Chapter Twenty-One
When finally all the tears had been cried, Aria discovered that she was happy. As happy as she had ever imagined she could be and more. Happier even than when they had lived on the little island in the Aegean for those months. Cradled in Vyktor’s arms, she felt as safe and loved as it was possible to feel.
He was probably right. It was probably the hormones. Every day her body was changing, the life within her becoming more evident. As the days passed, slowly her nighttime tearfulness abated and she began to enjoy life in the dragon realm.
It was as stunning as she had seen in the visions Vyktor had shown her. Everything seemed to be constructed on a super scale. The mountains were higher, the beaches were longer, the sea was bluer. The dragons did not construct cities in the human sense. They made their homes in the natural formations of the earth, much like they had in the Rockies. Unlike that simple military base, dragon homes were ornately carved, the doorways marked with sigils and writings that Aria was learning to read. There was art in everything they did. To the dragons, the world was something to be sculpted.
Vyktor’s home and the homes of many of the military forces were located in naturally formed high white marble-like cliffs. The stone of the land was strong and pale and from it they had created a city that jutted out over the water.
Vyktor’s home put every dwelling they had stayed in on Earth to shame. She would have thought that a home tunneled into a cliff face would be dark and oppressive, but the dragons knew how to filter light into even the deepest rooms, and there were balconies and windows of generous proportions all over. His home—their home—occupied a natural corner of the cliff, so the light could flood in from both sides over the carefully polished floors.
Expansive balconies and pathways ran along the cliff’s edge, connecting homes and the commercial parts of the city, which housed all number of craftspeople. They were narrow in places, and the polished stone could be slippery when it rained, but that was not a problem for dragons who rarely used the steps and stairs, and could take their flight form long before they hit the water.
If Aria had dared have but one complaint, it was that she was grounded in the dragon realm. There were no planes, of course. Why would there be planes in a world where everyone could fly? Sometimes she would sit in one of the window balconies and watch the dragons wheeling above. They were only doing relatively mundane tasks, but Aria envied them. Of all the things she missed from Earth, having access to the sky was the one she missed most.
She did not complain about it though; she knew she was fortunate not to be spending her life staring at the wall of a cell. And there were plenty of things to do besides stare into the sky. The water was teeming with life, the ocean so clean she could see several feet down into the water to watch brightly colored red and orange fish playing in shoals.
“Please be careful, pet,” Vyktor said for what felt like the hundredth time, catching Aria by the back of her tunic before she could plunge over the edge as she leaned over one of the lower ledges to watch the fish play. “You’re front heavy.”
“I’m huge,” she laughed, running her hands over her belly. She barely looked like herself anymore. Her face was rounder, her skin was much more tan, and her body was softer all over. She liked feeling this way. She felt full and complete, and she knew she was totally loved and adored.
Vyktor drew her into his arms and kissed her thoroughly. “It will not be long soon, pet,” he murmured. “We will be three.”
“Are you ready for this?” She asked him the question as he smoothed his palm lovingly over her swollen belly.
“Am I ready to meet my son? Absolutely.”
“Our son, and maybe daughter,” she reminded him with a smile. Vyktor was as loving a mate as could be, but in human terms, he would have been regarded as a traditionalist.
“It’s a boy,” he said confidently.
“How could you possibly know that?”
“I can just tell,” Vyktor smirked.
Aria laughed at him. There was no way he could possibly tell, but she did not tell him so again. Instead, she let him have his imaginations. Judging by the cramps that had already start low in her belly, it would not be much longer.
* * *
Aria woke in the night, knowing that it was time. There was no rush in the process. Vyktor was by her side and as the contractions began, and when she started to cry out from the pain that racked her from the inside, taking her apart to bring new life, he started to hum something deep and powerful. Something that reverberated through her muscles and took away much of the pain.
Aria felt the pressure deep inside her, and then she felt herself begin to open in a strange and wonderful way. There was no more pain thanks to the dragon chanting, only the pressure that ebbed and flowed until finally she heard a cry. A pure sound that filled her with a joy so intense Aria felt tears flooding down her face.
“He’s here,” Vyktor said, his voice filled with pride. “My son.”
He held him up, the child they had coupled into existence, the being for which Aria had clung to life. She looked at Vyktor holding their son and felt an exhausted pride, and a sense of completion. This was what everything had been leading to. The crash. The capture. The cage. All of it had been in service of this moment, this spark of life that united realms in one flesh.
“This is the beginning of everything,” she murmured as Vyktor laid her child in her arms. “Isn’t it?”
She looked down at the squirming little thing, formed perfectly just like a human child, and felt within her a deep sense of destiny. He was a boy of two worlds, who might become a man capable of uniting them. For the moment however, he was content to snuggle against her warm skin and begin taking her milk.
“We still don’t have a name,” she said. “He doesn’t look like a Kenny, or a John, or any of the names in my family.”
“Vilka,” Vyktor said. “It means Commander of Many.”
Aria nodded as she looked down at the suckling babe. “Vilka,” she agreed. “The perfect name, for the perfect child.”
Vyktor smirked, sitting next to her to kiss her head and gaze adoringly on his little family. “He has your blood, pet, and mine. He may not be entirely perfect.”
“He will always be perfect to me,” Aria murmured.
“Just as it should be.”