?” Cassian took out the four remaining rebels in his area before he turned on them.
“Complications arose…” Emerie started, landing a blow through the shoulder blades of her last target.
“Ensued” Gwyn chimed in, stabbing backhanded with her dagger into the last rebel next to her.
And behind Cassian, he heard Nesta finish “and were overcome.”
Gwyn and Emerie grinned broadly over Cassian’s shoulders before he turned toward his mate.
She was standing on top of three Illyrians, whom she seemed to have felled in one blow. A trail of straggling rebels showed her path from where she’d left her embrace with Cassian, traced after those escaped, and worked her way back in. It was all Cassian could do to chuckle softly, run a hand down his bloody face, and murmur under his breath, “Mother save me from you three.”
“Four!” the Valkyries chimed in, speaking in tandem and breaking down into fits of laughter in the middle of the battlefield.
—-
Cassian reached out to Rhysand with his mind when the battle was finished, asking him to come quickly to return them to the House.
Is something wrong brother?
Well, Nesta had some very interesting news to share with me in the middle of the battlefield and I would like to take her home. Maybe send for Madja.
Are any of you hurt? Why do you need Madja? What is this news? Rhys’s normally ordered thoughts were rolling into Cassian’s mind with dizzying speed and intensity.
None of us are hurt, but I’ve aged at least 50 years. You’ll see when you get here.
Rhysand arrived with Azriel within three minutes. The Valkyries were standing together, giggling, as Cassian approached his brothers. “Care to tell us what’s going on?” Azriel asked calmly, but his shadows were skittering over his shoulders with nerves. Instead of responding, Cassian looked back over toward the Valkyries. “Well ladies?”
Gwyn spoke first “Nesta gave Cassian some news while running through a rebel.”
Emerie was next “the General hadn’t figured it out for himself earlier, but he certainly could have.”
Cassian was just staring at his brothers now as they looked wide eyed between him and the group of females. “Nes?” he called out over his shoulder.
“Oh come on you two, it’s pretty obvious.” Nesta wafted her hands toward them, as if she were pushing something in their direction. Azriel figured it out first, and his body went completely still. Slowly he looked between Cassian and Nesta. Rhysand inhaled deeply, trying to figure out what in the Cauldron was going on, and then he scented it too.
“No…” he said, eyes going wide as he looked at Cassian, whose face was now covered in a wide grin.
“Yup. And while I am enraged that she WENT INTO FUCKING BATTLE WITHOUT TELLING ME I couldn’t be happier with the news.”
Once the initial shock wore off, both brothers were upon him before Cassian could react as they piled on congratulations.
Soon after, they all returned to the house, Emerie and Gwyn taking up their respective guest rooms to bathe and decompress while Azriel and Rhys returned to the River House to finish their reports. Cassian and Nesta shared a bath.
She was in her favorite place, safe between her mate's thighs lying back against his chest with his arms wrapped around her. Only now, instead of resting wherever they fell most comfortably, he had both hands pressed against her lower abdomen, feeling for the spark of life they now both knew existed.
“Don’t ever do that to me again Nes, I have to at least know if I’m defending one or two of you in battle.”
Nesta stiffened slightly in his arms, “what’s wrong?” he asked quickly, turning to look at her face.
“What if….what if it’s more than that?” She took a deep steadying breath before continuing, “Madja said it's still early, but the scent is strong enough that she thinks multiples are a possibility.”
Cassian’s breath stopped entirely. He shifted them slightly, laying Nesta back against the edge of the bath before moving between her legs, facing her. Gently, he rubbed his hand over her stomach, lifting her hips with the other to bring her above the water so he could pepper small kisses where he now knew their child, or children, was growing.
“I would love nothing more than to have as many children as you want to give me. If we can take on an Illyrian rebel band, we can take on twins or, Cauldron, even triplets if the Mother deems it. It’s you and me against the world, Nes.”
“You, me, and our family Cassian.”