Author's note: I promise sexy times will be in the next chapter. Maybe. It's hard to get things done with kids around. ;) Anyway, some background is given in this as to Jill's profession as I see it. I hope it makes sense to you.

Happy reading!

Chapter Six

"Are you the new little girl?" Reggie asked, eyeing Ivanna carefully.

"I guess." She said shyly, holding onto Eddie's hand.

"Wanna play?" She held up a doll. "Her name is Suzie."

Ivanna looked up at Eddie for a moment and then shook her head and pressed her eyes into the man's arm.

"It's okay if you want to play, Ivanna." He encouraged gently.

She looked up at him again. Her eyes were full of worry. "Do I have to stay here?"

He kneeled down and gently placed his hands on her shoulders. "Ivanna, Reggie just wants to play while we talk to her mommy. It'll be fine. You're coming home with Jill and me tonight."

She nodded and then turned back to Reggie. "Want to play mommies?"

Reggie smiled and took her hand, dragging her to the other side of the room.

Eddie straightened up and slipped his arm around Jill's waist. She pressed her eyes into his shoulder for a moment.

"And is this Nikolai?" Lissa leaned over the baby in her sister's arms. "He's so small. Poor thing." She looked to the girls playing in the corner. "Her too." She sighed. "Come sit. I hope you don't mind, but I sent some people to your apartment with a crib for Nikolai and a bed for Ivanna. They weren't sure where you'd want the crib, so it's sitting in the hallway between your room and the guest room. I told them to put her bed in your spare room."

"I think I might put it in ourr bedroom." Jill smoothed her hand over the baby's head. "Keep him close."

"You'll be fine." Lissa assured her. "You both will." She smiled at Eddie. "She's attached to you already."

"Little kids wrap him right around their fingers." Jill said affectionately. "Josh, Reggie, Ivanna. All of them just…He'll do anything for them and they will do anything to keep his attention."

"It's the guardian in him." The queen told her. "The Council will be meeting soon and this will be on the top of the agenda. We've got people searching high and low for any family. I'm rooting for you, but we need to make sure any remaining family is on board with it. I see no reason why you shouldn't be able to have them permanently. I mean, you're my sister."

"And I happen to be married to a dhampir. Strides have been made in recent years, but it's still frowned upon. Especially by many members of the Council. Some people only give me business grudgingly. They pretend Eddie is my guardian and not my husband. It'll be a miracle if they vote for us to keep them."

"In the end, I'm the queen. I would prefer not to have to, but I can pull strings or just make the decree myself. I know you want this. I can see in the way you all are that you're already attached."

"I know I am." Eddie said softly, smoothing a hand over Nikolai's head. He looked across the room to where Ivanna played with Reggie. She smiled with the other girl. "Look at that. That's the first smile we've seen on her face since we met her."

"She needs to forget for a while." Jill said softly. "She needs a friend."

"Maybe we can have Reggie over for a play date every once in a while." Eddie suggested.

"I think both girls would like that." Lissa agreed. "And Ivanna can come over here to give you a break."

"I'm sure she would like that." Jill smiled kindly at her sister. "Eddie has been telling her your story. Our story. She was very excited to meet you."

Nikolai started fussing.

"I think he's hungry." Jill said.

"You don't have to stay." Lissa said. "I just wanted to see them. Make sure they were all right."

"They're fine. I think." Jill said. "I don't know." I tear slipped out of her eye and she quickly wiped it away. She looked at Eddie. "I want to go home."

He nodded and stood, walking across the room to Ivanna in a few quick strides. She allowed him to scoop her up into his arms.

"It was nice to meet you, Reggie." Ivanna said over his shoulder as he walked away.

"You too, Ivanna." She waved.

Jill walked quickly down the block to their apartment building. Rose had offered to escort them back, but they refused. Jill just wanted to be home to get the children settled and to settle her own nerves.

Eddie made Nikolai a bottle while Jill showed Ivanna around their apartment. He found them in the studio.

"You draw pretty pictures." Ivanna said as she flipped through Jill's portfolio.

Jill smiled and smoothed a hand over her hair. "Thank you. I try."

"Adrian paints, too." She remembered.

