"Why don't we go inside and have some tea while we discuss everything?" Brigid offered, stepping back. She moved to pull her hand free of mine, and I tightened my grip just a little, pleased when she instead moved into my side and let me wrap an arm about her.
Would our wings tangle together if she underwent the same transformation as Mairwen? I wanted to see my brave, bossy omega as a dragon. Would she be huge and beautiful, sleek and powerful? Bright like a blade of grass or silver as stone?
If she was a dragon, would it keep her safe? Keep our child safe? Or was it just another risk to the woman who reluctantly held my heart?
"A bite?"I repeated, dumbfounded, staring at Ronson as he sat holding his omega's hand, the pair nestled close on the small settee designed for wings. Two pairs of wings.
The teapot Brigid held rattled in her hands and I jumped up, catching it before she could drop it to the floor. She swayed into my arms, her face pale.
"Yes, from alpha to omega. One that breaks the skin," Ronson said, his words slowing as I eased Brigid down into her own chair. I rested the pot back on the tray before kneeling before her and taking her hands in mine, rubbing them to warm her chilly fingers.
Brigid was looking down at where I clasped her hands, eyes wide and blank.
"And that's all?" I asked, a strange triumphant thrumming growing in my chest, a low purr rattling at the back of my throat.
"My dragon was very…present when I claimed Mairwen. We think that's part of it," Ronson said.
I could tell my friends were watching Brigid and I carefully. It hadn't taken very long since we'd seated in the old library by the fireplace for a sharp understanding to begin to burrow through me, but that knowing had been sealed with the words"the mating bond is manifested in a bite."
"You…" Brigid breathed out, finally looking up at me with a question in her whisky brown eyes.
I nodded and then sat back on my heels, looking at last back at Mairwen and Ronson. "I bit Brigid during the rut. I didn't know about the bond, but my dragon certainly knew what we were doing. I claimed her."
Mairwen looked shocked, but Ronson's eyes narrowed and his lips twitched as if he might laugh.
"Did your rut settle not long afterwards?" Ronson asked me, and I nodded. He turned to Mairwen then and smiled. "See? All that aftermath was just because I didn't bite you at the first impulse."
"You're sure you—" Mairwen started to ask me, ignoring her alpha—no, hermate.
"I was calling her ‘mate’ in my head. I think of her—" I cleared my throat and turned to Brigid, not liking that she wasstill in shock, left out of the conversation. I lowered my voice slightly. "I think of you as mine, like a part of me."
"Torion," she murmured, reaching a hand up and soothing it over my cheek, like she thought she had to comfort me. "They said it's permanent."
I could bear it no longer. A grin broke out on my face, so wide and full it almost hurt. But nothing hurt at this moment. "I know, little witch. That's the best part."
Brigid's eyes widened a little further, and pink bloomed in her cheeks. I wished we were alone, so that I might say more, tell her that all I wanted for the rest of my life was to be the dragon responsible for making her feel loved and wanted, to enjoy the sweeter air I breathed at her side, the greater purpose I woke to each day. It wasn't Ronson and Mairwen's presence that held my tongue. I didn't care if they heard, but only that I knew my omega well enough now to see she was already overwhelmed and that she hated to be vulnerable in front of those she wasn't comfortable with.
"It's not just permanent to your current lifetime," Mairwen said, her voice low and gentle. "It extends an omega’s life to match that of a beta or alpha. If you have any historic records from a few centuries ago, I might be able to confirm the same was true in the Hills. It seems to undo what prohibits omegas’ conception of male heirs outside of a rut as well. And most gratifyingly, from what I've found, significantly decreases the danger of those births."
My eyes were on Brigid as Mairwen spoke, so I saw the moment the words struck her, made her blink and stiffen, her own gaze flickering to mine with a combination of hope and terror. My poor omega—my mate, I thought with dark relish—was so afraid of her own hopefulness, and it crushed me gently.
"What do you mean? What do you mean it decreases the danger? For the omega or—" Brigid was leaning forward, her hands squeezing hard around mine.
"For the omega and the baby, from what I can tell. The Bleake Isle records had enough information to assume that mated omegas were surviving their sons births, while the unmated omegas seemed to be struggling at the same rate we still are," Mairwen said. "The birth rate was higher too, for sons and daughters."
I might've toppled backward onto the floor at the sudden weight that seemed to fly off my shoulders, if not for how desperate a grip on me Brigid still held. There was a victorious roar trapped in my chest, a sound of relief and joy, but I swallowed it down and watched Brigid’s expression still.
"Oh," she said softly.
I held my breath. Was she thinking of the baby she'd lost? Thinking of the beta who hadn't been true to her? Was she wondering,wishingfor a life where Malcolm had mated her and their child had been born?
Her eyes grew glassy with tears and she blinked slowly. "Ohhh," she breathed out, and I sat up straighter, a welling in my own chest rising higher, a profound exhalation. It was an echo of her own feelings, I thought, some calling from a bond we hadn't even realized we'd created. A bond I savored and relished, but not one Brigid had chosen for herself.
Then her breath hiccuped and the tears spilled over, and Brigid was wilting, falling into me as I rose up from my kneeling to catch her. She let out a small sound, something like a sob, and her arms circled my shoulders, fastening firmly to me.
This wasn't sorrow, but the sudden snapping of a string pulled taut, suspended worries that she'd turned into a brick wall around her thoughts now crumbling, releasing down into harmless pebbles.
"It's all right," I said, scooping her up into my arms, cocooning us in my wings. "It'll be all right now, love."
