Broch shrugged. “I never did think I would come here, but I think it was the right move.”
Christin agreed. It was. It was the right decision for everyone, and she was glad they had made it. She wished that everyone was there with them, but enough had come to start over, that it felt like home.
Christin was pulled into her husband’s arms. and she was sure that she would never be this happy again. That moment, that one moment was perfect and Christin never wanted it to end. Broch kissed her, taking her mind off the what-ifs, and onto the what’s next.
Chapter 36
Broch
Seven Months Later
Broch was pacing back and forth, wanting to go into the room, but being shooed out every time he tried to go in. Christin was having the baby and the midwives didn’t want him there. He was too volatile and he was making everyone a nervous wreck. Broch was feeling like one at the moment, like everything was going to spin out of control. He kept wondering, was that normal? Was he supposed to feel like that?
“Sit down, Broch. You are going to wear a hole into the floor.”
Richard and Eve arrived about an hour after they called them. Eve went into the room right off, holding Christin’s hand and calming everyone down with her presence. Broch’s presence didn’t have the same reception and he told himself that he would calm down, as soon as he found out that Christin was okay. He needed that to be the truth, it had to be.
He sat down next to Richard for a time, a few minutes, before he was right back to working on the groove in the floor that he had started before. He just wanted a word but feared what was behind the door. He wanted to go in there about as much as they wanted him in there.
Broch waited another few minutes before Eve came out of the room with a bundle of baby. They weren’t in a hospital, couldn’t be considering what kind of baby they were having. There was no telling because of the mix in shifters, but Christin and Broch’s baby wasn’t the only mixture on the way. It was just the first of many.
“Is she?”
“He.”
“A boy?”
“It seems you have an heir.”
Broch didn’t care about that. He wanted to know how Christin was doing even before he would look at his son, he had to know. Eve assured him that she was fine.
“She did wonderfully, Broch. Really, she did. She is so strong. William is already in there. He wanted to make sure his mom was okay.”
Broch held the baby, and he could see that his son had his wife’s eyes. They glowed, showing his shifter side and Broch had to wonder what he would turn into. He didn’t know if there had been a mix of their kind before. Broch had been nervous, but the baby looked like any other baby, his baby.
He talked to the baby for a time, waiting until he was able to go see Christin. She was being moved into another room and he walked in with the baby.
“Colin is strong, Christin. You outdid yourself with him.”
Christin agreed, but she was tired. He could see it in her eyes and the way her head nodded.
“He is perfect, isn’t he?”
Broch agreed. “Has he changed yet?”
Christin agreed that he hadn’t. “Is that what has you worried?”
He agreed that he was worried, but he didn’t want to be. He knew whatever his son turned into he would love him just the same. He, of course, wanted Colin to follow in his own footsteps, but how could he be upset if he became a dragon? Both were mythical creatures and had their own strengths. They’d proved not too long ago, that wolves could take down dragons or anything that stood in their way.
“I am not worried, just anxious. It usually happens by now.”
“Well, maybe he needs a little more time.”
Broch said that he wasn’t rushing anything. “He can have all the time that he wants.”
Like on cue, Broch could see the baby starting to shake a little. He would change once as a baby and then he wouldn’t shift again until he was going through puberty, at least that was how it had been for both parents.
First, Colin shifted into a dragon. He was a brilliant blue like his eyes, perfectly formed scales and a smile that took Broch’s heart. How could he want him to be anything but the beauty that was his mother? Broch moved toward him and brought him up to his face. “You are a handsome dragon, son.”