"He does. Be his work is a little different from mine. People make clothes out of my pictures."

"Really?"

"That's what these are." She pointed to photographs beside some of the drawings of models walking down catwalks or posing in clothes that looked like the drawings. "But I just design them and then other people make them and I tell them how to fix them." She pointed to some papers on her drafting table. "This is the collection I'm working on now."

She climbed onto the chair and looked over the drawings there. Most of them were incomplete. Eddie hadn't even seen them. He usually stayed out when she worked.

"Pretty." Ivanna announced.

"Thank you."

"Babe." Eddie said from the doorway. He held out the bottle. "You want me to feed him? Continue bonding with our little girl?"

"That works." She passed the baby to him and then sat down on the chair, pulling Ivanna onto her lap. She started explaining about her designs in the simplest terms she could think of.

Eddie watched from the doorway as Nikolai drank the bottle like it was the first thing he'd had in a long time. He fell asleep in the man's arms. Eddie set the baby in the middle of his and Jill's bed and moved the crib into their room. He was just placing the baby into crib when Jill walked in and wrapped her arms around him.

"Hey, you." She whispered in his ear.

"Hey. Where's Ivanna?"

"She decided to play in her new room for a while. It's been a long day. I'm about to make supper."

"Let me do it." Eddie said softly. "I feel like you do everything around here."

"I'm home most of the time. And I like to." She kissed him. "Go play with Ivanna for a while. I'll make supper."

He nodded and pressed a kiss to her lips.

She watched from Ivanna's doorway for a moment as Eddie folded himself onto the floor and picked up a doll.

"She's asleep." Eddie announced. "Finally." He threw himself across the bed on his back.

Jill looked down at Nikolai in his crib. "Do you think she'll be okay?"

"I think she'll be fine. I told her to come get us or call for us if she woke up scared. I inspected every corner of her room for boogey men. She'll be fine." He stood and started undressing. "How is he?"

"Seeming as though nothing is wrong. He's still so small. He'll have no memory of this. And maybe he's scared, but he'll adapt far more easily than Ivanna." She pulled her pajamas out of her drawer and started changing as he watched hungrily. "Stop looking at me like that. I don't want to do anything tonight."

"Looking at you like what? I'm just watching you undress." He said innocently.

She reached into his drawer and took out a pair of sweat pants. She handed them to him. "You should probably wear these."

"Boxer shorts are acceptable sleep wear." He argued.

"There's a three-year-old in the next room who barely knows you. She's scared to death to be here. Please put these on. One less thing to worry about."

He took them from her and slipped them on. "It'll be okay, babe."

"I know."

He got back into the bed and they both started to settle in. He pulled her close and pressed his nose into her hair. "I love you."

"I love you." She whispered. She watched the crib across the room. "Do you think the only reason my sister is pushing for this is because they're Moroi?"

"I don't know."

"They can have your last name. If we get to adopt them."

"They'll have the hyphenated name. I thought we agreed. You kept your name, I kept mine, and any child we had would be Castile-Dragomir."

"I don't know if that will be good enough."

"Probably not. Most of the Council will argue that since they aren't yours by blood, it won't help quorum."

"I just want to make them happy. I could care less what their last name is or if they help my sister politically." She rolled over. "What will we do if we have a baby of our own?"

"It will be the first family to openly raise both Moroi and dhampir children."

"Do you want our dhampir children to become guardians?"

"I want them trained. It'll be their choice to become guardians. But nothing would make me prouder."

She pressed a kiss to his lips. "So we should try again soon."

"We should let Nikolai grow a few more months. And let Ivanna get used to the idea of being here."

"Okay." She rolled over and pulled his arms around her as she stared at the crib once more.

"I didn't make you mad, did I?"

"No, it's fine." She kissed his palm. "I want to make sure they become ours. And I don't want to push Ivanna away. I feel like what we have is already so fragile."

"Maybe it is. But she likes you." He stroked a thumb over her breast.

"Stop that." She giggled.

He kissed her neck. "Stop what?"

She pushed his hand away. "Not tonight."

"Okay." He kissed her shoulder and rolled away. "Good night."

She found his hand and squeezed. "Good night."