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Conn’s eyes went wider than I ever saw them go. “Are you saying... ? Are you saying... ? Are youactuallysaying... ?”

He never quite got the whole question out of his mouth. Normally, I would have laughed, but Mulan’s hand was tight over my mouth, and it kept my lips from moving.

“I carry your child, Connlander. The baby is pushy like its father. Sickness will pass soon... or so I was told.”

Conn morphed into his demon form right in their bedroom. He was too tall for the space, so his massive head bent when his enormous demon body didn’t fit.

He grunted once and morphed back into a naked human. Then he looked at Mulan with wide eyes again and sank to the floor with eyes closed.

A grinning Rasmus walked over to Conn’s now unconscious body and stared down. “Did the high demon king just faint?”

I laughed in surprise. “Good Goddess. I’m going to have to call Henry. He has some concoction that brings Conn around. I swear, Conn has not been the same since Hisser barf-slimed him. We may need to find a healer and rent them a room in one of our houses so we can all get worked on..”

Mulan turned to me with equally wide eyes. “Was Conn upset?”

I shook my head and chuckled. “No, sweetie. He’s just in shock.”

Henry and Gale ran in with twenty other demons crowding into the hallway behind them.

I blinked at their startled gazes and laughed. “Did ya feel a great disturbance in the force and rush over here to help?”

I asked my question in the most serious tone I could manage. Rasmus covered his mouth and looked away to laugh. We watched science fiction shows together and talked about the universe. Entertaining him that much made me giddy.

The two ancient demon caretakers stared down at their comatose son. Mulan’s eyes leaked tears at their shock. Sheprobably wondered if they would blame her for what happened to Conn. She constantly worried about their opinion of her.

“Connlander fainted when I told him,” Mulan finally said.

“About the baby?” Gale asked.

Mulan nodded.

“What baby?” Henry asked from the floor, where he kneeled beside Conn.

Neither Mulan nor I were surprised that his mother already knew. Gale was highly observant. I figured she and Jessing must both possess a ‘seeing’ gift.

A sniffling Mulan sighed as she looked at Conn’s mother. Leaving her prone son to his father’s care, Gale rushed to Mulan’s side and put an arm around her shoulders. “To receive a thing you have longed for so much can be a shock to a demon’s system. And remember, Wu Shaman, even a demon king is only a male.”

Henry looked up from checking his son to glare at Gale. I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing. When Gale grinned, his gaze returned to his son.

“Conn will be fine,” Henry said. “May I take him to the main house? We have a lot going on, and I can watch over him better there.”

Mulan glanced down at Henry. “Did you faint when Gale said she was carrying him?”

Henry sighed and looked away. Beside Mulan, Gale covered her mouth. That story must be good to throw Henry so off-balance.

I glanced at Rasmus, who was leaning against the wall and listening intently.

“When Gale announced she was expecting, I ran away for a week to get a grip on my emotions,” Henry admitted. “But running from anything is not a reaction my son has ever had. He probably shifted into his demon form to try and handleit mentally but shifted back to human when he realized he needed to deal with his emotions. If he got overwhelmed, his brain likely shut down to let him recover. As a last resort, an overwhelmed demon goes into a short, intense regeneration cycle. I believe this is what Conn has done.”

“Did he do this with his first children?” Mulan asked.

“No,” Henry said flatly, looking up at her. “But that was because my son did not love their mothers. I don’t think he loved his children, either. Producing more royal demons was required, and he did his duty. To the best of my knowledge, Connlander has only loved two females. His first relationship was not compatible enough for procreation. Banshees are primarily human in DNA. We assumed the same would be true for you, so a baby never crossed our minds. This is quite a surprise but a welcome one. Demon children are rare and precious to us.”

Mulan swallowed hard, but her face didn’t show if the news pleased her or not. “You can take high demon with you. Aran will stay with me until I recover.”

Gale patted Mulan’s shoulder. “Be strong, daughter. My son fainted for the love of you and his child. You have given him a gift like no other today. Things work out as they are meant to most of the time. Call if you need anything.”

We hadn’t called her or Henry, but Conn’s fainting must have sent out some massive distress signal to have so many of his people come running.