Page 28

“It’s going to be more than okay.” I rested my head on his. Making a promise about something I wasn’t in control of was awkward, but I did it anyway. “You’re going to deliver the egg, and then we’ll look after it until the baby hatches.”

“Or eggs. There might be ten.” His voice had risen to shriek level, and I explained dragons rarely delivered more than five eggs.”

“Five?” He whacked my arm. “You’re supposed to be reassuring me.”

“Okay, let’s say three.”

I kept my own fears to myself. Neither of us had ever done this before, and I couldn’t predict the future. But as both humans and dragons had delivered babies or eggs for thousands of years, I figured the odds were in our favor.

“It’s okay to be worried.” Sheridan snuggled into me. “We’re first-time parents.”

The old fear reared its head. Maybe the flight was right. “What if I’m the reason something goes wrong?”

Placing my hand on his bump, my mate scoffed at my suggestion. “The flight wasn't right about one single thing. They looked at you and saw a problem, but that wasn’t your flaw, it was theirs.”

He pulled my head down so it was resting on his huge belly. “I’m nervous, like all parents-to-be, but you’re the reason I’m not terrified.

Oh my darling Sheridan. I wept into his hair and we held one another, and for the first time, we fell asleep in the nest. But I was woken by an elbow in my side.

“Radley.”

“Mmmm.” I rolled over, expecting to be in our bed, and smacked into the piece of stone. “Ouch!”

But my dragon joined in calling my name and telling me to wake up. Sheridan has news.

Can’t it wait til morning?

“The egg.” Sheridan was panting and gripping my arm.

I shot up and banged my head on the shelf, making the chipped mug wobble and the marble spill onto the floor.

“It hurts.” My mate was on all fours and fisting the duvet.

I kneeled beside him and rubbed his back.

“He thinks I can’t do this.” Sheridan groaned and lowered his head. “I just know he’s issuing silent instructions on what I should be doing.”

“No, my beast knows how capable you are.”

“Not him.” He jerked his head at the tin solder. “Him.”

Huh? “Ahhh, what does he know?”

I removed the soldier from the nest and laid him face down on the shelf so Sheridan couldn’t see him, but I had no experience with humans delivering a baby, and my mate’s labor was long and hard. There were minutes when he closed his eyes and slept, but then he labored for hours with seemingly no progress. Maybe the egg was making its way into the world, but how would I have known?

“Are you sure this is how it’s supposed to be?” Sheridan was bathed in sweat, and I was wiping his brow and chest.

But there was a knock at the door, and someone slipped a note underneath. It was from Emerald the unicorn shifter who wrote that she’d witnessed dragons laying eggs, and judging by Sheridan’s screams, he was doing well.

I left out the screams bit when I read it to my mate, and he buried his head in the nest. “But I’m not a dragon, Emerald.” He sobbed, and I held him before he needed to push again.

“Something’s different. Oh gods, I’m breaking apart.”

Something was very different because an egg emerged and lay on top of the duvet as if it had always been there.

“You did it.” I kissed him and admired the egg that was tinged with blue, the color of my dragon’s scales.

“No, I didn’t.” He grabbed a handful of my hair. “It’s happening again.” He grunted and strained, and another egg appeared. The redness faded from his face as he told me he was done.