That was the thought that kept undoing her.

Would his eyes go wide first? Would he stare at her stomach like the universe had just placed a crown there? Would he laugh? Would he tremble? Would he kneel? Would he press his forehead gently against her belly and speak to the child as though the baby already understood him?

Knowing Phei, he would probably do all of those things in some chaotic order and then ask if she had eaten, slept, walked too much, breathed correctly, and whether the floor had dared to be too hard beneath her feet.

The boy could turn concern into a national emergency with no committee approval.

Very impressive. Very exhausting. Very loved.

And then — she knew this part with absolute, scandalous certainty — somewhere in the middle of all that tenderness, he would crack a joke:

Some dry, ridiculous, perfectly-timed little thing about already being outnumbered by women in his own home and now manufacturing more of them.

He would say it with that crooked, defenseless smile he wore only when something had cracked him wide open and he did not want her to see the crack. And she would let him hide there, behind the humor, because she had learned long ago that the surest sign Phei felt something too enormous to hold was the speed at which he reached for a joke to carry it.

Melissa’s smile became almost helpless.

She could already see him later, when the news was no longer a private joy but a visible truth. His hand on her growing belly. His face soft. His body hovering too close, protective without apology.

She could imagine walking beside him into rooms and watching every eye drop to where their child rested:

The jealous women. The stunned men. The whispers. The rage. The awe.

The father would be Phei.

Her Phei...

Men would be jealous of him and women would be jealous of her.

And Melissa, shamelessly, beautifully, dangerously Melissa, would enjoy every second.

She would not hide it. Why should she? The world had spent years expecting her to be elegant, controlled, and privately starving. Now she was full — stretched, claimed, and carrying the living proof of exactly how thoroughly Phei had taken her.

’Let them watch.’

She had spent enough of life inside duty, silence, old expectations and the cold architecture of power. This was hers. This child was hers. This joy was hers. Her body had become the first sacred chamber where Phei’s blood and her own joined together.

If the world wanted modesty, the world could go outside and disappoint itself privately.

Her hand moved again over her stomach.

"The hospitals," she whispered, smiling to herself. "He will insist on coming with me. Every visit. Every little check. He will ask more questions than the doctors and look at every machine like it is personally responsible for my comfort. Poor doctors... They have no idea what is coming."

Adriana finally gave a quiet laugh.

Melissa glanced at her, then immediately looked down again, lost once more in the future.

"And then the baby," she murmured. "When we finally hold the baby..."

Her voice faded.

For the first time in a long while, she stopped moving completely.

The room seemed to soften around that thought.

Roxanne and Adriana watched her, and neither said anything. There was nothing to say. Melissa stood in the sunlight with wind in her hair and one hand over her stomach, looking not like the formidable figure they knew, not like a Ryujin Tiamat, not like someone connected to frightening bloodlines and impossible power, but like a mother standing at the edge of a future so bright it made her afraid to blink.

’And what a beast the child is going to be.’

The thought struck her suddenly, and her smile sharpened with pride.

The only child ever born from two Ryujin Tiamats!

Not merely a child of power.

A little miracle wrapped in their bloodline madness, pure Ryujin Tiamat dragon inheritance, divine scandal, and whatever ridiculous beauty Phei’s existence insisted on spreading through the lives of those foolish enough to love him. Their baby would be born into a family overflowing with aunts, protectors, rivals, worshippers, critics, and future kidnappers probably like the Monster did to the father, because apparently no powerful child could simply enjoy milk and naps without ancient factions behaving like deranged uncles with too much funding and not enough hobbies.

Melissa rubbed her belly more gently.

"You are going to break hearts, little one," she whispered.

Wind came through the open window again, sliding through her black hair and lifting it from her shoulders. She closed her eyes, feeling the warmth of the day, the life inside her, the weight of a future she had not expected to receive this way.

"Even before you are born," she continued softly, "you are already going to be a little conduit for trouble."

Roxanne leaned back slightly. "A conduit for trouble?"

Melissa opened her eyes and looked down with deep affection. "For breaking hearts. For causing jealousy. For receiving infinite love from a family too large for peace. For being spoiled by many, many aunts who will all pretend they are the responsible one."

Adriana smiled. "That sounds accurate."

"Terrifyingly accurate," Roxanne added, and then, after a thoughtful pause, with the resignation of someone doing unpleasant arithmetic, "I give it a week when they know before half of them are knitting things in secret and pretending they are not."

Melissa’s smile turned wicked.

"And I will show off."

Roxanne lifted her brows.

Adriana sighed as if she had expected this but hoped civilization might intervene. It would not. It never did, around Melissa.

Melissa looked at them both, pride glowing in every inch of her. "Do you expect me not to? I am carrying Phei’s child. His first child. Do you have any idea what that means?"

"Yes," Roxanne said dryly. "It means several people may become emotionally unstable."

"Several?" Adriana echoed. "Try all."

Melissa laughed, warm and bright and entirely unashamed.

She could see it already. The way Phei’s women would look:

The shock first, then the softness, then the jealousy hidden under affection, then the thoughts blooming in silence. Some would smile and congratulate her. Some would hug her. Some would touch her stomach with reverence. Some would go very quiet, and it was those quiet ones Melissa would watch most fondly, because she knew exactly what that silence was doing inside them, exactly what soft and dangerous wanting it was waking up.

And afterward, when they were alone with Phei, perhaps one by one, perhaps in little bursts of courage and longing, they would begin asking him for children too.

Melissa’s pride deepened into something darker, richer, almost predatory. Good. Let them ache. Let them watch her body change and understand, with perfect clarity, what she had taken first. Let them imagine the exact moment Phei had poured himself into her and left something living behind — the heat, the depth, the way she had taken every drop and kept it. Let that image sit in their mouths like wine they were not allowed to drink.

There would be love enough. Chaos enough. A family large enough to terrify architecture and at least three financial institutions.

But she would always be his first.

The first to take his first time.

The first to carry his child.

The first to make him a father.

The first to give the Ryujin Tiamat bloodline something no one else had ever produced.

She lowered her gaze to her stomach, and the fierceness in her softened again into tenderness.

"I will be his first," she whispered.

Her fingers curved protectively over the small, still-hidden life inside her.

"Forever Phei’s first."