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Rhys knew what I meant. “There’s one person left to tell.”

I smiled, tugging his hair to get him to look at me. Rhys obeyed, staring down into my face. “You want to break the news to Mor or can I?” He’d known her the longest, but I considered her my dearest friend. A sister, perhaps more so than my own.

“I think we should let him tell her,” Rhys said, nodding down to my belly.

I arched a brow. “How?”

He smiled wryly. “The next time Mor’s home, we’ll drop the shield around you. See how long it takes her to scent you. And him.”

I smiled back. “I like that.” I already wished I had some way of capturing Mor’s face in that moment. I brushed my hand through Rhys’s silken hair. “Do you have any names in mind?”

Rhys grinned. “Oh, yes.”

“I don’t trust that grin for one moment.”

“Why?” He pulled out of me, and with a wave of his magic, we were both cleaned. I stifled the rising hunger in me at the sight of him tucking himself back into his pants. “I’d never name him anything ridiculous.”

“I don’t believe you.” I tapped his nose. “Your family name—”

“Let’s not talk about my family name,” he said, nipping at my fingertips.

I laughed. “Fine.”

But his eyes dimmed. “What about naming him for your father?”

My heart strained. “You’d be all right with that?”

“Of course I would.”

I had to swallow the tightness in my throat as I sat up, facing him fully. “Perhaps for a secondary name, but . . . no. I want our son to have a name of his own.”

Our son. The words were foreign, yet lovely on my tongue.

Rhys nodded, face softening as if the words moved him as well.

I could already see the father he’d become—see him laughing as he tossed our child skyward, see him slumbering with the boy on this very couch, books left open in their laps. Our son would never, not for a moment, doubt that he was loved and cherished. And Rhys would go to the ends of the world to protect him.

I smiled at the daydreams, hands already aching to paint them.

Rhys let out a hum of contemplation. “What about Nyx?”

I blinked. “Nyx?”

Rhys pointed to one of the walls of books in the study. A leather-bound tome floated toward his open fingers. He wordlessly flipped to a page and then passed it to me.

I scanned the text inside. “An ancient night goddess?”

“From around the time of the Trove, actually,” Rhys said. “She’s mostly been forgotten now, but I like the sound of her name. Why not use it for a boy?”

“Nyx,” I mused again, the name echoing in the silent study. I brushed my tattooed fingers over my stomach. Rhys’s hand came over mine, and we both smiled at the little life forming within my body.

“Nyx,” I said one last time, and could have sworn a flutter of night-kissed power rose in answer.

Rhys sucked in a sharp breath, as if he’d also felt that kernel of power.

Together, we gazed at our linked hands, my stomach beneath them.

Together, we gazed at our son, and I offered my silent thanks to the Mother for the beautiful future that bloomed before us.