Riordan all but held his breath.
“They’re intersex,” Sando said softly. “As we expected. As Harley develops, as they grow and begin to communicatepreferences, they may identify as male, female, both, neither, or something else entirely. That’s something that will emerge over time.”
Riordan breathed out. Intersex. Yes, they had expected that. And yet it was still a shock to hear Sando say it. Not a bad shock. It wasn’t like Riordan attached value to a specific sex, as if he’d preferred Harley to be either male or female. But it was one more aspect that would be different for Harley, that would make life so much more complicated.
“They’re growing up in the most accepting, understanding environment,” Wilmer said. “They’ll have all the time and space to figure out who they are.”
Jermon nodded. “Enar and Lev are great examples. No one gives them a hard time about who they are. And the most important thing is that Harley is healthy.”
He was right. Their child was healthy. The rest, they’d figure out.
After Sando left, Riordan sat on the living room floor with Harley in his lap. The hatchling had woken from their nap and was curled against his chest, warm and blue and making the small, contented sounds that meant they felt safe.
Wilmer and Jermon flanked him on the couch, their legs bracketing him on either side. It was a familiar configuration of comfort that they’d developed in the early weeks of parenthood, when Riordan had been too exhausted to sit on actual furniture and his mates had simply come to wherever he was.
“We’re going to need to figure out what to tell the pack,” Wilmer said, practical as ever. “Just so everyone knows how to treat Harley.”
“We can share it at the next pack meeting,” Jermon suggested. “Maybe bring the hatchlings to show them to everyone? We’ve limited visitors, so most haven’t even seen them.”
Riordan stroked Harley’s scales—the blue warming under his touch, deepening to something almost violet before lightening again. Responsive. Alive. Beautiful in a way no classification system could capture.
And then a thought struck him, and he almost gasped with the clarity it brought. “Remember the day they all hatched? How the other three came out on their own, but Harley waited. And then Fallon said the baby was waiting for a name. That they wouldn’t come out until they had one.”
“I remember,” Jermon said softly. “Not something I’ll ever forget.”
“A baby who refused to enter the world without an identity. Who insisted on being named—being known—before they’d take their first breath.” Riordan pressed his lips to the top of Harley’s head. “That’s not a child who’s going to struggle with who they are. That’s a child who knew who they were before any of us did. We just have to catch up.”
Harley looked up at him with those watchful, ancient eyes and chirped once—a small, definitive sound that seemed to say, quite clearly, “Obviously. Duh.”
Riordan laughed. It was wet and shaky and full of the fierce, complicated love of a parent who didn’t know what the future held but who knew, with unshakable certainty, that his child would face it with three parents at their back and a whole pack around them and a world that was slowly, imperfectly, stubbornly learning to make room for people who didn’t fit in boxes.
“Obviously,” Riordan whispered and held his baby-blue dragon close.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Six weeks since they’d arrived at the pack land, and Fergal had discovered that happiness was a thing that could sneak up on you when you weren’t looking. It had crept in through the small things—the weight of a pitchfork in his hands, the sound of laughter in the communal kitchen, the way Gregor’s arm tightened around him in sleep as if even his unconscious mind refused to let go. It had settled into the cabin’s walls, into the routine they’d built together—Gregor’s tea and Fergal’s coffee, Gregor’s military corners on the bed and Fergal’s books scattered across every horizontal surface, Gregor’s weapons on the nightstand and Fergal’s reading glasses beside them.
Home.
They should’ve left already. They had no reason to stay. Rhene was back, the omegas they’d accompanied were settling in, and even though Valerie was reporting everything was stable back on the compound, they couldn’t stay away much longer. But oh, how Fergal hated the thought of returning to the cold, both literally and metaphorically. So he kept postponing their return.
Tonight, the cabin was warm and smelled like the stew Gregor had made. Gregor was the better cook, obviously,because the man did everything with infuriating competence, including things as mundane as chopping onions. Fergal had been banned from cooking after the Garlic Incident two weeks ago, which had resulted in a stew so aggressively seasoned that even the dragon shifters, who ran hot and liked strong flavors, had complained.
They’d eaten on the couch, bowls balanced on their laps, Fergal’s feet tucked under Gregor’s thigh. The man radiated heat like a furnace, and Fergal’s toes ran cold in the evenings. They’d talked about nothing consequential—the new chicken coop Fergal had helped build that morning, Gregor’s observations about the pack’s security protocols, whether the pie Yitro had sent over was pecan or walnut. The kind of conversation that meant nothing and everything, the verbal equivalent of two people breathing the same air and being content with it.
Now the dishes were done—Gregor washing, Fergal drying, their nightly choreography—and they were in the bedroom, and Fergal wanted his hands on the man he loved.
He didn’t overthink it. He’d spent years overthinking every interaction with Gregor, strategizing and calculating and planning his approach like a military campaign. Here, in this cabin, in this bed, he didn’t need a strategy. He just needed to reach for him.
Gregor was sitting on the edge of the bed, pulling off his boots, and Fergal came up behind him, slid his arms around Gregor’s shoulders, and pressed his mouth to the place where his neck met his shoulder.
Gregor’s hands stilled on his boot laces. “Fergal.”
“Mm.” He kissed higher, finding the spot below Gregor’s ear that always made his breathing change. “Take your boots off.”
“I’m working on it.”
“Work faster.”
