20
“Ye owe me an explanation, Kaiden.”
Kaiden heard Ferra’s voice, but his eyes were on the bundle that was in her arms. “Later, lass. Can I see him?”
Her expression softened as she handed over the bundle to him, and Kaiden drew in a tortured breath, not caring that tears were streaming down his cheeks. He had a son, a precious son that his wife had just given him. He could never thank Ferra enough for this gift and that they both had come out alive and well.
“Mah son,” he whispered, pressing his lips to the babe’s tiny forehead. “Mah heir.” One day he would teach his son how to be a laird, and when the time came, he would turn over the clan to him for him to rule the next generation.
“Yer da will be happy,” Ferra was saying as Kaiden tucked the wee bairn in his arm carefully.
“Aye,” Kaiden replied, looking at his wife. Ferra was glowing with happiness, but he saw the smudges of exhaustion under her eyes, knowing that she needed her rest just as he had. Every scream he had heard through the door was etched in his mind forever. “He should be back any day.” His father had gone to visit an ailing laird that had once been his closest friend, and he would be upset to know that he had missed this birth.
She gave him a nod, and Kaiden handed their son back to her before toeing off his boots. “Move over, lass,” he grumbled.
“Kaiden, wot are ye doing?” she gasped as he maneuvered his way into their bed, where he had been declined a chance to do so since the birthing had started. “The sheets, they need to be changed.”
“I dinnae care,” he said, easing his arm around her and breathing in her scent. “I’ve missed ye, lass.”
She gave him a look but settled her head against his shoulder regardless. “I was a wee bit busy, Kaiden.”
He smirked as he gazed down at their sleeping son. “Aye, lass, ye were, and I can never give ye anything tae compare.” She had given him the future, right there in her arms.
“Ye can tell me aboot Erik’s woman.”
Of course, she would go back to that. Kaiden adjusted the pillow behind his head, feeling his body relax against the mattress. Now that the bairn was born and everything appeared to be fine with Ferra, he could finally draw in a breath without worry.
“He’s in love.”
Ferra snorted. “Erik? In love? Nay.”
“Aye,” Kaiden replied with a hint of a smile on his face. “She’s a warrior in the McPherson clan. He’s quite taken with her.” He had never seen his closest friend in such a state before.
“Well then,” Ferra said sleepily. “I thought I would never see the day that he would be taken with someone.”
“Nay,” Kaiden answered, brushing his hand over her hair lightly. “Neither would I.” Kaiden felt like there was more to the story that Erik hadn’t told him, but he wasn’t going to press the issue about Erik’s former love. At least the alliance was safe and that it appeared, at least to him, that the McPherson and McGregor clans would be bonded by marriage. Erik had never shared with him like he had yesterday.
“Can ye believe this?” Ferra said after a moment, her finger touching their son’s forehead. “Can ye believe that we made a son?”
“Nay,” Kaiden said, watching his wife with their son. He was barely keeping his emotions together as it was, though Ferra had seen him at his worst, and still, she loved him. He loved her to distraction, to the point where she was an extension of himself. If something were to happen to her, he would die right along with her, finding no need to continue to live without Ferra by his side. She was everything that he was, and life without her, well, it made no sense.
He hoped that was what Erik was feeling about this warrior lass of his. While he hadn’t given any names, Kaiden imagined that they would be meeting her soon enough anyway. His second-in-command was not one to give up so easily, and he couldn’t fathom why he had come back without the lass to begin with.
Ferra settled the babe to her chest and, taking her free hand, intertwining their fingers together. “I’m so happy,” she said softly as his thumb rubbed over hers idly. “I never thought I could be this happy.”
Emotion clogged Kaiden’s throat then. She was happy because of him, because of the life they had together and what they shared. For a man who had nearly given in to it all, he was blessed by the gods to have this second chance at this life, with this woman at his side.
“I hope ye know,” he rasped as she melted against him, “how much ye mean tae me, lass. There’s not a day that doesnae go by that I havenae thanked the gods for ye and the joy ye have brought into mah life, into this dark existence that no longer exists because of ye.” She was everything to him, everything he thought he would never have, and everything that they were to have together as a family.
Ferra answered with a light snore, and Kaiden grinned, ensuring that the babe was still on her chest and comfortable before he eased back on the pillow, taking a sleeping Ferra with him. Of course, she would pick now to fall asleep when he was pouring out his soul to her, but he couldn’t blame her.
She had just given him the greatest blessing of them all.
So, he just brushed his lips over her temple instead, whispering the words she begged to hear from him daily. “I love ye, lass, always.”
Nothing could take away this happiness he had found with her, and nothing ever would.
