Page 96 of All's Fair in Love and Magic

“I got him, mommy!” Emma exclaimed, and I heard her little feet pound the sand as she ran a few steps away.

“Nice work, Em.” Sage high-fived our little girl.

“High-five, Hudson!” Emma lightly high-fived Sage’s massive belly, turning off her flames just before she did. Sage was fireproof, but we’d taught Emma to control her magic from the earliest we possibly could.

“How many days until he’s here again?” Emma checked, stepping back and plopping down next to the sandcastle she hadsmashed a few minutes earlier. We’d rebuild it a dozen more times before the day was over.

“Four days until he’s due, but he could come at any time,” Mia, Sage’s adopted sister said from behind her book. She was sitting in a chair next to Sage’s.

Mia was a blood witch that the Villin brothers and I had rescued from a coven up north about fifteen years earlier, after a tip from one of the witches inside it. Sage’s mom had been thrilled to have another daughter to raise, and Mia had thrived since she came to the resort.

“I hope he comes today,” Emma said with a sigh.

Sage ruffled Emma’s hair, and Emma pushed her hand away, making a face.

I sat down in the chair next to Sage’s, putting a hand on her belly.

Neither of us was entirely prepared to bring another kid into our family, but we were excited. We loved Emma fiercely, and had done our best to get everything ready for her.

Sage’s stomach tightened, and I flashed her a surprised look. Her grimace was deep. “Are you having contractions?”

“Maybe.”

I narrowed my eyes at her.

“Okay, yes. But they’re still five minutes apart, so I don’t need to worry yet.”

I grabbed her phone off her thigh and sent a quick text to our doctor, letting her know what was going on.

“They’re probably going to stop,” Sage insisted.

“Clove,” I said in a low voice, meeting her gaze as I set her phone back down on her leg. “He’s going to come soon, and it’s going to be fine.”

“You don’t know that for sure,” she whispered.

“Sure I do. I’m your mate.”

“That doesn’t make you all-knowing.”

“No one is all-knowing. You just have to trust fate sometimes. Like I did, when I made you mine.”

Sage snorted, like I knew she would. “It wasn’t fate you were following, Steam.”

She didn’t have to look at my cock to tell me what she was insinuating.

“Fate speaks in many ways.”

“Sure it does.” Sage winced.

I took her hand. “Now, are we having a baby today?”

“I think we are,” she admitted.

A grin split my face. “I can’t fucking wait.”

I kissed my mate—my whole fucking world—and scooped our daughter up away from the sandcastle she was building.

I was the luckiest fucker on the planet.