Chapter 1262: As Long As I am Here No One Can Touch You

Melissa stayed quiet for several breaths after that, still tucked against Phei’s chest while the hanging bed moved lazily beneath the old tree. The night had settled into that rare softness Paradise almost never deserved, the ocean breathing below the cliff and moonlight slipping through the leaves in pale broken ribbons. Her smile remained, tired and warm from everything they had shared, yet Phei felt the change before she said a word.

Her fingers stopped playing with his.

The hand resting over his forearm tightened just slightly.

Then Melissa looked away from him and toward the distant coast.

Phei followed her gaze for a moment, though he already knew whatever had entered her mind was not waiting out there among the lights. Paradise glittered along the shoreline with enough beauty to make the island look innocent from a distance, which was perhaps its funniest lie.

Beneath those lights lived Legacy Families nursing grudges older than some nations, bloodlines capable of carrying hatred farther than affection like ancient beings wearing modern faces and people who had already proven that children could become acceptable collateral the moment fear, power or a sufficiently ugly secret entered the room.

Phei knew all of that.

Melissa knew considerably more than she wished she did.

And now, somewhere beneath his hand, there was a child who would eventually inherit a place in that world simply because they had loved one another enough to create it.

He lowered his face toward her hair. "What is it, Mels?"

Melissa did not answer immediately, instead, her hand moved over his and held it more firmly against her stomach, almost as though the life beneath their palms had suddenly become more fragile now that happiness had finally given fear enough silence to speak.

"Phei..."Something in her voice emptied the smile from his face.

Melissa swallowed. Her eyes remained on the ocean for another moment before she finally admitted, "I’m scared."

Phei went completely still behind her as his breathing simply stopped for a heartbeat. The hand beneath hers ceased moving. Even the softness in his amethyst eyes seemed to sharpen as Melissa slowly turned within his arms and found him watching her with the full attention he usually reserved for things capable of becoming dangerous.

That almost made the next words harder.

"The world we’re bringing our child into..." Melissa began, then paused and glanced toward those distant lights again. "Look at everything that’s already happened, Phei. Your father; The accident. Your mother. The Maxtons. The Heavenchilds. Danton. Everything chasing after us, everything hiding behind what we already know, and whatever is still waiting for us that we don’t."

Her voice trembled despite how carefully she tried to control it.

"We’re happy tonight, and I want to stay happy. God, I really do." Her eyes lowered to their joined hands. "But every time I let myself think farther than tonight, I keep imagining the moment the world realizes there’s a child here who belongs to you."

Phei said nothing.

Melissa’s fingers tightened around his.

"What if someone decides our baby is easier to reach than you are?" she whispered. "What if they come because of your blood, or mine, or whatever our child inherits from either of us? What if one day something happens and I’m not strong enough to stop it before it reaches OUR CHILD, Phei?"

That last question hurt her enough that she looked away:

"They already done that to me once, what’s stopping them from doing it again?"

Phei did not let her remain there.

He shifted beneath her and gently turned Melissa until she faced him completely. One hand rose to her cheek while the other stayed where it had been almost the entire night, resting over their child as though some part of him had already decided that was where it belonged.

"Look at me."

His voice was quiet.

Melissa did.

The frightened seventeen-year-old who had spent the last hour going from tears to nursery ideas to wondering whether unborn babies could somehow inherit enough nonsense from him to accidentally open portals was still there.

He had not suddenly become older or being overwhelmed but something else had simply risen beneath it. Phei brushed his thumb beneath her eye and caught the tear before it could fall farther:

"I can’t promise the world is going to become kinder because we’re having a baby," he said. "I’d love to. I’d love to tell you that every bastard with a grudge will suddenly discover morality the moment they hear I’m going to be a father, but considering the people we know, that would be the most unrealistic thing I’ve said tonight."

A tiny, unwilling laugh escaped Melissa.

Phei did not laugh with her.

His thumb continued moving slowly beneath her eye. "I can’t promise enemies will stop existing. I can’t promise nobody will ever look at you or our child and think hurting either of you is a clever way to get to me." His jaw tightened. "Some idiot probably will eventually."

Melissa’s breath shook again.

Phei leaned closer until his forehead rested against hers. "But I can promise you that you will never face that alone ever again like in the past!"

The words came without grandeur to show off his power now: "You will never have to wonder whether I’m coming. You will never have to stand between our child and the world and hope I somehow notice in time. If something feels wrong, you tell me. If you’re frightened, you tell me. If danger is one realm away or a thousand, I come."

His palm spread more firmly over her stomach. "And if Heaven itself ever decides our child shouldn’t exist, then Heaven can come down here and explain that decision to me personally."

Melissa let out another broken laugh, this one tangled hopelessly with tears. "Phei..."

"I’m serious."

"I know. That’s the problem."

Phei lowered himself and pressed a long, gentle kiss against her stomach... he remained there for several seconds, eyes closed, one hand resting beside his lips while Melissa’s fingers slipped slowly into his white hair. When he finally rose again, his eyes were wet.

"My father died before I understood half the things I wanted from him," Phei said quietly. "Before I even knew what questions I should’ve been asking."

Melissa’s expression broke a little more.

"I’ve spent years finding pieces of him after he was already gone. Things he did. Things he knew. I know there are things he tried to shield for the sake for me." Phei swallowed and looked down toward their child. "Our baby isn’t growing up wondering whether their father would’ve come for them."

His voice roughened. "They’ll know."

Melissa’s lips trembled.

"They’ll know I came. They’ll know I wanted them before they were even big enough for me to feel them move. They’ll know their father was already losing his damn mind over them before they had the decency to develop ears."

Melissa laughed through her tears and covered her mouth.

Phei’s own smile appeared for only a moment.

Then he took her face carefully between both hands.

"And you will know too."

Her eyes searched his.

"I don’t want you carrying this fear quietly because you think tonight is supposed to be perfect. It doesn’t have to be perfect. We can be happy and terrified at the same time. Apparently that’s what this whole parent thing is going to be."

Melissa gave him a watery smile.

"You’ve been a father for less than an hour."

"And I’m already an expert."

"Obviously."

"Thank you."

That tiny piece of humor passed between them and softened something painful without removing it.

Phei pulled her into him, Melissa folded against his chest immediately, both arms closing around his waist while Phei wrapped one arm around her back and curved the other around her stomach, holding mother and child together as though the distinction between protecting one and protecting the other had already ceased to matter.

His lips touched her hair.

When he spoke again, his voice was so low it almost disappeared beneath the sea:

"As long as I’m here, Melissa, nobody gets to take either of you from me. No one can touch you!"

His arm tightened around her. "I don’t care who they are. I don’t care what they are. I don’t care how old they are, how powerful they are or what corner of creation they crawl into afterward."

"If they ever make me choose between their existence and yours..."

He kissed her forehead.

"They’ve already made the choice for me."

Melissa closed her eyes against his chest, and for a long while neither of them said anything else.

The ocean whispered beneath them.

The moon remained bright above Paradise.

And beneath Phei’s palm, their child slept through their father’s first threat against creation.