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“I know you will,” he told Sebastian as he blinked the tears away. Lovingly, he placed a hand on the nearest egg and stroked its smooth shell. “I can feel the love you have for me, but I can feel them as well—the eggs. It’s the bond, isn’t it? I had no idea that this is the way it would feel. We were never taught these things in the Pedigree; I suppose because no one expected us to ever be a dragon’s true mate.”
Peregrine felt Sebastian smile. “What does it feel like, love?”
“It feels like joy. It’s faint and barely there, but when I concentrate, I can feel it.”
“That will change in time.” One of Sebastian’s hands trailed from Peregrine’s hip to his stomach, which he stroked slowly and affectionately, as though he was already in love with the children they’d yet to conceive. “The clutch is barely developed. As they grow, the bond will strengthen. I’ve heard it said that our bond will strengthen, too, but I have no way to prove it.”
“It will,” Peregrine said, surprising even himself with his certainty. “I know it.”
“How?”
“I do not know.”
Sebastian laughed quietly and kissed the back of Peregrine’s head a second time. “I suppose we shall see.”
All was quiet for some time after that. The sun rose and bright light filled the room. The eggs were as Peregrine imagined—more stunning than the jewels surrounding them, and each of them distinct. The two darkest ones were cool toned. Their dark purple shells leaned heavily toward blue, although one much more than the other. The three other eggs were a medium purple, closer to true amethyst. The five of them were the prettiest things he’d ever seen.
“What do you think they’ll be like, Sebastian?” he asked as he stroked each of the eggs in turn. “What kind of dragons do you imagine they’ll grow up to be?”
Sebastian grunted and tightened his grip around Peregrine, dragging him into a hug. “I know not,” he admitted. “If they’re lucky, they will inherit your good looks.”
Peregrine laughed. “I think not. I’d much rather they look like you.”
Sebastian was silent after that, but Peregrine’s mind didn’t idle. It dreamed of a future where five black-haired children would clamber through the halls of the palace, laughing as they went.
But as sweet as the thought was, it was tinged with sadness.
There would be one child who would never get to play with his brothers. One child he’d never known, but who he loved all the same.
“I hope,” he said after some time, “that no matter what they look like, that they are happy, and that they grow up knowing they are loved.”
“Of that, I have no doubt.”
“Do you claim to know the future then, too, my lord dragon?” Peregrine asked with a small smile, rolling in Sebastian’s arms so they were chest to chest. “How can you be so sure?”
“One does not need a crystal ball to know the whelps will be loved, Perry,” Sebastian said with a kiss to the top of his head. “For they have us to raise them, and despite the hardships we’ve yet to face and the quarrels still to come, we will love them. Deeply. From the bottoms of our hearts. As we will all our children. Every one of them. Be they human, or dragon, or somewhere in between.”
Epilogue
Perry
Present Day
Eight heads of jet-black hair bounded down the corridors of the palace, arms flying, feet pounding, and—in one instance—a scaly pair of wings flapping wildly. The boys shrieked with laughter as they ran, as boys are wont to do, each doing his best to be faster than his brothers. It wasn’t long before they reached the end of the corridor, where they slid on socked feet around the corner.
Perry didn’t follow.
It had been a long time since there had been children in the palace, and it would do the place wonders to see some chaos. The children’s abundance of energy would help shake out the cobwebs of the past.
But there was one child who did not join in on the fun.
She was cradled in Perry’s arms, garbed in a fetching purple dress with lacy white ruffles, and was far more interested in staring up at him than anything her brothers were getting up to in the eastern wing.
Mira Clementine Drake was all of three months old, but she was already curious about life, and could spend hours watching as the world went on around her. She was a quiet baby. Well-behaved and never fussy. Not one to pitch a fit or cry. Stoic, like her father.
And Perry couldn’t begin to express how happy she had made him.
“Once upon a time,” he told her as he carried her toward the nursery, “there was a young dragon who lived here who did not know he was a dragon at all. It was a different time back then, you see. A time when we didn’t know all of the things we know today.
