"Like the human that took Ivan to find Nero?"
His eyes flash red before returning to the beautiful ice blue. "Highly unlikely."
"But not impossible."
"I would have scented a human stupid enough to enter our home."
I chew my thumb for a beat. "Can their scent be covered up? Or disguised as something that wouldn't set off any warning bells?"
"Not that I'm aware of." Havok moves to the next window and starts working on that. "Humans are the one species all others can scent at any given time. Most of them smell rather vile, to be perfectly honest."
I frown. "Did I?"
He glances at me over his shoulder, and flashes me a wicked though beautiful smile. "You, my perfect mate, have always smelled of nothing but sweet, flowery, delicious sex." His smile grows. "And mine. You have always smelled as though you belong to me."
With a far too dreamy sigh, I blow him a kiss and go back to my book.
It's pretty fascinating so far, not that I've gotten very far, but what I have read is really cool.
And Bozidar even added illustrations, charts, diagrams I don't completely understand, and pressed flowers in a few pages toward the end.
The same flowers Tolan and Ellida left the year I was born. On my birthday, according to Bozidar's entry.
Crazy.
I flip a few more pages, more or less just scanning them because my mind keeps wandering to our possible intruder.
Until one particular entry catches my eye.
Breeding.
Oh boy.
So, I'm not trying to put the cart before the horse or anything, but I may or may not have a little baby fever. Daisy has been a huge factor in that, helpful because I can get a baby fix pretty much whenever I need one, but unhelpful because most of the time she just makes me want to get pregnant right now. And knowing Allie and Casey are both knocked up doesn't really help either.
It's weird though, because on the one hand I feel like I have very literally waited forever to be with Havok, to finally be together and move on with the life we both want so badly, but on the other hand I feel like I just found him and want my mate all to myself for a while. It's strange and probably pretty normal but I'm not sure how to wrap my head around the mixed emotions just yet.
Thankfully Havok and I have forever, forever to be together and just as long to make all the babies.
No big decisions need to be made yet, especially when I'm still technically sitting with an expiration date over my head because I highly doubt Nero simply gave up. Just because he missed my death-iversary does not mean he won't still try, especially if what Henrich said about that stupid prophecy is true.
So babies are temporarily off the table despite my internal clock screaming at Havok to put one inside me as soon as possible. Gotta make sure there is no risk, no threat to our baby before we even try to make one. Which definitely means I should read this section on breeding in case I need to go on birth control or something.
Breeding
Due to their genetic inclination to be natural creators, givers of life, so to speak, the fae are an extremely fertile species. Unlike shifters, female fae do not go into heat since their bodies ovulate almost constantly. A female fae has at least double, if not triple the normal amount of eggs that a shifter female will produce when she is in heat, nearly four times as many as human females, which creates a greater possibility for multiples at the time of conception; triplets being most common. Also because of this, female fae do not experience any type of menstrual cycle but instead, the unused eggs will expel themselves through a female’s pheromones, making her scent even more enticing to her mate. Despite their extreme fertility, fae females are only able to conceive young with their fated mate. Her scent carries a trait that only her mate can pick up, one that is specific to her fertility carried in the pheromones to strengthen the mate bond and stir the need to procreate within the male.
Ellida explains this in terms of her relationship with Tolan.
“Our mate bond is strong, stronger even than that of our parents before us and if we were to have a child I would suspect their mate bond to be stronger still. One of the things that has strengthened that bond is our desire for each other. It is intense, insatiable, the need we have to be close, something that is ever present and would be still even if my scent did not call to Tolan the way it does. Do not misunderstand, the scent produced by a female fae is tailored for her mate but it is not the basis of their desire. There have been many fae unable to conceive. My sister was unable to have young with her mate but the bond they shared was almost as strong as mine with Tolan. That scent does nothing to influence the bond or the love shared between mates but it can enhance it, strengthen it, give it a more unshakable foundation. It is a clear indication of belonging, a mark of possession, a promise of the future and new life, but holds no influence over the pair’s feelings for one another.”
When asked if the specific trait in scent was something shared between them or something else entirely, Ellida explained as follows:
“Fae's scents do not mingle the same as, say, a shifter’s will. For example, my scent, as all fae's, is sugary, very sweet, and because I am female it holds a subtle floral undertone. On the surface there is nothing unique about my scent to you or anyone else that is not my Tolan, but to him, my scent is overpowering. He picks up on each individual trait in an intense way, the sugar sweeter, the flower as fragrant as if breathing in an entire field of them. Tolan can identify the sweet scent as honey, the floral specifically lavender but the scent of my fertility speaks strongest to him because it is part of the mate bond, part of the many ways I belong to him. Tolan is the only one who can scent it just as I am the only one who can scent its counterpart in him.”
Tolan elaborates.
“My Elli's scent is divine, absolutely decadent. The scent of her fertility, of our bond, the way she is so clearly mine is made known through raspberries. The overwhelming scent of fresh raspberries ripe for my taking. In turn, my scent that marks our bond through the woodsy, earthy traits male fae carry is an intense spice, and Elli has described it as a combination of ginger root and star anise. These traits are specific to us, no one else carries them, no one else scents them. If we were to have young, there is a possibility those traits would be passed to them as genetic markers shared between us, but again, the only one who would scent those undertones would be our young's mate.”
