Liam. She loved that name.

Her stomach growled. Maybe she would sneak out and raid the fridge after all. At nine months, she was nowhere near the size of full-term, human pregnancies, but she was definitely beginning to feel ungainly. She rocked a little to get some momentum going then rolled off the edge of the bed and onto her feet. She wanted another piece of that nomilicious lemon sponge cake.

Cake. Birthday.

She frowned.

Bam! The baby kicked again, harder than he had ever kicked before, and she doubled over as warm liquid gushed between her legs.

Bracing herself with one hand on the edge of the bed, she stared down at herself in bewilderment. Her legs, feet and the rug she was standing on were all soaked, and strangest of all, she felt more hugely swollen than she had ever felt before.

What had just happened?

She said, “Dragos?”

He took a deep breath and stretched. In a lazy, sleep gravelly voice, he asked, “What are you doing out of bed?”

She told him in a small voice, “I think I’m having the baby.”

No matter how diffidently she said the words, they still rocketed through the room like a thunderclap. For one split second Dragos remained unmoving. Then he surged off the bed and stared at her, gold eyes blazing.

She stared back. She had never seen such a wild expression on his hard-edged face before.

“What did you just say?” he asked.

“My water just broke,” she said.

“It can’t do that,” he told her. He sounded completely calm and looked entirely insane. “The baby isn’t supposed to come for at least another year. He’s too premature.”

“Apparently he disagrees.” A squeezing pain gripped her, along with panic, and she sank to her knees. Oh God, oh God. She sobbed, “He told me his name is Liam.”

Dragos crouched, and with an immense spring, he cleared the bed to land right beside her. Carefully he gathered her up in his arms and strode out of the room. “What do you mean, he told you his name was Liam?” he said. “He can’t talk. He’s a fetus. And there’s no one around for f**king miles. No Wyr doctor, no nurse. No neighbors. There’s nobody here, Pia.”

She breathed through the vise that gripped her around the middle and said between her teeth, “Yeah, I got that.”

He carried her to another bedroom, flipped the light on with his elbow and eased her gently down onto the bed. Then he leaned over her, stroking her hair back from her face. His hands were shaking. “I could call people and have them fly in,” he said roughly. “But you need a hospital. I’ll get you wrapped up and fly you out.”

Finally the viselike grip in her abdomen eased and she sucked in a deep breath. “Wait a minute,” she said, gripping him by the wrist. “We’re panicking. We need to calm down and think about this.” She looked down at herself and whimpered. “Why am I so big?”

He stared down at her, breathing heavily. Then he placed both his hands on her swollen belly and she gasped as he sent a spear of Power piercing into her. His gaze turned inward for a moment, and he said, “The baby’s shapeshifted. He’s in his human form now. I’m guessing he’s around seven pounds.”

She sagged back down against the pillows. “Oh, thank God.”

“He feels strong and healthy.” Dragos’s gold eyes were red rimmed and worried. “Is that all right?”

Her mind whirled from one thought to the next. Since she had never expected to be able to come into her full Wyr form, she knew rather more about human babies than most Wyr did.

The baby was now in his human form, and she was nine months pregnant. Liam was much too small to be born as a dragon baby, but in his human form, he appeared to be just right. And if she could give birth to him in his human form, it meant she didn’t need to have a C-section. As long as he stayed in his human form he would be fine, until his dragon form had matured enough for him to maintain it independently.

Don’t worry, Mom. Everything is going to be fine. I’ll make sure of it.

“Seven pounds is a little on the small size, but for a human baby, it’s good.” Her own gaze dampened. “It’s a really good size. It’s normal. I think everything’s going to be all right.”

Dragos expelled a pent-up breath and hung his head. He stroked her belly with both hands. He still had not stopped shaking. “Okay. That’s good. Do you want to get dressed before I take you to the hospital? I’ll still wrap you in plenty of blankets.”

She patted his shoulder as she calmed down. “We’re not going to the hospital.”

His head came up. “What?”

“I said we’re not going to go to the hospital,” she told him. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and pushed herself to a sitting position. Wow, oh wow, did she feel ungainly. How did human women go through an entire month like this? “I’m going to take a shower,” she said. “And then I want to put on one of your T-shirts, and we’re going to have the baby right here.”

“Pia, no,” he said.

“Dragos, yes,” she told him. “Liam has surprised us, but he told me everything was going to be all right, and I believe him. Besides, I like it here. It’s peaceful and quiet, and I want to look out at the lake.”

“What do you mean, he told you, and you believe him?” Dragos roared, “He’s a fetus!”

She pointed to the door. “All the big voices go outside now.”

“PIA, GODDAMMIT!”

