Page 114 of Scaled Daddy's Secret Heir

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“‘Light,’” I say. “He kept pointing at the ceiling panels.”

Kalev huffs something like a laugh, but it sounds more like grief wearing a cheap mask.

“First step?”

“On the sandbar out back. He ran toward a fish and faceplanted.”

He closes his eyes.

“Bedtime stories?” he asks.

“Every night.”

“Which ones?”

“Old Alliance folk tales. The ones with the trickster bugs and the gravity wells.”

He swallows hard.

“I told him about you,” I add.

He looks up, fast.

“Not as a hero,” I clarify. “Just… as a good man. A brave one. Someone who did hard things because he believed in protecting people.”

His voice is a whisper. “You didn’t tell him I was dead?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’tknow,” I say. “Not really. And I couldn’t kill you twice.”

He closes his eyes again, and this time I see a tear slip down the line of his scar.

I don’t touch him.

I just let him stand there, grief pouring in behind awe, reshaping everything he thought he knew about what he’d come home to.

And when Clancy finally stands and walks over—small bare feet padding across the rug—it’s like the universe breathes in with us.

Clancy stops just short of Kalev. Looks up.

“You’re my dad?” he asks.

Kalev nods.

But his voice cracks when he tries to answer.

Clancy studies him for a long beat.

Then he says, very seriously, “You’rereallytall.”

And just like that, something in Kalev breaks wide open.

But it’s not grief.

It’s love.

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