Lord's Fall (Elder Races #5)(93)

She shook her head silently, pressing her cheek against his damp, bare skin. She was glad he had stopped shouting. She didn’t want to send him outside.

“Pia?” He angled his head, trying to look at her face. “Can you say something?”

“In a minute,” she muttered. “I’m a little busy.”

“Okay, darling,” he said gently. “Take your time.”

Two “I love yous” and one “darling.” She smiled and decided she would start her own collection of priceless jewels, only hers would be memories of everything he had ever said to her.

The warm water seemed to help. As soon as the contraction was over with, she washed quickly. In a few minutes she was clean and dry, and wearing one of his T-shirts that fell down to her knees. He had taken a moment to throw on clothes too, dressing in worn, soft jeans and another T-shirt.

“How do I look?” she asked, her face tilted up to him.

For some reason the silly question seemed to hit him much harder than it should have. He took his time looking at her, from her pinned-up hair and carefully made-up face to the voluminous T-shirt that gapped at the neck and arms. Then he gave her a slow smile that would never have the same kind of innocence in it that his son’s smile had in the dream.

But this one smile of Dragos’s had every bit as much of the brightness. Every bit as much, and it was all for her.

“You are the most beautiful thing in the world,” he said deeply. “How would you like to go downstairs to the family room and look out at the lake?”

“I would really love that,” she said, her face lighting up.

He carried her down the stairs and settled with her on the couch. She sat between his legs, with his arms wrapped around her. They looked out at the dark blue and silver moonlit lake.

In true keeping with the spirit of their honeymoon, Liam was born a short while later, a good fifteen minutes before the army of attendants, staff and medical personnel that Dragos had ordered arrived on the estate. Dr. Medina gave baby and mother a quick checkup and pronounced them both flawless.

Afterward, Dragos sent everybody away to stay at the main house. While his exhausted wife slept with her head in his lap, he cradled the miniscule miracle that was his son and watched the sun rise over the sparkling water.

He might be Powerful as shit and older than dirt, but no matter how many countless times he had seen the dawn before, somehow there had never been a newer, more perfect day.