by Zoe Chant
Tessa insisted, at first, on being taken to a hospital—loudly and at length—over the top of Darius's protests that he had excellent medical facilities at the mansion and could have the best doctors brought at once. When Tessa stopped for breath (and another contraction), Ben pointed out that it was a long drive to the nearest hospital, or a slightly less long but considerably more uncomfortable flight on dragonback.
"I'm not due for another two weeks," Tessa protested as they led her upstairs. "Look, there's time to get to a hospital. It's my first child, and I haven't been in labor very long ... I think."
"You think?" Melody, Ben, and Darius all said at once.
"Well, I've been having some ... aching, I guess, while I was watching over Melody. I didn't want to say anything because I've been having mild false contractions for weeks, it's a thing that happens—will you two stop looking at me that way," she snapped at Ben and Darius, one of whom was attempting to support her on each side. She shoved Darius away unceremoniously and claimed Ben's hand with her own. "Guys. Do I look like an invalid? Knock it off. I—oh—"
She stopped walking with a groan, and pressed her fist into the small of her back. Ben supported her and gave Darius a desperate look over the top of her head.
"I shall summon a physician," Darius declared, and hurried off.
"I'm not overly comforted by the word 'physician'," Tessa said as Ben helped her to an ornamental bench. "His knowledge of human medicine is more recent than 1890, right? He does know there are medical specialities? Just, I'd rather not have him show up with a proctologist for the delivery of my firstborn."
Melody gave a small laugh. She was leaning on Gunnar, a few steps behind the others, with his arm around her waist to support her. "I don't know how she gets away with it. Nobody can push my father around the way Tessa does. She's got a knack." She glanced up at Gunnar. "I hope the idea of a dragon father-in-law doesn't terrify you."
"I think we've both dealt with worse things than that," he said, leaning down to kiss her.
In the middle of the kiss, they both heard Tessa give a yelp, and Melody broke away and turned to her friend. Ben was looking frantic.
"Tessa, what's wrong?"
Tessa looked up at Ben and Melody with an odd expression on her face, somewhere between embarrassment and satisfaction. "Er ... I think my water just broke on your dad's thousand-dollar bench."
"Good timing," Ben said. He sounded cheerful for the first time in days.
***
"Darius," Tessa said between her teeth, as the white-faced OB/GYN examined the facilities in what appeared to be (to the extent that Gunnar could tell) a modern, state-of-the-art hospital suite in one of the mansion's wings, "when you said summon a physician, I wasn't aware summon was a code word for kidnap."
"No one has been kidnapped," Darius declared, looking slightly more ruffled than usual. "This woman is one of the finest obstetricians in the world, and she owes me a favor. She has been aware for some time that I might cash it in on the delivery of my grandchildren."
"Still, I doubt if she was aware that you might also show up in the middle of the night, grab her in your claws, and whisk her off to your secret lair in the mountains."
Darius's eyes narrowed. "She is aware that such things are a hazard of dealing with dragons. And she does know about dragons."
"Well, she sure does after one carried her off in the middle of the night!"
"Even before that," Darius said with dignity. "I made sure of it, so that she will be able to handle the situation in case there are unusual complications during the birth."
"Unusual complications?" Tessa's voice rose in a shriek, and she seized Ben's hand in a grip that made him grimace. "This baby is going to come out human-shaped, right? Right? Darius?"
"They usually do," Darius said.
"Usually?!"
Gunnar grinned and gave Melody a gentle tug, steering her away. "Looks like they've got it handled here. You want to lay down?"
"I'm actually feeling a lot better. The longer I'm up, the better I feel." She did have more color in her face, Gunnar was relieved to see. "Wait, wait," she went on, pulling away. "I need to find out if Tessa wants anything."
"Go lay down, Mel," was Tessa's answer when Melody asked about it. "I'm fine here. I have Ben, Darius, and all his minions at my beck and call. Go get some sleep. Gunnar, make her go sleep."
"Yes, ma'am," Gunnar said, grinning. This time Melody allowed herself to be shepherded out. "You gonna lay down now?"
