He was surprised that he had. In fact, Gaheris could hardly believe it, and had to replay over and over in his mind that he'd given voice to a subject he'd been careful to dance around.

But now his hands were at his sides, and they felt a little cold.

"It's fortunate that you are. We would produce horrible looking offspring." But the smile that followed the joke ached a little bit, as he came about as near as he could to directly saying that he wouldn't have minded Dylan being a part of his family.