“I’m not scared.”
I pull back, cup her face in my hands, make her look at me. Her eyes are bright, searching.
“I’m not scared,” I repeat. “I’m—”
The words won’t come. There aren’t words big enough for this. For the life growing inside her. For the future that’s suddenly more real and more terrifying and more wonderful than anything I’ve ever imagined.
I kiss her instead.
Through the bond, I pour everything I can’t say: love, hope, terror, joy. The overwhelming gratitude of a male who expected to die alone and instead found this. Found her.
She laughs against my lips, and I feel the tears on her cheeks—happy ones.
“Your mother is going to LOSE HER MIND.”
“She’s going to demand we move to the main estate.”
“Over my dead body.”
“That’s what I told her when she suggested it last month.”
“See?” She grins up at me, and the tears are happy ones. “We’re in sync.”
“CAPTAIN.” Zip’s voice cuts through the moment, powering back up from his diplomatic hibernation. “I CALCULATE THAT I WILL NOW BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THREE CHAOTIC HUMANOIDS INSTEAD OF ONE.”
“Think of it as career advancement, Zip.”
“I THINK OF IT AS STATISTICAL INEVITABILITY. I HAVE ALSO CALCULATED THE PROBABILITY THAT YOUR OFFSPRING WILL INHERIT YOUR COMBINED TALENT FOR CAUSING DIPLOMATIC INCIDENTS.”
“And?”
“97.3%. THE GALAXY IS NOT PREPARED.”
Polly laughs, and I hold her close, and the future stretches out before us—terrifying and wonderful and ours.
Later, we stand at her office window.
The crystal spires glitter in the afternoon light, the city sprawling beneath them in patterns I’ve known since childhood. But even the view feels different now, seen through the lens of everything that’s changed.
I have my arms around her, her back against my chest, both of us looking out at the world we’re building together.
“I never thought I’d have this,” I say quietly.
She leans back into me. “The view or the pregnant wife you just ravished on her desk?”
“Any of it. All of it.” I rest my chin on her head, breathing in the scent of her—familiar now, woven into every part of my life. “The mission was supposed to be my last act. I was prepared for it to end.”
I think about the man I was a year ago. The weight I carried, the death I expected, the grim determination that was all that kept me moving.
“And then there was you.”
She turns in my arms, looping her hands behind my neck.
“For the record?” Her eyes are warm, teasing. “I wasn’t supposed to fall for the cargo either. Mother’s going to hold it over me forever.”
“Mother’s going to hold it over you?” I raise an eyebrow. “My mother has already commissioned a nursery.”
Her jaw drops. “She what?”
