Page 3 of A Divided Duty

“We probably have a few hours,” I agreed, rolling a little closer to him before closing my eyes.

“And you’re sure you don’t need to—?”

“Sleep now, pump later,” I said.

This time, at least, he listened, and the last thing I heard before I slipped back into sleep was the faint sound of his purring.

The next time I woke was at the much more respectable hour of four o’clock. I peeled my face off the pillow, blinking blearily in the afternoon light, then looked to my side. Tybalt was gone. I was alone in the bed.

That wasn’t uncommon enough to be actively alarming, but I definitely sat up faster than I might have otherwise, turning toward the cradle. As half-expected, Tybalt was there, Miranda in his arms, walking in small circles. He was talking to her—I could see his mouth moving, but no sound was reaching me.

Magic is fun. “I’m awake,” I said. “You can drop the silence spell.”

Tybalt looked up and away from Miranda, smiling. The sunlight coming in around the edges of the blackout curtain gilded his hair, turning the brown briefly to bronze and adding an almost-reddish cast to the black stripes that banded it. Titles among the Cait Sidhe are based on power more than literal station, and as a King, he could conceal his feline nature as much as he chose. He mostly looked like another Daoine Sidhe, except for the vertical slits of his pupils, the small fangs he had in place of incisors, and the black tabby stripes in the brown of his hair.

As far as I’m concerned, he’s one of the most beautiful men to have ever lived. But I’m probably biased. The only reason I didn’t think he was the most beautiful man who’d ever lived was because Faerie would probably take that as a challenge, and Faerie specializes in the kind of beauty that breaks hearts. I’m happy with the beauty that I have, thanks.

We might not be sure whether Miranda was in any way Cait Sidhe, but even in a world of shapeshifters and illusions, we knew for a fact that Tybalt was her father. All we had to do was look at her. Her hair was a silvery ash blonde, with darker stripes just like her father’s, although they were more charcoal than black. It would need to be hidden with an illusion when we finally took her out into the mortal world, just like the points of her ears; it would attract too much attention if people thought I was dyeing my infant daughter’s hair. Still, it was striking, and a lovely reinterpretation of Tybalt’s own hair.

Her eyes, though, muddy blue-gray and getting more and more washed out as she got older, were entirely my contribution. Her pupils were round, like a human’s or a Dóchas Sidhe’s, and while we wouldn’t know the final color of her irises for a while, it seemed unlikely that they’d shift dramatically enough to match Tybalt’s malachite green.

There was a faint popping sensation in my ears, like yawning after climbing a tall hill, and the small sounds of an occupied room returned with such brightness that it seemed impossible they had ever been gone. Cars passing on the street outside; one of my perfectly normal, non–Cait Sidhe Siamese cats purring somewhere in the laundry on the floor; the gentle rattle of Spike’s thorns as it slept in my nursing chair. It liked to be close to the baby, and we didn’t try to stop it, not now that we knew how quickly she healed: no need to worry about a stray scratch ruining her day.

Miranda herself was making little noises as Tybalt cradled her, the sound of a content baby who felt safe in her surroundings.

“Good afternoon, little fish,” said Tybalt, still smiling. “Did you rest well?”

“How long have the two of you been awake?” I rubbed my face with one hand. “My mouth tastes like an old sock.”

“And we see why I did not choose to wake your mother with a kiss,” he said, shifting his focus back to Miranda. “Some days, it’s worth the risk. Other days, I watched her eat a pizza-shaped monstrosity for her supper, and I know that to steal a kiss is to take my life into my own hands.”

I wrinkled my nose at him. “You’re taking advantage of the fact that you know I won’t throw anything while you’re holding Andi, and that’s not fair,” I accused.

“Can a man be blamed for enjoying the company of his own child?” he asked, tone grandiose.

“Can a man hold on to her long enough for me to go and brush my teeth?”

“Of course, little fish. Anything for you.”

I slid out of the bed, laughing. “I love you, and you’re a weirdo,” I said.

His response was muffled by the closing bathroom door. Thankfully, being married to a cat doesn’t mean I never get to pee alone. Once Miranda’s independently mobile, that’s probably going to change, but for now, Tybalt’s human enough not to follow me, while Cagney and Lacey are old enough to want to conserve their energy.

He meant it, too, about doing anything for me. That man gave up a throne to be my husband, orchestrated a state wedding when I would have been perfectly content with the courthouse, and went up against Titania herself to get the real Faerie back before she could perform the ritual that would have made it permanent. He’s as much a hero as I am, he just managed to dodge the title, and more power to him for that.

We should all be so lucky.

When I emerged from the bathroom, mouth now minty-fresh and ready for kissing, Miranda was beginning to fuss. “Here, let me take her,” I said, walking over to the pair of them.

“The cost of a child is a kiss.”

“Pretty sure we did a little more than kiss, but sure,” I said, leaning over to kiss him as he passed her into my arms. She waved her fists at me, making a face that was coming to look more and more like a smile. “Good afternoon, Andi. How did you sleep all day? I slept very well, when I wasn’t waking up to feed you. Are you ready to have a good night?”

She burbled and waved, and I looked up again, focusing on Tybalt. “How long have you two been up?”

“About an hour,” he said. “She’s been changed, and had one of the bottles from her little icebox. I wish my sister could have had one of those when she was nursing my niece. She would have slept so much better and more frequently.”

“I like it too,” I said. Explaining the purpose of a minifridge to Tybalt had been easier than it sometimes was to make him understand modern technology. It probably helped that it was for Miranda. He’d managed to grasp the bottle warmer with similar ease, and as long as I kept the fridge well stocked, he was perfectly capable of handling as many feedings as necessary. His willingness to take on as much of her care as I was able to relinquish was going a long way toward making me feel less like a dairy cow—and less like I was trapped in the house. He’d learned his lesson about that during my pregnancy.