"I don't want to," Melody protested. "I'm not that tired. Mostly what I want is food. You?"
"Food sounds great."
"One advantage to Dad being as loaded as he is, all we have to do is call down to the kitchen and they can have whatever we want brought up to our room. What do you want?"
Gunnar's mind went instantly blank. They'd been feeding him in the cell, but the food had tasted like ashes while he didn't know if Melody was going to be all right. Now he realized he was starving. "Uh ... burger?"
"We can do better than that. How about the biggest, juiciest, rarest rib-eye you've ever seen?"
His mouth watered. "Make it two and you've got a deal."
Not long after, they had a meal fit for a king—or at least a wealthy dragon—spread over the yellow-and-white bedspread in what Melody told him was called the Daffodil Room. "All the guest bedrooms have a theme," Melody explained. "If the yellow bothers you, we can move over to Pine or Sage or Bluebell."
"This is fine. It's cheerful." He looked around at the cream-colored carpet, the furnishings that looked like they probably came from fancy lines of furniture with fancy furniture-style names, and the door standing open to a bathroom with a huge Jacuzzi and an expanse of white-and-yellow tiled floor. "This is like some kind of fancy hotel, more than a house."
"We could sleep in a different room every night, if you want to. I used to enjoy doing that when I'd visit Dad as a kid."
Gunnar flushed and shook his head. "I wouldn't want to. It feels like ... too much, you know? I don't need it. This one room is nicer than anywhere I've ever been. Anyway, no sense making somebody have to change the sheets on all those beds and clean all those rooms if we don't need to."
Melody's eyebrows went up, and she thoughtfully forked up a piece of triple-layer chocolate cake with little chocolate curls on top. In addition to the steaks, she'd had the kitchen send up what looked to Gunnar like some of everything; there was more food than even a couple of healing shifters could eat. "I never thought about it that way before," she said.
"You mop enough floors, you can't help thinking about the people that mop the floors, even in a place like this. I mean, someone's gotta polish all that marble out there."
Her face lit up in a smile, and she reached out to curl her fingers over his wrist. "Gunnar, you're not only a good person, I think you're the best person I've ever known."
"I'm not," he protested, looking away.
Her fingers remained on his wrist, pressed gently like a benediction. "You are, though. Everything you've been through, everything with your brother and the life you've led—it could have made you hard and cold. It could have made you like Nils. But all it did was make you kind. You don't want other people to be hurt the way you were hurt."
She found his lips with hers, and for awhile the food was forgotten in gentle kissing and nibbling, relearning the shape of each other's mouths.
Eventually they came up for air, and more dessert. In between feeding each other chocolate-covered strawberries, Melody asked hesitantly, "Do you mind if I ask about your, um, legal situation? Do you know what's going to happen to you now that Nils is—um—now that he's no longer—"
"You can say dead," Gunnar said gently. It seemed to him that it should hurt more than it did, but when he prodded at thoughts of his brother as if probing a healing injury, all he found was a sad, resigned grief, not the acute pain he'd feared. "I talked to your brother a little bit while I was in the, er ..."
"You ca
n say dungeon." Anger flashed across her face. "I still can't believe they did that. I am definitely having a little word with my dad about that. I'll have the stupid thing bricked up if I have to."
"I didn't mind it. Really. But anyway, your brother and I talked about it, and he'll be working on getting me a full release. Your dad can afford some pretty good lawyers."
"I guess his money might as well be good for something," Melody said grudgingly.
Gunnar kissed the corner of her mouth. "Do you really want to sit here and talk about your dad?"
"Not really ..."
They kissed some more, not just on the lips; he nibbled down the soft skin of her neck, and she kissed his shoulders and collarbone, taking care with the fresh purplish scars where his fast shifter healing was still dealing with his injuries from the fight with Nils. He slipped her robe down from her pale shoulders and then took off her glasses gently, setting them on the nightstand. "I haven't gotten a close look at your eyes without these," he murmured.
"They're just eyes," she said, her voice a whisper with a smile in it.
