Our son’s cries tapered off in Sage’s hold, my mate’s beautiful hands, with their large palms and long, nimble fingers cradling the curled-up form of the baby under the blanket. Despite being exhausted, with his hair stringy and matted and hastily tied back, and dark circles rimming his reddened eyes, I had never seen Sage look more serene or more beautiful.
“Hey, little guy,” he greeted the baby warmly, his voice tinged with the same awe currently thrumming through my veins, “it’s awesome to finally meet you.”
Our boy cracked an eye open, revealing a watery blue iris and seemed to try to focus, likely recognizing Sage’s voice.
“Oh, you’re going to have your Daddy’s eyes, I bet,” Sage cooed, leaning towards Sergio who, I realized, seemed just as mystified as I felt.
The baby squawked, and Sage chuckled. “Ah, so you look like your Daddy, but your attitude is all Da’s, huh?” He turned his head to wink at me.
My heart squeezed again. “Oh, the fun we will have, then. My little co-conspirator and me.” I shuffled in closer from my edge of the mattress, resting my cheek on Sage’s shoulder. “But you’re wrong. I think he looks like you. He’s likely going to have your hair.”
Now that it was drying, the downy-soft hair on his head was turning more strawberry-blonde than the dark shade it had been while wet.
“The perfect mix of all three of us, then,” Sergio murmured, daring to reach out and cup his palm over the top of the baby’s head. “I can’t believe he’s here.”
Sage snorted, then winced. “I can.” He looked towards his older brother in bewilderment. “You did that three times in one go and thenimmediatelysigned up for another round? You’re insane.”
Brandt shrugged. “The pay-off is more than worth it to me.”
Sage looked back down at his precious cargo and smiled, admitting, “Yeah, it’s worth it to me, too.”
Epilogue
Time had a way of moving strangely for us dragons. With lifespans of a thousand years or so, a single year often felt like barely a blip. But then I bonded with my mates, and I had a baby, and it all seemed to slow down enough for me to treasure the time.
Because, yeah, itwasstrange that our young developed at the same pace as humans. I hadn’t really given it a lot of thought until Sunny came along, but then it was all I could think about. His time as a baby would be so short, and he would be a fully grown adult before I could even blink. And yet, I felt like I had the time to enjoy it —him— properly despite that.
Even so, he had grown like a weed. At nine months old, he was crawling like a pro, getting into all kinds of mischief the moment Serge, Dex, or I took our eyes off him.
Case in point; I had barely sat down on Ollie’s couch before I heard one of the twins say, “No, Sunny, this game is for big kids.”
I groaned and closed my eyes. “This. This is why you and Beck stuck to just the twins, right?” I slowly turned my head to grimace at Oliver. “He’s awesome, but exhausting.”
Ollie chuckled and got up, patting my shoulder as he made his way around the couch to rescue his kids from mine.
“Yeah, the exhaustion was definitely a big part of it,” he acknowledged, his voice sounding distant the further down the hallway he got. But he returned only a handful of seconds later, bouncing Sunny on his hip.
My son grinned unrepentantly, the dimples that echoed Serge’s making my heart squeeze the way they always did. “Maaaaa!” he made grabby hands my way, as though he hadn’t just made his grand escape from my side mere minutes earlier, and I snorted. “Papa,” I corrected him, taking him from Ollie with a grunt. He was a solid kid, and every time I lifted him, I swore he weighed more and more.
‘A healthy alpha dragon,’Dex would always say, probably the proudest parent of all three of us.
Of course, Dex was also the reason our son called me ‘Ma’ instead of ‘Papa’, which did not amuse me as much…and that only made him find it all the funnier. Typical Dex, really.
"Anyway," Ollie sat on the armchair kitty-corner to my seat on the couch and tickled Sunny's rounded belly, beaming when my boy squealed and squirmed in my hold, "I'm still looking forward to experiencing this again. It's worth the exhaustion. And there's no turning back now, anyway."
I felt my eyebrows climbing higher as a grin stretched my face, understanding dawning over me. "Get out. Are you—?"
Biting his lip, he nodded, brushing his palm over his stomach. "Eric confirmed it yesterday."
"That's awesome!" I cheered, bending forward to squeeze his knee. "Congratulations!" My smile turned into a smirk. "How's Beck handling the news?"
"I mean, we planned for it this time," Ollie's fingers danced over Sunny's tummy again, his eyes shining with delight, "but he's still a little stunned, I think."
I'd barely crossed paths with our pack Alpha on his way out the door for the monthly pack run, but he had seemed a bit frazzled. This explained it. "But he's happy, right?"
Sergio, Dex, and I had started to talk about expanding our own family some more, and I knew that both my mates would be ecstatic if I got pregnant again, but there were three of us and only one baby to manage amongst us. Even though the twins weren't little terrors anymore, they were still a handful —inquisitive, energetic, sometimes destructive— and I could see why Beckett had been afraid to rock the status quo.
"He is," Oliver's green gaze softened and turned distant. "We talked a lot about whether we really wanted another baby before I stopped taking the pill." Still holding Sunny around his waist, I freed a hand to run my fingers through the soft curls on top of my son's head while I listened intently. "It was his idea, y'know?"
