Hauk frowned at her words. “I thought you hated me for it, like my mother did.”

She shook her head. “I have never hated you, Dancer. Your mother denies a truth I was well aware of. She should have placed the blame for Keris’s death where it belonged – on Dariana’s shoulders. Not yours.”

But she hadn’t. To this day, she held him totally responsible.

His grandmother touched the scar his mother had given him that peeked out from beneath the short sleeve of his shirt. “Your Sumi will still have to fight for you tomorrow.”

And they couldn’t postpone it, because of the pregnancy.

“How can I let her go into that ring, wounded?”

“You have no choice, child. If she doesn’t fight, she forfeits and you will continue to be tied to Dariana. She will birth another baby who will sneer at you and insult you. And she will force Sumi and Kalea out of your life. You know this.”

Yes, he did.

Scowling, he stamped down the bitter pain that swelled inside him. Having been with a woman who cared for him, who loved him, and having held a child who accepted him without question, how could he go back to the life he’d lived? Ever?

Strange, he’d never realized what was missing from it. Other than companionship. But what he had now was so much better than anything he’d imagined on those lonely nights.

I can’t go back.

He couldn’t bear the thought of it. Yet how could he ask Sumi to risk her life for him when he wasn’t worth it?

Dariana would never take mercy on her. She was out for blood, and all the hatred she bore him would be laid at Sumi’s feet in that ring.

Why can’t I fight in her place?

But their laws would never allow such. This was a challenge for the right to marry him. He couldn’t interfere. Yet in his heart, he belonged fully to Sumi.

He always would.

The door behind him opened to show Kalea in her swimsuit.

“Look, Daddy, look! I’m a fairy princess!”

He ground his teeth as tears choked him at the sight of the love in those silvery eyes that stared up at him like he was some mythical hero. There was no judgment or reservation. Just total admiration and devotion.

Just like Sumi.

Smiling, he picked her up. “Yes, you do, Lee-lee.” He held her toward his grandmother. “And this is your gre yaya.”

She screwed her face up into an adorable pout. “What’s a gre yaya?”

“Your great-grandmother.”

Eyes wide, she sucked her breath in excitedly. “I have a great-grandmama? Really?”

His yaya smiled. “Yes, little one. You do, indeed.” She held her hands out.