Page 59 of Monster's Secret Baby

"Can I put in the last brimbark?" she asks, already reaching for the seedling.

"Here." I guide her hands. "Remember, not too deep."

The sound of the garden gate opening draws my attention. Adellum stands there, wings half-spread in that unconscious way they get when he's feeling something strongly. His gaze finds mine immediately, intense and burning with purpose.

My heart stutters. Even after all these months together, the sight of him still steals my breath. He's still intense and possessive, but he's relaxed a little, like he knows he doesn't have to fully dig his claws into me to keep me here. I like both sides of him, the protective and the sweet.

"How are my favorite gardeners?" He crosses to us, crouching beside Brooke. He's changed from his paint-splattered clothes into a clean shirt, and there's something almost nervous in the set of his shoulders.

"We're planting dinner for next month," Brooke informs him solemnly.

"That's very forward-thinking." He tucks a strand of her wild hair behind her ear, then glances at me. "Harmony, I was hoping to talk with you."

Something in his tone makes my pulse quicken. "Is everything alright?"

"More than alright." He helps me to my feet, his touch lingering. "I've been thinking about something. Something important."

Brooke tugs at his hand. "Are you going to give Mama a present?"

A smile quirks the corner of his mouth. "How did you know?"

"Because you get this face." She scrunches her features into what I assume is her impression of Adellum's intensity. "Like this. All serious."

I laugh, dusting soil from my skirt. "She has you figured out."

Adellum reaches into his pocket and pulls out something that catches the light—a blue crystal set in a silver ring to match the geode he gave me for my birth a few months back. The geode he always carried around and now a ring to go with it.

"I've been carrying it for weeks, waiting for the right moment," he says quietly.

My breath catches as he slides it onto my finger. "It's beautiful."

"It's the beginning." His eyes hold mine, silver and sure. "Harmony, I want to ask you something."

Brooke watches us with wide eyes, unusually quiet. But she's bouncing on her toes like she knows what's coming, like she's in on her father's little secret.

Adellum takes my hands in his, mindless of the garden soil still clinging to my fingers. "I want us to be bound. Properly. Forever."

The world seems to still around us. "You mean a soul bond?"

The one thing I thought we could never have.

I spent so long holding myself back, thinking that there was no way I could everreallybe his. And I know he sees all that old doubt creeping up.

"Yes." His voice drops lower, just for me. "I know what I'm asking. I know it's forever—that it's unbreakable. That's what I want. You. Brooke. This life we've built. I want it sealed and sacred."

My heart pounds against my ribs. The soul bond is more than marriage—it's a tethering of life forces, souls intertwined until death and beyond. For a xaphan to offer this to a human...

"Are you certain?" I whisper. "Once done, it can't be undone."

His fingers tighten on mine. "I've never been more certain of anything. I would have asked the day we decided to stay, but I wanted to give you time. To be sure."

"What's a soul bond?" Brooke tugs at my skirt, eyes bright with curiosity.

I look down at her, then back at Adellum. The evening light catches in his hair, turning it to pale fire. In his eyes, I see the man who searched for me across continents, who loves our daughter fiercely, who has built a life with me brick by careful brick.

"It's a kind of magic," I tell her. "A special kind of promise where your papa promises to love me."

"Like marriage?" She wrinkles her nose. She knows about human marriage from the village but there's no xaphan here, no soul bonds for her to understand.

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