Twilight's Dawn

end.”
    “Sometimes you’re a scary woman, Surreal.” Daemon studied her. “Still feeling fuzzy?”
    “No.” Now she felt scared as she realized how badly she’d unnerved him. He was keeping the baby away from her. Was he going to take her child? Had she done something that made him think she would hurt the child? Mother Night. “The baby?”
    “She’s fine.”
    She. Daughter. “She has the right number of fingers and toes?”
    He smiled. “Yes, she does. I didn’t have a chance to look at everything, but I saw that much.”
    We’re both afraid , she thought. Both afraid of being shut out by the other. And I don’t know what I did to make him so wary of letting me near my own baby.
    “I hadn’t decided on a name for a boy, but I know the name I’d like to give our daughter—with your consent,” she said.
    “Unless it’s outlandish, I doubt I’ll have a problem with any name you choose,” he replied.
    “Jaenelle Saetien. I would like to name her Jaenelle Saetien in honor of two people who meant a great deal to me.”
    Shock. Pain. And then, gratitude. “Are you sure?”
    Surreal smiled. “I’m sure.”
    She watched his shoulders relax as he studied his daughter.
    “Jaenelle say-tee-ehn,” he said, pronouncing the name as she had. Then he gave his girl a loving smile. “Hello, witch-child.”
    The right choice, Surreal decided as she watched Daemon relax enough to unwrap the blankets and get a better look at his baby. She wanted to touch them both, and she couldn’t until he trusted her enough to drop his shield.
    His eyes wandered leisurely over that small body that had come from hers. Then he studied the head and his expression became bemused.
    “Her ears are pointed,” he said softly.
    Suddenly self-conscious, Surreal pulled her hair over her own delicately pointed ears.
    Daemon’s smile turned soft and silly. He shifted position, moving up so that she could finally see her daughter and share this discovery.
    She reached out to move the blanket to get a better look—and couldn’t touch it. He tensed, but he dropped the shield. When she did nothing more than touch the blanket, he relaxed and shifted his body to include her.
    “Look,” he said, sounding enchanted. “Her little ears are pointed. She’s going to be beautiful, like you.”
    A prick of tears. She blinked them back before he noticed.
    Jaenelle began crying. Surreal saw Daemon change in a heartbeat from a soft man to a predator ready to protect his own.
    “What’s wrong?” Daemon’s gold eyes were cold and glazed as he raised his head and looked at her.
    The temper wasn’t aimed at her, she realized. If he couldn’t deduce what was wrong with his child quickly enough, he expected her to point out the problem so that he could take care of it—permanently.
    That was the moment she understood that her part of the job wasn’t so much to protect the child as to push Sadi back the necessary half step that would give his girl some breathing room from the instincts that would be honed to a lethal edge from now on.
    Uncle Saetan hadn’t had the leash of a partner when he’d raised Jaenelle and stood as the coven’s protector. Looking at Daemon now, she began to appreciate just how formidable the old man’s self-control had been.
    “I think she’s hungry,” Surreal said.
    A heartbeat. Two. Then Daemon blinked and looked around as if expecting to find a table of food that would appeal to his girl.
    Surreal touched his sleeve. When he focused on her, she tapped her chest. “For the next few months, her kitchen is right here.”
    He looked at her chest and blinked again. “Oh.”
    She held out her arms and waited.
    Hesitation. Reluctance. But he finally settled the baby in her arms.
    When he sat there, waiting, she turned shy. “I know you’ve seen my breasts before, but this is different.”
    Another heartbeat. Two. “You want me to leave?”
    She nodded. “Could you ask Marian to come in?”
    That request melted whatever resistance he had for leaving her alone with the child. He brushed a finger over the baby’s hand, then leaned over and kissed Surreal with a tenderness that made her heart ache.
    “Thank you,” he said.
    She grinned. “She is pretty wonderful, isn’t she?”
    “She’s her mother’s daughter. How could she be anything else?”
    She sat there, stunned by the words, as Daemon slipped out of the room and Marian slipped in.

    The moment Daemon stepped into the adjoining room, Lucivar