Once Upon a Time (Calluvia's Royalty 3)

His mother was right about one thing: this child was a gift.

The last gift her other father had given him.

Chapter 14

Five months later

Jamil was smiling a little as he opened the door to the gestation chamber—he couldn’t wait to see his daughter—and he froze in surprise upon seeing his brother seated in front of the gestation cube.

“What are you doing here?”

“Just came to say hi to my favorite niece,” Seyn said, turning to smile at him.

Jamil snorted and sat down next to him. “She’s your only niece,” he said, lightly touching the thick walls of the womb with his fingers. “Good morning. How is my beautiful girl today?”

The baby didn’t react outwardly, the womb’s walls too thick for her to hear him, but Jamil could feel her, faintly, and her emotions shifted into the feelings of contentment and security. They already shared a rudimentary familial bond. It was weak, but it was there and it was getting stronger every day as her brain and telepathic abilities developed. Despite being just five-months-old, she was already as developed as a seven-month-old fetus. That was the advantage of artificial gestation compared to a natural pregnancy that lasted ten Calluvian months: the early stages of gestation were accelerated. His daughter was already three months away from birth, and she was already a tiny person—a tiny person who already knew loss.

Jamil looked at her wistfully, wondering how acutely his daughter could feel the absence of her other parent. Calluvian children were all born with rudimentary telepathic bonds to their parents. If she could already feel Jamil, she could likely already feel that there was nothing but silence at the other end of her bond to her other parent. Sometimes he thought he could feel her confusion, her sadness.

Catching Seyn’s curious eyes on him, Jamil schooled his features into a neutral expression, wondering what his brother had seen. “Sometimes I wonder if she feels lonely in there.” He chuckled, running his hand through his hair. Gods, he hated lying, hated pretending in front of his own family, but Seyn had no idea that the baby wasn’t Mehmer’s. No one besides the Queen could know that. It wasn’t that Jamil didn’t trust Seyn, but… Jamil wasn’t blind to his brother’s faults. Seyn was a good kid, but he was the baby of the family: spoiled, sharp-tongued, and a bit self-centered. He also had quite a temper on him. Jamil didn’t trust him not to blurt it out unthinkingly, in the middle of some argument, in the earshot of strangers. One thoughtless word, one rumor, was all it would take to destroy his daughter’s future. Bastards could rule, but it was a shameful brand Jamil’s daughter would never be able to erase. No. He could lie to Seyn. He would play the role Seyn expected from him.

Besides, the role of a grieving bondmate who was looking at the child of a man he had lost wasn’t exactly hard to play.

Jamil felt his lips curl into a mirthless smile. His chest felt tight, his stomach turning. “I know it’s ridiculous. We all were born that way, and we turned out fine.” His voice sounded off, strained even to his own ears. He wondered if Seyn would notice.

“Define fine,” Seyn said with a chuckle.

Jamil found himself smiling faintly. Of course Seyn hadn’t noticed. His brother considered himself observant, but in reality he saw the world through his own emotions and perceptions. And in Seyn’s mind, Jamil was his old, very proper and boring brother, incapable of deceit.

It was almost funny.

Silence fell over the room.

“Maybe it isn’t that ridiculous,” Seyn said at last, his eyes on his niece. “Maybe we aren’t much for physical touch because we got used to being isolated from before our birth.”

Jamil shrugged, hoping it wasn’t obvious that his heart wasn’t really in the conversation. “Maybe.”

He watched his daughter, sending comfort and love through their familial bond. Her tiny, wrinkled face turned toward him, as if she could sense where he was, her arms jerking.

Jamil’s chest swelled with love, his throat closing up. He was so glad his mother had all but bullied him into having a child. Had it been left to him, he would have never done it, feeling too guilty for even entertaining having a child with a man who wasn’t Mehmer.

Jamil grimaced at the thought. There were quite a few things he felt guilty about, but his baby girl wasn’t one of them. She was perfect the way she was. He would do anything for her.

“In any case, the point is moot,” Jamil said, watching his daughter play with her legs. “I’m lucky that I can have her at all—that Mehmer preserved his genetic material just months before he…” The lie rolled off his tongue smoothly enough after months of telling it. Jamil didn’t even feel guilty about that white little lie anymore. Not only was it necessary to keep their House’s reputation unblemished, it was necessary to protect his daughter. Jamil would like to think Mehmer would have understood. He was a good man. Had been.