"Nothing about you is 'just' anything to me."
She blinked up at him, and he decided her eyes were beautiful behind her glasses, and just as beautiful without. He bore her down to the bed, and they ended up getting chocolate in her hair and having to wash it out later, but it was worth it.
***
As they lay in each other's arms, damp from a leisurely dip in the enormous tub in the bathroom, Melody murmured, "You haven't asked about the dragonsbane."
"I didn't think it was any of my business," Gunnar said quietly.
"No, but I don't want any secrets between us. Not anymore." She propped herself up on her elbow, beautiful and unselfconscious in her soft, curvaceous nakedness. "I've been carrying around dragonsbane with me for awhile. I, um, borrowed it from Dad awhile back, without his knowledge."
"Were you ..." Gunnar hesitated. "Were you planning to ... hurt yourself? Or someone else?"
"No!" she said quickly. "No, not at all. No, it was a ... hope, a foolish hope, back when all of this first started, that I could use the dragonsbane to get control over the mate bond between us. I think maybe I knew all along that it wouldn't work. But it took me awhile to give in, to just let go and feel what I didn't want to admit I was feeling." She grimaced. "To be honest, I got so used to carrying it around with me that I forgot I had it. I'm just glad nobody else got hurt, like Ben or, God forbid, Tessa or the baby. If nothing else, I guess I've learned to be more careful."
"With deadly poisons? Good to hear."
Melody let out a soft sigh, and settled with her head in the crook of his shoulder. He stroked her bare arm gently, reassuring himself that she was here with him, each soft breath a reminder that she was okay. "Are you feeling better?" he asked quietly.
"I'm feeling pretty much back to normal, honestly. And a little bit stupid. And definitely determined not to do anything like that again." After a little while, she asked, "What about you? How are you doing?"
He didn't pretend that he didn't know what she meant. "Okay, I guess. I had a lot of time to think about Nils while I was locked up in the ... basement."
Melody growled under her breath. Gunnar kissed her cheek gently.
"Don't blame them too much for it. Having the time to myself was good for me, and it gave me time to think it over. To work things out in my own head. I lost my brother a long time ago; I just didn't want to admit it."
"I'm sorry," Melody whispered. "I thought I knew what it's like when your family isn't what you want them to be, but it's not at all the same for me. My family, however frustrating they are, always has my back. Yours ..."
"It's the past. We can't change it. All we can do is make our own future." He kissed the top of her head. "And I have you, now."
"Always," she whispered into his shoulder. "You'll always have me. No matter what."
Chapter Sixteen: Melody
They were lying together, skin to skin, half asleep, when there was a brisk knock on the door. "Hey, Melody," Ben called through the door. "Want to come meet your new baby niece?"
Melody sat bolt upright in bed, stark naked, her hair a tangled mess hanging in her face. "Coming!" she called, and then, hastily, "Don't come in!"
There was a soft laugh from the other side of the door. "Not planning on it."
Melody stretched and swung her legs off the bed. "C'mon." She prodded at Gunnar. "Get dressed."
"You sure I'll be welcome? This is a family thing."
"And you're family," Melody declared. "Mine. If anyone has a problem with it, they can take it up with me. Put some pants on and let's go."
She found clothes that fit her in the dresser, and decided not to wonder where they'd come from—if Tessa brought them, or if her father had taken to keeping spare clothes of hers on hand. She didn't recognize them, but they were in her general style, a soft kitten-gray sweater and gray slacks with a glossy pearlescent sheen. Both looked expensive. Probably Dad, then.
She expected to find Ben out in the hall—either that or to find the hall empty, Ben having gone back to Tessa and the baby. What she was not expecting was her dad, leaning on the wall, looking well put together and slightly bored in that typical Darius sort of way.
"Where's Ben?" Melody asked.
"He's gone to be with his mate. I, on the other hand," Darius said, "have been thrown out of the delivery room, unceremoniously thrown out in my own house."
"I truly can't imagine why," Melody said, tucking her fingers into Gunnar's hand. "So what does it feel like to be a grandpa?"