“I mean it, Dragos! It’s my pregnancy and my body, and I’m having the baby right here. Now, you can go outside and wait until it’s done, and you’ve got two hundred and fifty acres that you can rip to shreds if you have to.” She shook her finger at him. “But you do not come back inside until you can talk in a quiet voice. Do you hear me?”

He stared at her with his mouth open. Oh, she wished she had a photo of that look. Then his mouth snapped shut. “Okay,” he said, and glory be, he sounded marginally calmer and much more quiet. “It’s your pregnancy and your body, but you’re my mate—my wife—and that’s my son. I’m not going anywhere. Give me a few minutes to make a few phone calls, and then I’ll help you with the shower. I don’t want you to have one of those . . .” He rotated a hand at the wrist. “. . . One of those birthing spells . . .”

She raised her eyebrows. “Contractions?”

He snapped his fingers. “. . . Contractions, where you might run the risk of slipping and falling. You’ll wait for me to get back, do you understand?”

She smiled. “Yes, I’ll wait.”

He rushed out of the room and leaped downstairs to the ground floor, and she did wait for him, sort of. She could hear him snorting and seething on the phone as she went into the bathroom off the master bedroom, where she washed her face and brushed her teeth. She had to put down the toilet lid and sit as she waited through another contraction. Was her hair all right? Yes, it was clean enough. She had washed it just that morning.

From the doorway of the bathroom, Dragos said, “Good gods, you’re putting on makeup.”

He hadn’t bothered to get dressed yet. Even though she was in the middle of labor, his nude, muscled body was worth a moment of reverent silence.

“What?” she said, turning back to look at herself in the mirror and holding her lips stiff as she stroked on lipstick. “It’s our son’s birthday. I want to look nice.”

“Makeup.”

She noted that while he put emphasis on the word, he did not speak too loudly. She gave him a pointed look. “I could hear what you did downstairs. How many phone calls did you make? I lost track at ten.”

“Every one of those goddamn phone calls was necessary,” he growled.

They were going to have to do something about his swearing, as little pitchers grew big ears. Actually, they were going to have to do something about her swearing too.

She shrugged. “My makeup is necessary too.”

“Right.”

Despite what he said, his hands were gentle and patient as he helped her into the shower. She had been planning to sluice off quickly from the neck down and was thankful for his help when another contraction hit in the middle of it. Gritting her teeth, she groaned and leaned on him, shaking, while warm water pattered against her back and swirled down her legs.

“Dr. Medina said to breathe into it,” he whispered into her hair as he held her, rubbing her back. “Are you all right? Do you need to sit down?”

She shook her head silently, pressing her cheek against his damp, bare skin. She was glad he had stopped shouting. She didn’t want to send him outside.

“Pia?” He angled his head, trying to look at her face. “Can you say something?”

“In a minute,” she muttered. “I’m a little busy.”

“Okay, darling,” he said gently. “Take your time.”

Two “I love yous” and one “darling.” She smiled and decided she would start her own collection of priceless jewels, only hers would be memories of everything he had ever said to her.

The warm water seemed to help. As soon as the contraction was over with, she washed quickly. In a few minutes she was clean and dry, and wearing one of his T-shirts that fell down to her knees. He had taken a moment to throw on clothes too, dressing in worn, soft jeans and another T-shirt.

“How do I look?” she asked, her face tilted up to him.

For some reason the silly question seemed to hit him much harder than it should have. He took his time looking at her, from her pinned-up hair and carefully made-up face to the voluminous T-shirt that gapped at the neck and arms. Then he gave her a slow smile that would never have the same kind of innocence in it that his son’s smile had in the dream.

But this one smile of Dragos’s had every bit as much of the brightness. Every bit as much, and it was all for her.

“You are the most beautiful thing in the world,” he said deeply. “How would you like to go downstairs to the family room and look out at the lake?”

“I would really love that,” she said, her face lighting up.

He carried her down the stairs and settled with her on the couch. She sat between his legs, with his arms wrapped around her. They looked out at the dark blue and silver moonlit lake.

In true keeping with the spirit of their honeymoon, Liam was born a short while later, a good fifteen minutes before the army of attendants, staff and medical personnel that Dragos had ordered arrived on the estate. Dr. Medina gave baby and mother a quick checkup and pronounced them both flawless.

Afterward, Dragos sent everybody away to stay at the main house. While his exhausted wife slept with her head in his lap, he cradled the miniscule miracle that was his son and watched the sun rise over the sparkling water.

He might be Powerful as shit and older than dirt, but no matter how many countless times he had seen the dawn before, somehow there had never been a newer, more perfect day.