Page 38 of The Dragon’s Captive

Kate.

Beautiful Kate, with her copper hair and her impish hazel-green gaze and that smile she always wore when she’d done something particularly clever.

Her eyes began to well with tears as she looked at him, her lower lip trembling with the same emotion he felt: an overwhelming rush of love and relief. She had returned to him.

“Kate…” he said softly. “I have missed you so much.”

“Not as much as I missed you,” she said, her smile tight as she tried to hold back her tears. “There’s someone you need to meet,” she said, putting her hands on the child’s shoulders.

“You’ve had a child,” he said. There was no doubting that the girl was Kate’s daughter. They had the same hair, the same smile…

“We’ve had a child, Vilka,” Kate said softly.

The child in question stuffed the toy into her mouth and made a sound halfway between a screech and a laugh.

Vilka looked at the pair of them, stunned. “She’s ours? But you said it wasn’t possible…”

“Turns out the radiation formula really messes with birth control,” Kate said with a smiling little shrug. “Of course, I don’t need it now, and she doesn’t need it at all. I guess even one quarter dragon blood is enough to provide protection from the radiation in this place.”

“Does she know where she is? Or who I am?”

“She doesn’t know much, she’s only two years old,” Kate said. “She’s going to need some time to get up to speed.”

“Hello,” the girl said after pulling the well-gnawed toy from her mouth. “My name is Mika.”

“Hello, Mika,” Vilka said. He found himself staring at her, seeing parts of himself in her face. Her eyes, her nose, something about the way she held her brows. He had wanted to father offspring with Kate from the beginning, but the sudden appearance of a two-year-old was quite something. Shock didn’t begin to describe it.

“You’re happy, aren’t you?”

He heard fear in Kate’s tone. The question was so much more than a matter of happiness. She was asking if he accepted her, accepted their daughter.

“Kate,” he said, reaching for her hand and drawing her down to sit on the bed. “I am the happiest man in either realm. I would show you that more completely, but…” he flickered a glance at Mika, “we may have to wait for that.”

“I can’t wait any longer for this,” she said, leaning forward to press her lips to his. Their kiss of reunion was powerful, soft, gentle, loving and filled with the longing they had suffered.

“I’m a dino,” Mika clarified suddenly, causing them to break the kiss. “I have scales and claws, but I don’t have wings.”

“She has scales and claws?” Vilka looked at Kate for confirmation.

“Not really.” Kate shook her head with a fond smile. “She imagines she does. Maybe she will someday, I don’t know. She definitely likes to talk about them.”

“She knows what she is,” Vilka said wonderingly. “And you came back to me. You didn’t… leave.”

“You thought I left?”

He took her hand, needing to touch her, to feel her soft skin beneath his own. “I didn’t know,” he said. “But I knew that you would come on your own terms.”

“I would have come earlier,” Kate said. “But…” she glanced at Mika. “I figured the birthing units and such would be better in a place with electricity. And then I had to be sure it was safe. There were a lot of investigations around the whole event. I was a suspect. I had to live a normal life, you know?”

“That must have been agony for you,” he smiled.

Her answering smile faltered. “I didn’t know if you’d survived,” she said. “I mean, I really didn’t know anything at all. Sometimes, before she was born, I would wonder if she was the last part of you left.” A slow tear ran down her cheek. “I have missed you so much, Vilka, I can’t even say…”

A tap at the door interrupted their conversation. An elderly woman entered the room, still spry, but clearly withering under the effects of old age.

“I’m sorry to interrupt you two, but I have little time left with my grandchild,” Aria said. “Come, her grandfather and I wish to spoil her.”

“Mother? You know already?” Vilka was utterly confused. “How long have you been here?”