Page 49 of The Alliance

The door creaked open and a head popped round it. I stared at the newcomer. I’d never seen him before.

Nana said, “Come in, Daniel, you’re just in time.”

My mouth stayed open the whole time he was taking his seat. I’d never seen him out of his dragon form before. He was dark-haired, like allcuraidh, and his black eyes darted round as thoughexpecting an attack. It was clear he didn’t like being in his more vulnerable human form.

Then I realised, he wasn’t just in human form around his own family – something he rarely did – but aroundmyfamily, too. I’d assumed we’d have to tell him separately because he hadn’t been near the castle since the Somervilles arrived. He’d been flying the borders, staying out of the way. I hadn’t been sure whether that was just his preference or whether there was some other reason he wanted to avoid them.

Nadia introduced him to my family. “This is Daniel, my brother. Here, have a glass. Nana’s going to give a speech.”

“Thanks,” he said, as he took it. It was the first time I’d heard his voice. It was slightly husky.

Nana raised an eyebrow at Nadia, who smiled and gave her a little salute with her own glass.

“I was not, in fact, going to make a speech. I was going to hand over to Lew and Morgan. They have something to say.”

All eyes turned on us.

I began to sweat.

Lew’s hand clutched mine tighter and I wasn’t sure if it was his palm getting sweaty or mine.

He cleared his throat and spoke clearly and confidently. It was probably my palm, then.

“We wanted you all to be here together when we announced this, so thank you all for coming. Morgan and I have some very exciting news. We’re going to be fathers. Nadia has consented to carry our child for us.”

He’d planned to say more but a commotion broke out as everyone tried to congratulate us at once.

“That’s amazing, Lew!”

“Congratulations, Morgan.”

“You must be so excited.”

I had to lower my head to keep from bursting into overwhelmed tears. It was only when I heard Alfie’s voice, so pure and dear to me, that I peeked up.

“I’m so happy for you, Morgan. You’re going to be such a wonderful father!”

That was it. I burst into tears.

Lew had his arms around me and people were up out of their chairs and clustered round us and everyone hugged us and it took me a few minutes to realise that I wasn’t the only one crying. There were happy tears on people’s cheeks as they hugged andkissed us. It must have taken twenty minutes for calm to settle over the table again and for everyone to return to their seats.

Alfie said, “Hey, that means I’m going to be an uncle! How cool is that?”

At the other end of the table, Dee grinned and said, “I’m going to be the best auntie ever.”

Dum said, “I’m going to be the best uncle.”

They argued, Dee insisting that Dum wasn’t technically the baby’s uncle. Dum just shrugged. “Whatever.”

They looked to Lew, and I saw the same look he always got when he was confronted with his half-sister. It was somewhere between affection and fear.

He wasn’t helped in this instance by the fact that he never kept track of his familial relationships.

“The best relative?” he guessed.

Dum nodded. “Don’t worry, we’ll show our baby relative how to fight.”

Lew said, “We were hoping to leave that until they were old enough to be trained by Dane.”

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