I can’t reveal something so human to the Red King. He’d be disappointed by my weakness, maybe even wounded by my wistfulness. My mask is slipping, and I won’t let him see.

“You should leave until it’s over,” I mutter and writhe as another wave of contractions contorts my body.

“Like hell.” Morpheus scowls. “I made a vow never to leave you when you were hurt. Not that I would go otherwise. Your bandersnatch’s serpentine tongues couldn’t tear me away.”

“Listen to your king.” The Ivory Queen’s wise and gentle voice breaks from the doorway.

Morpheus tenses, as if torn between greeting our dear friend and holding on to me so I won’t drift away on crashing waves of pain. Although we sent a message via sprites, we haven’t had a chance to personally offer our condolences since Ivory lost her love, Finley. Though she’d been able to extend his life expectancy by retaining his physical age with a youth potion, his mortality finally took him from her just a few weeks ago. No human can live forever, as I know only too well.

Instead of going to Ivory at the doorway, Morpheus stays by my bedside, and I love him even more for it.

“Neither of you can get through this alone,” Ivory continues. “It will take both of you working together to bring this child into the world, just as it took both of you to create him.”

“I am at a complete loss,” Morpheus moans, and I know by the rasp in his voice that it’s physically painful for him to admit he can’t manipulate a way to fix this situation.

Ivory kneels beside him in a swish of skirts and wings that match her glistening skin—the lavender frost of snow beneath a winter moon. “This is the first birth between a full-blood and a half-blood in the history of Wonderland,” she answers. “Of course you’re befuddled. We all are. The best you can do is comfort her. Strengthen her. Show her your faith in her fortitude. But remember, the labor itself is upon you both.”

Ivory strokes the bump on her own belly. This event holds personal interest to her, considering that she’ll be following in my footsteps and giving birth to Finley’s child in a few months. By some magical surprise, it’s the last gift he gave her. I only wish he could’ve lived long enough to see their baby born. But Morpheus and I plan to be there to help every step of the way. Ivory won’t be alone.

Gossamer ducks into view and perches atop Morpheus’s shoulder possessively.

“I don’t understand. What is my role in such a thing?” Morpheus murmurs to Ivory.

“Support her,” Ivory answers. “Emotionally and mentally. Remind her she’s not alone in this.”

I cringe against another labor pain.

Morpheus frowns in sympathy. “But she is alone, in her suffering. I don’t understand why it’s taking so long. She’s done this before as a mortal.” His finger soothes circles across my scarred palm. “Shouldn’t she fall into old habits? Is it so different for our kind?”

Ivory blots my hairline with a soft, damp cloth. “Of course it is different. Wings are involved. But that’s irrelevant. Don’t forget, it’s all new to her. Her mind remembers her human life, but she physically never experienced any of it. Being a lover and a mother became foreign terrain the moment she returned to her sixteen-year-old form.”

Gossamer clucks her tongue. “Good thing for you, Master. Elsewise, why would anyone want to wait sixty-some years for such a privilege?” Her tinkling voice holds a jealous bite.

She’s lucky the unrelenting contraction still holds me captive. If I wasn’t concentrating so hard to keep from wailing like a banshee, I’d launch her across the floor using Chessie’s wet mop as a hockey stick.

Morpheus flashes the saucy sprite a threatening grimace. “Never speak of our queen or her past life with such disrespect.” His deep voice slices the silence, both royal and brutal, making even my hair prickle. “Know your place. Or risk losing it.”

The sprite averts her dragonfly gaze, blushing a darker green—more a splash of reverent fear than shame. She flaps her furred wings and lifts from his shoulder. Bowing to me, she flutters away.

Ivory stands and squeezes my and Morpheus’s hands where they’re joined. “You can help your queen by reaching out to your son together, as a united front. Your prince needs to realize what he’s missing by hiding. Make him understand . . . help him see the magic and vicious beauty that awaits him. Once he does, he will want to be born. And then all of this will be behind you. Your new life as a royal family will begin.” Smiling kindly, she glides toward the baby cradle to help some sprites arrange cotton candy clouds within.

Morpheus rises to sit on the mattress again. His jeweled markings shift from midnight blue to impassioned purple. He lifts my hand, kisses my wrist, and murmurs in my mind so only I can hear: “You’re giving me a gift tonight, luv. Worth more than a king’s ransom and all the white gold in Wonderland. I am forever in your debt. But tell no one of my weakness.”

His sweet concession shatters my barriers, exposing the unbreakable bond between us.

He leans in to kiss me. Lips, silky and flavored with a hookah smoke haze, press upon my chapped and strained mouth. My fingers weave through his hair, pulling him closer, begging him to deepen our connection. To take me away from here as only his kisses can.

His tongue teases mine to join his, and I’m lost in the salty-sweetness of our yesterdays, forgetting the agony and fear of the present. We’re back again, after our eternal wedding vows and the resulting manic celebration with our subjects, when we escaped to be alone and waltzed on Wonderland’s sun; when our clothes burned to ash and I went to him—naked and bared, body and soul, without reservation; when he put a stop to our lovemaking because I was innocent again, and cloaked us in clouds to fly me back to our room in the Red castle so he could romance me throughout the night with patience and gentleness. In spite of how long he’d waited for that moment. In spite of his feral nature.

Falling back to the present, I break his kiss and watch the gems around his eyes flash through calming hues. It’s clear why he wanted me to remember that night. It was to remind me that he understands the human in me, that he adores her as much as my netherling side. I don’t have to admit how scared I am, or that I sometimes miss the mortals I will always love. He already knows. Just as I know he will never be my footman again, because I respect, adore, and need him as much as he does me. He is my partner in every way.

“Your secret is eternally safe, solitary fae,” I whisper and draw his face to mine, giving in at last.

His mouth curves to a smile and drags across my lower lip, then glides from my cheek to my temple. His fingertips trail my jawline and skim my neck, then lower.

So intent on his touch, I almost miss the flutter of wings at my cheeks and brow. My eyes pop open to find five sprites hovering around us, along with Chessie’s decapitated head and grinning face—all of them mesmerized by our impassioned spectacle.

“Blast it!” Morpheus shouts upon looking up. “Do you not have better things to do?”

Chessie gestures his whiskered muzzle toward his body where it continues to mop the floor on the other side of the room with the help of Gossamer and Nikki—as if that excuses his nosiness.