"I'm sure I'll survive it," Darius said mildly, the corner of his mouth twitching as if to suppress a smile. He raised an eyebrow at both of them. "And what is the prognosis of grandchildren coming from this direction anytime soon?"
"None of your business, that's what," Melody said primly, while Gunnar blushed.
The mansion's medical wing had changed utterly since Melody had last been there some twelve or so hours earlier. Now there were dim lights, candles, and music playing softly. Clearly Tessa had taken full advantage of having minions at her beck and call to do some redecorating.
Tessa herself was lying on a bed in a pile of blankets, with the baby bundled up in a soft pale-yellow blanket and resting on her chest. She looked exhausted but euphoric. Ben was next to her, holding her hand and looking quietly delighted. He kept looking down at the blanket-wrapped baby as if he couldn't quite believe it was real. Darius hung back discreetly in the doorway.
"I'm sorry I wasn't there for the birth," Melody said, hugging her friend carefully around the baby.
"I'm not," Tessa said, hugging her back. "The last thing I wanted was a bunch of other people underfoot, trust me. Ben and the OB/GYN were about all the company I could handle. Do you want to hold her?"
"I—um—maybe?" Melody said blankly, as Tessa put the little blanket-wrapped bundle into her arms. She hadn't realized newborn babies were so shockingly tiny. The baby weighed almost nothing. Her little red face was scrunched up and she had dark curls plastered to her tiny head.
Melody had never thought of herself as a person who was into babies. Only now, looking down at the tiny, fragile little newborn person in her arms, she found herself falling completely and utterly in love.
"What's her name?" Gunnar asked quietly. He'd stepped closer and was looking down at the baby with a soft, captivated expression that went deep into Melody's chest. What would his face look like, looking at a child of his own? She wanted, suddenly, to find out.
"We haven't quite decided yet," Tessa said. "We've known it was a girl for a few months; we just didn't tell anyone. I figured by now we'd have a name picked out, but ..."
"Do you have a list?" Melody asked, glancing up from the baby she was still shyly cradling.
"Sure we do, but it's fifteen names long."
"Darius is an excellent name," Darius said, from the doorway.
"Not for a girl, thank you."
"Dar
ia, then. Very strong name, very traditional."
"She doesn't need a strong name, Dad, she's maybe two pounds at most," Melody said, looking down again at the tiny person in her arms.
"Six pounds, ten ounces," Ben said.
She weighed less than a gallon-sized carton of milk, Melody thought. She would fit inside a carton of milk.
"All the more reason to need a strong name," Darius said, unruffled. He turned at a discreet tap on his shoulder from Maddox, and the two men spoke quietly for a moment. "Ah, we've a guest."
"A guest?" Tessa said, sitting up in bed from where she'd been wilting sleepily on Ben's shoulder. "A guest, in here? I hope you don't mean in here, Darius."
"It's been some time, my Heart," said Heikon, bowing his way into the room.
Ben scrambled to his feet and put himself protectively between Tessa and the rival dragon clanlord. Melody could sense his panther near the surface. Her dragon was bristling as well.
"My mate just had a baby, Heikon," Ben said between his teeth. "I don't know if Dad called you, or if you just decided to show up, but you're not welcome here. Tessa isn't yours anymore, to the extent she ever was."
"I'm only here for a moment." Heikon reached up to touch something on his shoulder, and Melody nearly jumped as a very small dragon uncoiled from around his neck. The little dragon was jewel-green, with glimmering green and copper wings, and there was something sparkly tangled up in its claws. "I'm told you have a baby girl. Where is she?"
"Uh, she's here," Melody said, curling protectively around the baby in her arms, "but I don't think her parents want you to hold her."
"I wasn't going to ask, and I won't be long." Heikon's glance at Tessa was fond and amused, even though Tessa looked like she wanted to strangle him. "Her family served mine faithfully for many years, and I promised a gift to her firstborn. It's okay, Feodran," he coaxed the little dragon, holding it against his chest. "Go ahead and shift."