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“No,” Edwin said quietly. “I am merely an envoy. My king wishes to express that if you would have him, he would attend to you to make apologies in person and to discuss how we might proceed in greater harmony, in the place and at the time of your choosing.”
Ren’s eyes widened. Even I was a bit flabbergasted at that offer. The king of the vampires was lowering himself to being at the dragon shifter’s beck and call? I couldn’t think of when that had ever happened in any history I’d been taught.
But then, they’d never before had such a horrifying crime to atone for.
Ren’s voice softened in turn as she gave her reply. “I thank you and him for that offer. I’ll need some time to decide what would suit me best, but I will take him up on it. And thank you for coming to show there can be trust between us.”
Edwin eased himself to his feet. “I’ll take my leave of you, then,” he said, “and convey your thanks to my king. I have no wish to disrupt your kin’s celebration any more than I already have.”
He slipped back to the car, and I nodded to Felix. Enough tension had left me that I could watch the fox shifter drive the vampire back to his sedan without any emotion other than relief.
When the gate had closed behind them, voices rose up again, most of them falling back into the same sort of chatter as before.
“Hey!” Marco called out. “Didn’t I hear something about some glorious singing we were going to get to hear?”
A few nearby shifters laughed, and several carolers assembled by the fire. They launched into a rendition of “Silent Night,” punctuated by howls from a couple of wolves who’d shifted. Ren sidled over to me and leaned against my chest when I tucked her into my embrace.
“Well, that was definitely an unexpected present,” she said.
“But a good one, I hope?” I said.
“Yes. Very good. That is—” She looked up at me. “Do you think he really means it? The king?”
I thought about the way Edwin had talked in the car. The fact that he’d shown up here at all. “Yeah,” I said. “I do.”
A smile crossed her lips, so sweet and delicate I wished I could hold it and this moment close forever. Her hand dropped to her belly. For a minute, we just rocked gently from side to side in time with the singing. Then my mate’s shoulder tensed against me.
“What?” I said, tensing in turn.
She gazed down at herself, her hand completely still. Her fingers twitched. Her eyes shot back to me.
“She’s coming soon,” she said with a faint tremble in her voice. “I can—I can feel it. We need to leave for the dragon estatenow.”
Chapter 10
Ren
West’s healerschecked my pulse and my belly and down below, despite my faint protests. “I’m not having contractions yet,” I said. “It’s not happeningrightnow. I can just tell it’ll start soon. If we leave now, we should be fine.”
But I understood why they wanted to check first. It wasn’t as if I had any desire to give birth on a plane in flight, as appropriate as that might have been in a metaphorical way. I really wasn’t in labor, though. What I felt from my daughter was a sort of hum of energy, slowly heightening, that I recognized even if I hadn’t known to expect it and didn’t know how to put it into words. As if she were gearing up for her main appearance.
“Are you sure we should risk it?” Nate asked. All four of the alphas had gathered around me in the healers’ room.
“It’s only a two-hour flight,” I said. “A couple of the healers can come along if you’re worried.” I glanced around into my mates’ nervously excited faces. I couldn’t keep a quaver from coming into my next words. “I want to be home when she comes.”
I didn’t know if it would sound silly to them. The dragon shifter estate had only been my home until I’d been five years old, and then for the last year and a half since I’d returned. And in that year and a half I’d spent more time traveling between my alphas’ estates and to other shifter settlements than actually there. But it sounded less silly than the desire that was really ringing through me, which was,I want my mother.
I couldn’t have her. I’d lost Mom years ago. But the dragon shifter estate was the only place we’d been together while we were really ourselves, no secrets, no suppressed memories. Fragments of her presence lingered in the halls and the rooms.
More than anything, I wanted that presence with me as I took this final step to becoming a mother myself.
My mates gazed back at me, their expressions softening. West looked at the others. “The jet here can leave almost immediately. The healers confirmed that she isn’t in labor yet. If this is what she needs…”
Aaron nodded. Marco brushed his hand over my hair. “Then she should have it,” he said.
Nate still looked worried, but he tipped his head in acceptance.
So a few minutes later, we hustled through the night to the landing strip. “Sleep on the plane, as much as you can,” the healer who came with us told me. “Once you do get really started, you’ll want to be as well-rested as possible.”
