Page 53 of Enchanted Shadows
Without warning, she dove, and I couldn’t help but laugh even as it felt like my stomach fell out beneath us.
She flattened out her wings as we neared the ground, and I bailed off her. She did some sort of roll and came back up in human form, never missing a step.
We were both laughing by the time we hit the ground. I ran for her and swept her into a hug. “Good to see you, Esta. Congrats on a healthy little girl.”
She hugged me back. “We’ve missed you, Owen.”
I leaned back to look at her. She looked healthy. Even for just having a child. And my mother had taught me that women liked to be told such things after birthing children. “You look great.”
“Stop flirting with my wife,” Keir’s voice called from behind us.
I shot him a grin. “You know I flirt with everything.”
Esta giggled. “It’s true. He does.”
Seeing the small bundle in Keir’s arms, I ran for him. He had his wings out. It still surprised me when I hadn’t seen him for a while. He might be able to shift dragon wings now, but to me, he’d always just be Keir.
“Welcome home,” I said as I hugged him, making sure not to jostle Ruelle too much.
“We just got in. Esta needed to stretch her wings, so we thought we’d come say hi.”
Emric took his turn greeting Esta while I made Keir pass over Ruelle. I gently cradled her head and held her to my chest, just as Keir had been. It’d been a minute since I held a baby this small, likely Arden.
“Owen?” Esta said.
I turned back around. “Yeah?”
She dipped her head toward the team still standing there. “Weren’t you in the middle of something?”
I gestured to Ruelle, still sleeping, but now in my arms. “Esta, you had a baby!”
She grinned. “I did.”
“You wanna take over training for the day?” I asked her as if the women weren’t standing there gawking at us.
“Not this time. I need to fly.”
“If you need a passeng?—”
She was gone, back to her dragon form in the skies before I could even finish.
Grinning, I spun back to my team. “In light of a trip from the king and queen of Dra Skor?—”
“Prince consort,” Keir corrected.
“Whatever,” I snapped gently, not wanting to wake possibly the next dragon queen in my arms. “We are done for the day. But Wren has first shot tomorrow at rearranging my face since Zara did not succeed.”
Zara shot me a glare from behind Wren that only had me smiling bigger.
“Looking forward to it,” Wren told me.
Keir and Esta were home. It was going to be a good day.
I satat a table in Krew and Jorah’s wing. It was the two of them, Keir and Esta, Emric, John, and me. Most of the original disloyals. And dammit if it didn’t bring me an insane amount of joy and pride to see how things were improving. That we could gather around a table without fear of someone finding out. That we could simply be. And I missed Keir like hell, but all it took was to spend a few hours around him and Esta to understand why he needed to be in Dra Skor.
The general feel around the table was one of joy, lighthearted jabs, and teasing. We didn’t have to sit here talking about how to stay two steps ahead of the evil that was Theon Valanova anymore. We did still have to consider how to stay ahead of his loyalists, as I was constantly doing for the team, but it wasn’t the same level of fear. I knew I could handle the loyalists. The power shift was to the side of the good guys. And like hell would I ever allow it to go back to the way it was.
“So Owen,” Keir said when Esta returned from feeding Ruelle and putting her down in the nursery room where Arden was already asleep.
