But he couldn’t quite make himself believe it.
Dinner was chaos.
Athtar and Faith’s three children ranged in age from about two to eight, and they possessed the combined energy of a small supernova. The oldest, a girl with her mother’s pale skin and her father’s eyes, peppered him with questions about his ship, his adventures, and his weapons. The middle child, a girl who seemed to have inherited her mother’s curiosity in abundance, was far more interested in Ari, hovering near Emma with naked fascination. And the youngest, a boy who was an exact miniature of Athtar, spent most of the meal attempting to climb various pieces of furniture.
“Get down from there—” Faith’s voice cut through the noise as she snatched the toddler from the back of a chair. “I swear, Rastran has no self-preservation instinct whatsoever. He gets it from his father.”
“I have excellent self-preservation instincts,” Athtar protested from his place at the head of the table. “I’m still alive, aren’t I?”
“Through sheer dumb luck and my intervention.” But Faith was smiling as she settled the squirming child on her hip. “And stop teaching Laella how to hold a knife like that. She’s eight.”
“I was killing my own dinner at eight.”
“You were on a fishing boat when you were eight.”
“Where I killed my own fish.”
He watched this exchange with something between amusement and aching envy. He’d always avoided the noise and mess and complication of family life. He’d told himself he didn’t want it and he was better off alone.
He was beginning to suspect he’d been lying.
Across the table, Emma was deep in conversation with the middle child, Taresa. She had Ari balanced on her lap and was showing the girl how the baby liked to grip fingers, demonstrating the slight webbing between Ari’s tiny digits. Her face was alight with genuine joy, the stress of the past week smoothed away by simple domestic pleasure.
She looked beautiful. She looked like she belonged. She looked like everything he’d ever wanted and been too afraid to reach for.
“Uncle Doren.” Laella’s voice pulled him from his thoughts. “Is it true you once stole a ship from a Kaisarian commander while he was still on it?”
“Laella!” Faith’s scandalized tone was somewhat undermined by her obvious curiosity.
“It’s mostly true,” he admitted. “Though ‘stole’ is a strong word. I prefer ‘liberated.’ And technically, he was in the refresher at the time.”
“That’s even better.” Laella’s eyes were huge. “Will you teach me how to fly a ship?”
“When you’re older.”
“I’m almost nine!”
“When you’re older and your mother won’t murder me for corrupting you.”
“She wouldn’t murder you. She likes you.”
He caught Faith’s eye and winked. “That’s because your mother has excellent taste in friends.”
“That’s debatable,” Faith said dryly, but she was smiling.
The meal continued—a seemingly endless parade of dishes that Athtar had prepared with obvious care. Doren recognized some of them as Sheraen cuisine, and he suspected that others were attempts to recreate human recipes. The combination shouldn’t have worked, but somehow it did, resulting in a meal that was both familiar and exotic.
Like Emma herself.
He watched her throughout dinner, unable to help himself. She caught him looking and raised an eyebrow. He didn’t look away.
What do I actually want?
The question had been haunting him all evening, but watching Emma laugh at something Taresa said, watching her gentlehands adjust Ari’s position, and watching the firelight play across her features, he finally admitted the truth to himself.
He wanted this. All of it. The noise and the mess and the terrifying vulnerability of letting someone see the broken parts of him.
I want Emma.
