Alien vs. Alien

with us?” he asked me.
    I didn’t care much for her, but it was obvious the bird was still terrified. “Yes, it’s okay. She’s too scared to be out in the living room, and I don’t think she should be in the nursery alone, either. I assume Jamie’s going to spend the rest of the night in bed with us?”
    “You know it.” Jeff put Bellie’s perch next to a Poof Condo. “Bellie needs to be nice to all the other animals,” he said to her.
    “I’m not positive the cats won’t try to eat her, though.”
    Jeff coughed. “Ah, they tried that already. She’s a lot like you—quite the fighter.”
    “So that’s why the other pets got moved out of the bedroom?”
    “Somewhat.”
    “You know, I’d argue about this, but since we have two dozen Peregrines, give or take, down the hall, I’m just going to opt for going to bed and hoping our Animal Kingdom remains peaceful.”
    We got into bed. Jeff put up a pillow barrier on one side so thatJamie couldn’t roll off the bed. Then I wrapped around her and he wrapped around me.
    “You know, this was an insane day and an even crazier night, but it’s so nice to be snuggled together like this again that I frankly don’t care about all the rest of the crap.”
    Jeff chuckled. “And here I’d thought you’d only missed the great sex.”
    “Oh, trust me, I missed that more than anything. In fact, I’m kind of bitter that tonight’s events have ensured we can’t fool around a little more right now.”
    Jeff kissed the side of my head. “That’s what tomorrow’s for.”

    Yi

CHAPTER 29

    T HE NEXT MORNING WAS PRETTY GOOD. The Peregrines hadn’t destroyed too much in the bedroom. By that I mean they’d chosen to use the room’s bathtub to do their thing and otherwise hadn’t clawed up the furniture, drapes, or carpeting. Jeff wasn’t amused, but we had nowhere else to put them yet.
    Jamie was sleeping through the night now, but the disruption from the night before meant she was a tired, cranky girl when I woke her up for breakfast. We fed her, then Jeff rocked her back to sleep and put her down into her crib.
    This enabled us to have yet more sex. I was great with this. Whoever was once again after mPy husband wasn’t going to get him without a lot of pain from me. I’d spent a month without Jeff. I refused to spend longer without him.
    Once all of us were up for the second time, we were able to really get up and get going. Jeff had work I couldn’t know about to do, but that was fine. I had my own little team, and we had an investigative reporter to round up, a senator to grab, and some special K-9 cops to visit. My day was going to be plenty full.
    Jeff put Bellie back into her enclosure. She seemed better today than she had last night. The cats and most of the Poofs stayed in the bedroom. The team Walter had assigned to take care of the dogs arrived, and the dogs practically killed them with love and excitement to leave.
    The Peregrine situation was explained to the agents, along with their additional Peregrine cleanup duties. They looked as excited as we felt. I figured it made taking care of the dogs look better. Hey, I was all about the ridiculous optimism sometimes.
    “I really hope the Peregrines and the pets get comfortable together. The dogs and cats had no issues at all with the Poofs.”
    “Don’t know what to tell you baby. Maybe it’s because the birds are large and not cuddly at all.”
    “And we have twelve breeding pairs—we could start the Attack Peacock Breeding Program.”
    “Maybe that’s what Alexander wants. Who knows?” He kissed me. “Shall I take Jamie down to Denise on my way?”
    “Nah, I’ll do it. I may keep her with me today anyway.”
    “Don’t take her into any dangerous situations.”
    “I won’t. I’m just not sure she should spend all day with Denise right now. A few hours here and there when nothing much is going on is fine, but all I’m going to do is visit people who aren’t going to attack her.”
    Jeff grunted. “I’ll give you that Senator Armstrong isn’t going to do anything to our child, at least not that we could prove.”
    “Right. We’ll be fine, Jeff, I promise.”
    He sighed. “Fine, baby. Be sure to call or scream emotionally if you need me.”
    “You know I will.”
    “I know trouble finds you without any effort on your part.” But he stopped arguing, gave Jamie more snuggles, me another kiss, then headed downstairs.
    I finished getting dressed. It was springtime