Erik has wanted to be a father for as long as he can remember -- but now that the day is finally here, he's terrified. Surely a ham-fisted Viking of a man like Erik shouldn't be allowed to handle things as tiny and delicate as his new baby girl?<br><br>But it's not just his daughter that's come into Erik's world. His partner has finally returned too. After nine months of watching Andreas struggle with the mental and physical toll of being a man and being pregnant at the same time, the birth of their daughter is both a beginning and an ending.<br><br>Erik is a father for the first time -- but not everything that comes next is new.

Erik the Pink

“I think you’re going to be a bit more like your dad than me,” he said softly, tweaking a foot and waving it gently. She kicked, cooing, then resumed concentrating on the cotton in her mouth. “Demanding. Convinced the whole world revolves around you. Well, mine does, so you’re not far off. You’re both going to boss me about from dawn ‘til dusk, and I’m going to love every minute of it.”


He wondered what he’d been like at her age. What Andreas had been like. If his parents had been blue-eyed and red-haired like him. If Andreas’ parents had any fair genes of their own. Would he get a blue-eyed baby one day? Would any of them have his hair? Or would they be like Beatriz, his shapes all coloured in by Andreas’ heritage?


“I know who I am now,” he told her.


Beatriz regarded him without much interest. She already knew the answer, Erik realised. She’d known who he was from the very beginning.


Chapter 41