“A Seraphim existence.”
“A tortured one.” He pulled away from the headboard to angle his body toward hers. “Our child will not be a puppet, Caro. I’ve lived far too long beneath a puppet master to allow such a fate.” The vehemence in his words surprised him. He hadn’t realized how passionate he was about their child’s future until he voiced his feelings.
His gaze fell to her blanket-covered abdomen, then flicked back up to her face. A demand entered his mouth but halted at the sight of her tears.
“Caro,” he breathed, concern replacing his rage.
She pressed a hand to his bare chest as he moved toward her.
“It’s just…” A shudder visibly rocked her, deepening his worry for her. “I feel the same way, Sethios. It goes against everything I am, everything I’ve been bred to believe, but my instincts are telling me the same thing. We can’t let the seers decide her future.”
“Her?” Sethios repeated.
Caro blinked. “I… I don’t know where that came from. It just… I think we’re having a girl.”
“Can you know for sure?” There was technology available to humans, but would they work on a Seraphim?
She palmed her stomach and smiled. “I don’t want to spoil it, and we’ll know in a few weeks anyway.”
“I still can’t get over that,” he admitted. When Caro told him the gestational period was about one week to one human month, he couldn’t believe it. But she was showing already, and her escalated symptoms only added to the veracity of their situation. “Will she”—oh, shit, a girl?—“age differently?” The words rasped in his throat.
He already accepted his role as a father, but somehow this conversation made it all the more real.
I’m going to be a dad.
“Differently from humans?” Caro guessed.
He nodded since his mouth only seemed to want to say one word: fuck.
“Seraphim mature similarly until they cease aging. When did you stop changing?”
Sethios assumed she meant changes to his physical appearance. “I seemed to stop aging when I reached twenty-five or so.” Unlike Hydraians, he didn’t require death to be resurrected, though he suspected his father wanted to kill him, just for the hell of it, on more than one occasion.
“And your powers grew with you?”
“I suppose, but I could always compel.” Even at a young age, he could force those around him to do exactly what he wanted without whispering a word. “But my other ability—to borrow talents—didn’t surface until later.” It wasn’t nearly as strong as his persuasion, but it helped hide his birthright.
“Seraphim grow into their talents as well. Our daughter will have one prominent ability with birth—either her aura concealment or your gift for life. Then she’ll continue to cultivate her skills throughout her first twenty-five years or so.”
“Will she be able to mist and form wings?” he wondered. “Because I can’t.”
“I’m not sure.” She frowned. “I hope she can.”
He hoped she could as well. “So she’ll age like a human.”
“Yes. Seraphim are most vulnerable in their youth, which is why we need to take measures to protect her and allow her to foster her gifts.”
“Montana is more secluded than other areas of this country, or do you have another location in mind?”
“Here feels right,” she murmured. “I feel… content.”
“Then we’ll stay here.”
“Yes.” She trailed her fingers up his chest to his neck and curled her palm around his nape. “Together.”
“I’ve never been one for monogamy, Caro,” he admitted. “Nor have I ever desired it.” The words—thought a thousand times before—sounded wrong, even to his own ears, as he said them. Nor have I ever desired it… until you.
Well, that’s certainly new.
