“I love you.” I look away, suddenly shy. “And I had another crazy thought…”Can I tell him?I barely wanted to admit it to myself.
“Yes?” he prompts, when I trail off.
I take a deep breath. “I kind of wished I was pregnant, so I’d at least still have a part of you when you were gone.”
Khan’s reaction surprises me. Instead of displaying shock or delight, he merely raises an eyebrow. “Is that so?”
I nod.
Reaching out, he takes my hand, squeezing it. “There’s something I have to tell you now,” he says, “and it might distress you. Would you like me to purr?”
My heart starts to pound, and I feel the first prickles of panic. “No. Just tell me.”
“You’re pregnant,” he says, and to his credit, he doesn’t look at all smug. Just apprehensive as hell.
I can hardly believe my ears. “How do you know?” I croak.
“You passed out before we could go through the portal. I had the magicians look you over. I thought it was just because estrus is hard on Omegas—and it might be even harder on human females. You weren’t eating, had lost weight, and were tired all the time…”
I already knew he’d noticed that, but only now do I realize that all along, the signs of how much he cares about me were there. I was just too homesick and caught up in my own misery to see them.
“I’m pregnant?” Instinctively, I put a hand to my belly. “Oh, god.”
“I’m so sorry, Emma.” He looks genuinely upset. “As much as I wanted this, now that I know how much you don’t…” He trails off.
I study his striking, familiar face—the one I’ve seen contorted in anger, lust, and ice-cold brutality as he hacked through those aliens at the auction. Carefully, I probe my feelings about what he’s just told me. I’m not nearly as freaked out as I thought I would be.
“It’s okay,” I tell him. “I’m not mad. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I’m coming to realize that I’m actually excited.” As I say it, I realize it’s the truth. Just because I’m going to have a baby that doesn’t mean I have to give up my other love: painting. I won’t be barefoot and pregnant to a deadbeat dad who treats me like crap—if he even sticks around. I won’t have to sacrifice my career to raise a kid.Thatwas what I was really afraid of. Not actually having children.
“Really?” His face lights up with sudden, sheer happiness. It’s like a lamp has been switched on within him. “You’re excited?”
“I am.” It’s the truth. Not only do I get to be with my mate—who loves me so much he’d actually die for me, for fuck’s sake—but I get to give him his greatest wish. His heart’s desire.
An image of a mini-Khan flashes in my mind. Or maybe it will be a little girl. Will she have my skin, or his? Whose eyes? Will she have the Ulfarri tattoo markings? Then I panic. “But can we even… I mean, will it be viable?” I’m using the most clinical term I can think of to distance myself from the awful thought that maybe our genes just aren’t compatible.
“The magicians assure me that you will carry a healthy baby to term—or at least, you have as great a chance of that as any other human or Ulfarri female of fertile age.” The jagged sorrow flashes across his face as quick as lightning, but I still catch it, and know he’s thinking about his mother. “You just need to take care of yourself. I need to take care of you.”
“You already do,” I say, squeezing his hand.
“I love you, little Emma,” he says, and even though I already knew how he felt about me, hearing him actually speak the words brings more tears to my eyes. Tears of joy.
“I love you too,” I manage.
Leaning over, he kisses me, not with the usual ferocity and savage lust, but with a tenderness that makes my heart ache. “Now sleep,” he says, stroking his hand over my eyes to make me close them. “You are safe. You are home. And I am here.”
I inhale deeply, breathing in his smokey pine scent.
Khan begins to purr.
EPILOGUE
Emma
Sunset isa magical time in my painting studio. Light streams into my quiet corner of the palace, making the air shimmer. The magic hour. The perfect end to my painting session—and day.
I take a few steps and dip my feet into the cool water running its course through the carved channel. The stream flows to an infinity pool at the edge of the large platform, and falls to crash on a platform below. Beyond the infinity pool, the sky is lavender, fading to a bluish purple at the corner of the horizon.
I stretch, loosening my taut muscles. I've been painting in my studio for hours but it feels like the blink of an eye. I wouldn’t notice the time passing but for the suns’ setting, and the heaviness in my breasts.
