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private. It is a little more in depth than a normal plan. She has only just arrived.”
    Mel reached for her water glass and smiled. “He is going to have to work very hard to earn the next generation.”
    Yirka laughed and sat back. “I think he is up to it.”
    She sat with her eyes twinkling until Dornin took her by the hand and hauled her off for negotiations.
    He really had a very clever tongue.
     

Epilogue
     
     
    She visited the incubator in the corner of their room again.
    “Love, it isn’t going to hatch today.”
    Mel looked over at Dornin where he was lounging in bed, and she smiled. “It is. A mother knows.”
    Genetic samples had been taken from her, spliced to genetic samples from Dornin and inserted into an unfertilized egg donated to them by an unfixed woman having her cycle. To her, it meant nothing, but for Mel, it was a chance to be a mom.
    Over the twelve months of incubation, she had visited the baby every day until the egg was stable enough to transport. Some Adru-Skari women wore the egg in a sling, but Mel didn’t have the neck muscles for it. She settled for the incubator being in her room, and she visited her egg, and read to it, sang it songs and generally made Dornin crazy.
    He looked at her good-naturedly and patted the sheets next to him. “Come back to bed. It isn’t even dawn.”
    The egg started rocking and she made an incoherent sound and pointed at it. “It’s hatching!”
    Dornin came up behind her and put her robe over her shoulders. “It is. How did you know?”
    “I could feel it.”
    They watched the egg rock, and when the tapping started, Mel took the tiny hammer and mimicked it, making the tiny crack that the baby needed. Halflings lacked the forehead spur that full Adru-Skari babies had, so the parents had to watch the hatching closely.
    It took four hours for the baby to make its way into the world, and when Mel held her son, she smirked happily. “I told you it was a boy. Pay up.”
    “I will happily pay.” He laughed and took his baby reverently. “He has your hair.”
    “And your eyes. He is going to be one attractive dude.” She hooked her finger in the baby’s hand.
    “He is already perfect. He looks like his mother and is built like his father.”
    She snickered. “We are just lucky that it wasn’t the other way around.”
    He smiled and they finally clued in to the pounding on the door. She fastened her robe around her and opened the door to her family. Yirka and Koru pushed past her and ran into the bedroom to see the new baby.
    Only one thing could have kept Mel and Dornin both from work and that was the new life that was a cherubic ten pounds with perpetual giggles.
    She followed and leaned in the doorway as the men of the tah clan gathered around the new arrival. Dornin looked up and smiled at her. “Melkin-tah. What do you think?”
    Mel entered the room and brought her baby over to the changing table, getting him dressed for the first time. “I think you were tempting fate and he might be your son, but he is mine too, so expect hijinks from little Melkin here.”
    The beverage pack she had prepared during the hatching was just the right temperature, and she slipped the nipple between his lips. He clamped down and went after it with enthusiasm.
    She sat in the chair, rocked him and sang in a low tone. When she looked up, three pairs of eyes were staring at her with varying shades of amazement.
    Yirka cleared his throat. “Jemreeda sang just like that. Low and off key but filled with love.”
    Yirka shoved Koru out of the room, and Dornin picked them both up, lifting them and sitting down with them in his lap. He sang the same song she did, and Melkin gulped down his dinner.
    When he belched and settled into a well-earned rest, Mel looked at Dornin and kissed him. “We did good.”
    “It took some doing, but we did good.” He rubbed his forehead against hers. “Next time girls?”
    “You still hooked on the idea of twins?”
    He grinned.