He kissed her slowly. “I know, Sumi. You will be a far better mother than either of them. Mu mia shames all those who have come before her. And I live for the chance to return your daughter to you.”

Sumi frowned at his word choice and what it implied. “Our daughter, you mean.”

A strange look crossed his features. One that stabbed her hard until he spoke to explain it. “You would share your precious Kalea with me? Allow her to call me Father?”

Tears choked her at his earnest, bashful questions. It was as if he couldn’t believe she’d allow him to claim Kalea as his. “Of course I would. How could you doubt that, Dancer?”

He looked at her incredulously. “Andarion females rarely share their children with males other than the blood father. While the mother may adopt, the father cannot.”

“Never?”

He shook his head. “Unless we are the blood father, we can only mentor the children of our females, and we have no rights to them. Fatherhood, blood or adopted, can only be bestowed on our males by the mother of the child.”

Sumi struggled to breathe as she finally understood exactly what Thia had been trying to tell her about Darice and his insults for Dancer. It wasn’t just that Dariana didn’t want to marry Dancer, it was that even if she did, she would never allow Dancer to be called Father by Darice. Not unless she judged him worthy of fatherhood.

That was why Dancer had never been allowed to spend time with Darice. It had been another stab to him that he didn’t deserve.

Blinking back her tears, she cupped Dancer’s face in her hands. “In my heart, you are Kalea’s only father. The only one I would trust to be there for her and to protect her. I don’t ever want her to know she had any father, but you.”

Hauk savored words he’d never thought to hear from any female. “You would accept children from me?”

Sumi winced at his question as she finally understood why Fain had sterilized himself for Omira. Their entire culture was built on the female accepting the male as fathers for their children. And since her sister had been afraid of an Andarion baby…

“You have to ask? I told you, Dancer, nothing would ever give me more happiness than to hold your child in my arms. I meant every word of that.”

Hauk pulled her against his chest and held her close as love and happiness choked him. “I will tear this universe apart to find our daughter and bring her home.” But even as he said those words, he was terrified of not being able to fulfill them.