Page 57 of Monster's Secret Baby

"Adellum, there's something else." Her voice catches, a tremor running through it. "Something I've never told anyone. Something I could barely admit to myself."

A knot forms in my throat. I've already lost five years—what more could she possibly have kept from me?

"Tell me." My voice comes out hoarse, my hands instinctively finding the crystal in my pocket again, grounding myself.

Harmony takes a deep, shuddering breath. Her fingers twist together in her lap, knuckles going white.

"Brooke is yours."

I stare at her, blinking slowly. I knew she was xaphan, had hoped deep down, but…I had convinced myself the timing was wrong. I had believed this whole time that someone had taken a part of Harmony I wanted to belong to me.

"What?" The word barely makes it past my lips.

"Brooke is your daughter." Tears slip freely down Harmony's cheeks now, catching the last rays of sunlight. "I didn't know I was pregnant when I left. By the time I realized... I convinced myself it was better this way. That she'd be safer without you knowing."

My wings flare out behind me, a reflexive response to the storm building inside me. My daughter. Mydaughter. The little girl with those silver eyes—my eyes—and that shock of pale hair. The child who summons golden sparks from her fingertips when excited. All this time... she's been mine.

"I was wrong." Harmony's voice breaks, her shoulders folding inward. "I was hurt and scared and stubborn. I told myself it was to protect her. From the life I thought you'd chosen. From a world that would see her as less because of her mixed blood." She reaches for my hand, hesitant. "But I was really protecting myself. From loving you. From admitting how much I still wanted you."

I go utterly still, my mind racing backward through every interaction with Brooke. Her curious eyes following me. The way she instinctively reached for my hand. Her delighted giggle when I helped control the sparks dancing from her fingers. How had I not seen it? How had I missed something so profoundly obvious?

"She has your smile," Harmony whispers. "Your temper too. She gets these little creases between her eyebrows when she's thinking hard, just like you. Obviously your eyes and your magic."

My chest constricts, pulling tighter and tighter until I can barely draw breath. I had every intention of making her mine, but I truly am her father.

"I thought she couldn't be mine." The confession rips from me. "When I first saw her, I thought you'd moved on, found someone else. It nearly destroyed me, but I still—" My voice breaks. "I still wanted to know her. To protect her. To be something to her, to be her father in some way."

Harmony's tears come faster now, her entire body trembling. "I'm so sorry, Adellum. I tore us apart. All of us. I've denied Brooke her father. I've denied you your daughter."

Something shifts inside me, plates of rage and hurt sliding against each other, threatening to tear me apart. But beneath it all, a deeper current—love for this stubborn, fierce, maddening woman. Love for the daughter I'd known for weeks but not recognized as my own blood.

I pull Harmony into my arms, crushing her against my chest. My wings wrap around us both, trembling with the force of my emotions.

"I loved her when I thought she wasn't mine," I whisper fiercely into Harmony's hair. "And now—gods, Harmony, I want nothing more than to be her father. To be with you both. You and Brooke are everything to me."

Harmony clutches at my shoulders, her face pressed into my neck. "I never stopped loving you," she confesses, voice muffled against my skin. "Not for a single day. I hate myself for tearing us apart based on one misunderstanding, but I want you to know that I see how I messed up. I hope you can forgive me, Adellum."

I cup her face in my hands, forcing her to look at me, to see the truth in my eyes. "We can't get those years back, little bird. But I'm not going anywhere now." My thumb brushes away a tear on her cheek. "And I won't let you go either. Not ever again."

"Promise?" she whispers, eyes searching mine.

"With everything I am." I press my forehead to hers. "You, me, and our daughter. Together."

28

HARMONY

The sun breaks over the fields beyond Saufort at the same time every day, but I never tire of watching dawn claim our little world. The light filters through the curtains of our farmhouse—our home, I still think with a rush of disbelief—and paints gilded stripes across Adellum's wings where they're curled around me.

Our bedroom window faces east. We planned it that way.

I disentangle myself carefully from the warmth of his arms, placing a kiss on his shoulder before slipping from our bed. The floorboards creak under my bare feet as I tiptoe across our bedroom to slip down the hall and check on Brooke. In the soft dawn light, I can make out her small form, curled in a tight ball under her quilt, wisps of pale blonde hair splayed on her pillow.

Five months since we decided to stay. Five months since the world as I knew it shattered and rebuilt itself around these quiet, golden moments.

I never wanted to return to New Solas, to a life I had no interest in there, and neither did Adellum. So we got our own little home here, where I garden and still work for Marda, where he paints and can send his work to be sold while staying the dangerous recluse he's known to be now.

I press my palm to Brooke's back, feeling her steady breathing beneath my hand. A rush of gratitude so overwhelming it almost brings tears to my eyes washes through me. This is my life now. This peace. This family.

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