"It was what I wanted. In that moment, and in all the moments after, and many of the moments before too." Torion's eyes searched mine for a long pause, and his tongue wet his lips. He was debating on saying something else and rather than afraid of the words, I found myself waiting patiently for them. "You arerightfor me, Brigid. You're the woman that I need at my side, not just to be a good alpha but to be a good man. I love you. I love how serious you are, and how you light up as you laugh. I love that you tell me precisely what to do and how it should be done, and I love how you give yourself over to me when you feel safe. I only want to do everything in my power for you to feel that safety with me everyday, to be the man you feel isrightfor you."
I wanted to let out a moan, to melt in Torion's arms and then slide free of him, slip away from the beautiful words and how absolutely I knew he meant them. But his gaze held me fixed in place, and his confession—a confession that hadn't even been a secret, because Torion had always shown me as much with each of his actions—was too earnest to deny. I would hurt him terribly if I turned away, and whatever I felt for Torion, I didn't want to hurt him.
"I…I don't know if I can give myself to-toanyoneso wholeheartedly again," I whispered, wincing as I spoke. But Torion didn't look surprised, and he didn't flinch with me, just leaned his head into the hand that still cupped his jaw. "I spilled myself out before, gave everything I could spare and then some, and it was all just…washed away. Wasted. I'm not sure what's left."
Torion's smile was sore, and he turned it into my palm, kissing there. "I don't want you to spill yourself out for me, Brigid. I like you as you are. I just want to be the man at your side, for you to let me in when you're able."
How did Torion find a way to love me without carving out space in himself? If I could learn to love that way, without sacrifice, it might be easy.
"I can try," I whispered, and he kissed my palm again, as if in thanks. "I dowantto."
His smile was wider when he turned back to me. "We have the bond. We have as long as we need. If you're willing to share this life, that's enough for me."
He meant the words, or lied spectacularly. I just wasn't sure if I imagined the sliver of hurt at the corner of his eyes.
Alpha Cadogan hadn't been jokingwhen he said his mate could happily spend a day in a library. I found Mairwen flying halfway up the tall shelves, filling her arms with dusty books, stirring motes into the air with her wings. Torion had taken Ronson to his office, and I wasn't sure if it was his intention to leave me with the other omega, but it seemed appropriate of me to offer to keep her company.
She barely noticed my presence at first, muttering a hello over her shoulder as she skimmed a finger over the leather spines lined on the highest shelf.
"I apologize for my…earlier outburst," I said, not quite sure what to call collapsing into tears at the revelations of beingmated.
"Oh!" Mairwen bobbed in the air. "I'm so sorry, I was distracted by the collection here."
I realized the drape of her gown was actually something like a riding habit, with tightly fitted trousers under the skirt, which could part like a curtain. I'd worn something similar when Torion had flown us around Grave Hills, but it had been old and belonged to his mother. This was a slightly new and more fashionable interpretation of the functional gown, and I wondered if it was liberating to wear trousers beneath a dress, or just hot.
She flew back down to the floor, and I realized this library hadn't contained a ladder, because the former alphas hadn't intended for the women of the keep to read the contents.
"It looks like you found quite a haul," I said, noting the two other large stacks on the table, as well as the one she brought with her now.
"I'm not sure how much will be of use exactly, but records as old as millenia are here," she said, gesturing to a pile of fairly mildewy looking pages. "Which would certainly be far enough back to give us an indication of what it was like here. At that time, bonding was common practice on the isle."
I nodded, although my head still spun every time I remembered that Torion had bit me in what I vaguely recalled as a fugue of passion, and that it meant that I was now closer to a dragon than I'd ever been before, that I would live as long as him, and possibly that I would have an easier pregnancy. None of which really made sense to me yet.
"I also… I found this old book about birthing practices for dragonkin women. It's certainly not the archaic practices of modern doctors," Mairwen said.
I sat abruptly. "May I see it?"
Mairwen nodded and let out a breath, sorting through the books she'd collected and passing me a large old text with a cherry red binding. "Ronson says we can't stay long enough for me to do all the research I might like, but I'd like to organize what I've found so far. And I should be able to convince him to bring me back. I…I elected not to get with child yet, but I'm very interested in how to offer safer solutions to the women on the isle. Everywhere, really."
I'd always preferred to learn through practice, my mind often skipping away when I sat down to read something for pleasure or purpose. Going through my mother's notes had been a process of interpreting both her scribbled handwriting as well ashow my own mind understood her directions. But I would seat myself in this room and read every text we had if I thought it might mean I would deliver my child safely into the world. If I could be there to meet them too.
"Thank you, Mairwen," I said, reaching out a hand even as I cracked open the red book with a satisfying creak of leather pages.
Mairwen reached back, squeezing my fingers firmly. "I had some symptoms before my dragon emerged. A heat in my chest. Some dizziness. Nausea. Have you?—"
I laughed. "I'm afraid those are all fairly common in pregnancy. So yes, I've experienced those lately."
It was the first time I'd really said to anyone other than Torion that I was expecting, and there was such a lightness in telling Mairwen, who was sweet and a little shy and so obviously compassionate.
"Oh!" She laughed and sat down around the corner from me at the table. "I see, then. Well, have you… Sometimes, she speaks to me, my dragon. Like a rougher, more direct version of myself. She's proud and certain and…"
Mairwen looked at me, eyebrows raising slightly, waiting.
I shook my head, smiling. "It would be hard to know. My mind never seems to quiet these days," I said. Mairwen hummed, and her gaze trailed over the arrangement of books, until she settled on the old sheaths of records. "You said that the mate bonds that are…chosen, seemed to be the more specific ones? And it wasn't just Alpha Cadogan that choseyou," I guessed.
Mairwen smiled. "No. I definitely chose him too."
I nodded. Perhaps that was where I'd gone wrong. Torion loved me, chose me, but I was fractured still, uncertain I could ever do the same in return. But what if with time, with all thepromises Torion had given me, the ones I believed were true or at least sincerely meant, I did learn to share my heart again?
