BRIGID
Icaught myself sighing for the third time and pressed my lips together hard, sitting up straight at my stool and reaching for my tea. I grimaced as cold, bitter liquid touched my tongue and set the cup down.
"Wake up, you silly fool," I breathed, glaring down at yesterday's cup of tea, the leaves now atrociously steeped.
Glancing around the cottage, I found the kettle steaming over a weakly burning fire and shook myself. The sun was high in the sky, and I'd barely started my day. Not that it was easy to wake after tossing and turning on a lumpy, prickly mattress for half the night. More than half the night, really.
But this was my life—myreallife. The one I'd set aside to be the alpha's omega.
It was a relief to return to it, to my normal patterns and the work that I loved.
Except my patterns weren't normal, because I wasn't sleeping and I couldn't focus. And my work was…
"Well, what did you expect? The whole Hills must know you're the omega by now. They'd hardly expect to find you here for healing," I groused to the empty room.
I slapped my own cheeks lightly and marched to the fireplace, determined thattodaywould be the day that went well. I would make good progress harvesting herbs in the woods. I would take a tincture to the farm to the south and let the Murrays know I would be at the cottage if they needed anything. They would get the word out to other locals.
And if word reaches the local dragonkin too? What will they think of you abandoning the alpha?
"I didn't abandon him," I muttered. "He didn't put up even a whiff of an argument."
And he hadn't called me back. Even though I knew emissaries from Skybern had visited two days ago.Maggie,of all people, had been the one to let me know. She claimed my absence had been remarked on, but not by Torion.
Not to me, at least.
Huffing a sigh, I lifted the steaming kettle over a fresh cup and poured, then blinked down at the clear liquid. Damn. Tea required tea leaves. Setting the water aside, I pawed through the clutter of tins I’d left out on the work table until I found the one for tea and groaned as I found it empty. I'd forgotten yesterday to walk up to the village. And it wasn't just tea I'd run out of. My stores had been emptied out while I was away to keep mice and bugs from moving in and staking their claim. I'd been surviving on the few things I'd scavenged from the keep kitchens, but the apples and bread had run out yesterday evening as well.
I gazed balefully around the cottage that had once felt cozy and sacred, safe. Now it just lookedsmalland decidedly bare. The quiethadbeen a relief when I'd arrived, a pleasant kind of solitude compared to the constant activity of the keep. But when night had settled in and I tried to find sleep in the loft, suddenly solitude had turned into being wholly alone.
I missed the days before I'd gone to the keep to speak to the newly risen alpha, before I knew Torion and had made myself comfortable in his bed.
No,hehad made me comfortable there. That bastard.
Shoving my hair back from my face and into a knot at the back of my neck, I scanned the room and made a list in my head. I needed food, provisions,tea. I needed to get out of the cottage and make my return to the area known again. Everything would be all right with a little time. This was just an adjustment after being away for so long.
And if there is no babe, I might never have to go back.
I stopped in place in the center of my cottage, my fist around the strap of my bags, and blinked at the stray thought. I could break my bargain with Torion. He would be…unhappy with me. I knew that much. But in another ten years, he could find a new omega, perhaps even sooner. I could be written out of his history.
He's mine, a defiant thought snarled, jolting me.
My throat tightened, and my stomach churned. My knees were wobbly, and my feet too heavy. I wanted to sink down to the floor and close my eyes and give up on this wretched day.
Except in the sudden silence, without all my huffs and sighs, the clattering sound of an approaching wagon reached my ears. I pressed my hand over my stomach, as if that might settle its sudden turmoil, and returned my bags to the hooks, crossing to the door. Perhaps word of my return had spread after all and I finally had a patient. At least that would give me some purpose.
But as I cracked open my door, bracing against the cold morning air, it was not a local farmer I saw turning off the road toward my cottage. I swallowed a yelp, one hand grabbing onto the doorframe to hold me up, as I caught sight of Torion's dark curls and broad wings, his face lifted to catch morning rays. I was wetting my lips without thinking when he found mewatching him, and I waited for the smug and wicked smile, the anxious clench of my belly turning into one of hunger.
Though Torion smiled at me in greeting, it wasn't one of victory, of catching me staring at him in sudden desire. It was shy and… His chin ducked and his glances were brief, nervous. It seemed to take him hours to reach the cottage, and every look and breath was drawn out. I'd been waiting here in the cottage like a fool for him to come and drag me back to the keep. I'd wanted him to demand my presence at his side, so that I might hold onto a little anger with him.
But it wasn't Torion's way. The only demand he'd made of me was what we both wanted, and the moment I'd decided to balk and run away, he'd let me. And I'd tried to be angry with him for that instead.
"Is everything all right?" I asked as he rolled to a stop.
He nodded, staring at me, and it was no longer so hesitant or nervous, but shockingly thorough. Had I changed in the handful of days since we'd last seen each other? Had I changed inhiseyes?
"Fine," he rasped out, jumping down from the bench of the wagon.
There was a yank inside of my chest, and I found myself stepping out of the doorway. He answered the movement, a kind of gravity in the air that only applied to us.
