Lyris finishes nursing and immediately wants her father. I watch him juggle both twins, this fearsome Fae lord completely undone by two tiny babies, and something settles in my chest.
This is my family now. Not the one I was born into, but the one I chose. The one I built with the man who claimed me andchanged me and somehow, impossibly, became my partner in all of this.
"Any regrets?" he asks, our familiar question.
I look at him holding our children, at the life we've built in this ice palace, at the bond that connects us so thoroughly we're practically one being.
"No," I say firmly. "No regrets."
Not about coming back. Not about staying. Not about the woman I've become or the family I'm building or the complicated, messy, beautiful life I'm choosing every day.
A knock interrupts the moment—another message from another court, probably. More bonds being formed, more women being claimed, the prophecy grinding forward with inexorable momentum.
But for now, I ignore it. For now, there's only this: my children sleeping on my chest, my mate at my side, and the absolute certainty that whatever comes next, we'll face it together.
"Get some rest," Aratus says softly. "I'll watch over you all."
"You need to rest too."
"I'm Fae. I can go days without sleep." His lips brush my forehead. "Let me take care of my family."
I want to argue, but exhaustion is pulling at me. The labor took everything I had, and my body is demanding recovery time.
"Wake me if they need me," I murmur, already drifting.
"I will," he promises.
As I fall asleep, I feel the bond humming between us—steady, strong, evolved into something so far beyond what he originally created. We're not master and pet anymore. We're not even just alpha and omega.
We're partners. Parents. Two people who found each other in the worst possible way and somehow made it into something worth having.
My last thought before sleep takes me is that our children will know a different world than I did. Not because the courts will change or the prophecy will be kinder.
But because they'll have parents who chose each other, who built something real from ashes and ice and desperate need.
And maybe that will be enough.
CHAPTER 30
ARATUS
DAY 365
(One Year Anniversary)
The twins are exactly two weeks old, and my mate smells like she's ready to be fucked.
I notice it the moment I enter our chambers after a tedious morning of court business. That familiar scent of arousal mixed with her unique omega signature, stronger now after giving birth. Her body has healed with the accelerated speed her enhanced ice magic provides, and apparently decided to announce its recovery in the most direct way possible.
Through the crystalline windows, I watch the ice sculptures in the courtyard performing dances they haven't attempted in months—spinning and leaping with the kind of wild joy they displayed before I broke her into submission. The palace knows before I fully process it myself.
Elise is standing by the window, both babies sleeping peacefully in the ornate cradle my craftsmen built. She's wearing a simple silk robe that does absolutely nothing to hide her post-pregnancy curves—fuller breasts from nursing, wider hips, the soft roundness of her belly that hasn't quite disappeared yet.
She's never looked more beautiful. Or more fuckable.
"The twins are asleep," she says without turning around. "The midwife checked me yesterday. Said everything's healed perfectly thanks to my enhanced omega physiology."
"Did she now." I move closer, breathing in her scent more deeply. Yes, definitely arousal. And something else—anticipation.
