Then Dragos strode around the corner of his desk, wearing a look of concern on his hard features. He frowned. “You’ve been crying.”
She gave him a twisted smile. “Yeah, I got emotional after I watched Liam go into the building. He didn’t want me to come with him, and he ran in without a backward glance, and I was so glad that he was strong and secure enough to do that. . . . Then I cried like a baby all the way home.”
He pulled her into his arms, and she went gladly, soaking in the feeling of his fierce energy as it wrapped around her protectively.
She found her favorite spot, the slight hollow of breastbone in the middle of his chest where she could rest her cheek. They stood like that for moment and then she said, “I don’t want to be a helicopter parent, but you know, if he keeps growing like this, he’s going to be . . . What, like a twenty-eight-year-old when he’s actually two? That bends my head, and it makes me worry.”
She felt Dragos shaking his head. “Tough as it is to adjust your thinking, we’re never going to be able to judge him by normal standards. He’s too much of a prodigy.”
“I know, but my own past was so human, I don’t understand how he knows the things he knows.”
His fingers threaded through her hair. “The first-generation of the Elder Races were all fully formed when they came into being at the birth of the world. Magic has long since settled into balance, but in the beginning, it was nowhere near as defined. It ran hot and wild, and crazy things happened. It’s possible the only reason Liam is having any kind of childhood experience at all is because he was conceived, and he didn’t form spontaneously as the first generation did.”
She thought back to her shock when she first found out she was pregnant. She muttered, “His conception seemed kind of spontaneous to me.”
She could hear the smile in Dragos’s voice as he continued, “He’s also the product of two very rare and magical parents, and the combined Power he has inherited from each of us is quite unique. If he had been conceived at the beginning of the world, he might have sprung into existence fully formed too. As it is, he has to contend with the laws of nature as they are now.”
As she listened to him, she calmed. He was always so much warmer than her. She reveled in his body warmth, in the hard strength of his arms resting around her, in all the sensual evidence of his presence. “I love listening to stories about how things were in the beginning. It sounds fascinating.”
“It was a dangerous and unpredictable time,” he told her. “And, yes, it was fascinating too.” He rested his cheek on top of her head. “At any rate, all this talk about Liam is pure speculation, as we have virtually nothing else to compare him to.”
“We’ll just have to accept whatever the future brings us, and it’s okay,” she murmured. “I’ll adjust. The main thing is that he’s healthy and happy.” Tilting back her head, she gave him a wry smile. “One thing’s for sure—it’s never dull around here, is it?”
His sexy mouth widened. “No, it never is.”
“Anyway, I’m sorry I interrupted your meeting.”
He cupped the back of her head in one big hand. “You should always interrupt me. If I’m in the middle of something urgent that can’t be put on hold, I’ll let you know.”
Her gaze slid over to one corner of his office. Crates and stacks of books dominated that area of the room. The large round conference table was piled high with even more books, and there were more crates waiting his attention in the library.
Since July, Dragos had spent a virtual fortune on a variety of books on history and politics, both human and Elder Races, and the subject of each cluster of books focused on the gaps he had discovered in his memory.
Along with reading obsessively late into the night, he spent long hours talking to each of the sentinels, while major corporate decisions had been put on hold. His businesses, along with the Wyr demesne itself, were treading water but not making any forward strides.
Thankfully, they had the most active time of the political season behind them for the year. Dragos’s assistants, especially Kris, were dedicated to the point of obsession, and with the sentinels’ help, Dragos could afford to take time to concentrate on his own healing.
She asked, “How is it going?”
“Nothing new.” He growled, “I’m learning a lot.”
The frustration was evident in his voice. During the first few weeks of his recovery, he’d had several strong episodes of spontaneous memory retrieval. Now he recalled almost everything from the last few years, but since then, he had discovered that he’d lost entire centuries, and it had been at least ten days since he’d had his last breakthrough.
And, as he was quick to point out, so much of what had really happened in history had never made it into any book. Most of Dragos’s life, in fact, including any number of private wars, feuds, pacts, and betrayals.