She laughed. “Maybe so. Also, we had no need to keep his dragon form a secret. Everybody expected you to have a dragon son. And even then, we still ran into problems, like the time when we went on vacation and he decided to climb out of the house and go on an adventure.”

“Exactly.” Watching her carefully, he suggested, “Think of it like putting on a diaper. We already diaper Niall so he doesn’t piss or shit all over the place. When he exercises enough self-control, we’ll stop using the diapers. He’ll still eliminate, but he’ll do it when and where he’s supposed to.”

“And sometimes we can take the diaper off?”

He nodded. “We can take the binding off whenever he’s in a safe enough place to allow him to shapeshift into his Wyr form, like here on this stretch of the beach. He’ll still get the freedom to run and explore, only it’ll be on our terms, not his. We can use it as a tool to teach him self-discipline.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Put like that, I don’t think we’ve got any other real choice.”

“I don’t think we do.”

“All right.” It was clearly a hard concession for her to make, but the baby’s safety had to come first, and as soon as Niall had shown an aptitude for early shapeshifting, they never really did have any other choice.

He pulled Pia between his legs and wrapped his arms around her. Holding the baby, she leaned back against his chest, and they watched the sun slip down past the horizon. The dog settled on the sand and leaned against his thigh.

Pressing his lips to the curve of her ear, he said, “About Paul.”

Stirring, she said uncomfortably, “I really went off on him. I’m sorry.”

“That’s the last thing I want you to be. Yes, you went off on him, but he was inappropriate. Nobody behaves inappropriately to my mate and gets away with it. If you hadn’t done it, I would have. In any case, that’s not what I wanted to talk about.”

“Okay,” she said, her tone turning cautious. “What about Paul?”

He rested his cheek against her hair. “I don’t think the woman I once met on Folly Beach in South Carolina would have been capable of doing what you did this afternoon.”

She chuckled. “You mean the woman you hunted down on the beach.”