"Would it be dangerous for the baby if I did discover my own dragon?" I asked.
Mairwen's nose wrinkled, and she set the papers aside. "I doubt it. I've really only foundadvantagesto omegas being dragons too. But let's see if I can find any more information."
She gamely went to work, reading titles, checking contents, studious and entertained by all the information before her. I did my best to do my own focusing, but my thoughts were full and they kept drifting away from me, wondering where Torion was and when he would be near again. The world and my thoughts only seemed to settle when he was near.
I'd been waging a war with my heart for months, and now I wondered if I would know how to lay down the sword.
Perhaps I've already lost, I thought, and the idea felt hopeful.
Chapter Thirty-One
BRIGID
Isucked in a deep breath as I leaned against the large mossy boulder. Ned MacIntyre, my escort for the afternoon while Torion met some of the betas he'd taken into his confidence, leaned into his cane. I'd thought the older man a match for my exercise, likely more interested in a slower pace through the winding and climbing paths, but I realized he was more spry than he let on.
The wind rushed against me, sculpting my dress around my body, and I rested an arm over my stomach, as if it might disguise the distinct low rounding that was increasing there.
Time was passing too quickly. I was almost four months along. Some of the staff at the keep had been informed of my pregnancy, which meant all of the staff was likely now aware, and I was further along than I had been…
Before.
It still didn't quite feel real, more like a terrifyingly beautiful dream, or just a very sweet and gentle nightmare. Like I might wake up and my stomach would be hollow and flat, and there would be no reassuring scar on the inside of my thigh that spoke of accidental but earnest devotion, and Torion would not smilethat very particular smile he wore when he first laid eyes on me each day.
"I'm slowing you down, I'm afraid," I said to Ned. I thought he was something between an advisor and a grandfather to Torion, and while he teased me politely and bowed gallantly, I wasn't yet certain he really liked me.
"Nonsense. We are well matched. Now, your young buck made me swear to thrust water and food upon you every time you paused to take a rest, and I'm sure he'll check the bag when we get back. I am too old for a young alpha's punishments, madame, so we will have to obey."
I snorted, but it wasn't hard to follow Torion's rules. My last bout of nausea had probably been over a week ago, and I was now constantly somewhere between peckish and starving. At the moment, that gauge was slightly above peckish. I accepted the tin from Ned and smiled at the collection inside. Torion and Maggie now regularly conspired together on a number of things, starting with how to coax me into resting and ending with how much they might manage to feed me.
"I take it Torion is waiting for the accounting feast to announce?" Ned asked.
I stiffened, my hand holding the tin of treats moving closer so that my arm might cover my waist. Which was as much an admission of Ned's guess as it was an attempt to hide what he might see there. I forced myself to relax and nibbled on a dried strawberry.
"That was my preference," I said, just loud enough for the old man to hear me on the windy hillside. The accounting feast was a grand event that took place roughly five months after the alpha's rut and allowed all those betas and omegas who'd been blessed with a pregnancy to announce their impending sons. Malcolm had attended them while we'd been together, but he'd never taken me—a punishment for my failure to get with child.
Ned MacIntyre nodded. "Smart of you. It will take the wind out of the sails of the men who thought Torion was a fool for claiming you."
I smiled at that and turned my eyes back down to my snacks. "You mean men like yourself?"
Ned laughed, and it was a charmingly rickety sound, without any malice. "Like me, indeed. Like your former beta, who has no issue to announce but will come anyway because he thinks he'll get to gloat."
Spite and curiosity swirled in my head, itched on my tongue. So Malcolm still had no son. So he thought he would get to witness Torion's disappointment in me as an omega. I breathed the petty feelings out.
Malcolm was no longer my concern. Only my child and Torion mattered.
"I hope I live up to your expectations for him," I said, touching Ned gently on the arm.
For a moment, Ned looked stricken by my comment, then his brow furrowed and his smile gentled. He lifted my hand from his arm and brought it to his lips with gentlemanly flair.
"I apologize if I've left you with any impression but that you exceed my expectations, Omega Feargus," Ned said. He took the tin when I passed it to him and turned us toward the path that would lead us back to the keep. We walked in quiet for a moment before Ned cleared his throat. "There are men who have a weakness for women. Your former beta was one, I believe."
I swallowed hard but didn't answer, and Ned offered me a wry curve of his lips, a gleam of approval in his gaze for me. This man was traditional, and I knew perfectly well that a dignified silence would impress him more than a gossipy unloading of woes from my time with Malcolm.
"Then there are men like Torion's father, and I suspect Torion himself, who possess a weakness forawoman," Ned saidslowly, keeping us in gentle motion, not meeting my eyes for a moment until he turned his head with a smile. "For your sake, at least, I am pleased."
I returned his smile, but I knew what his words weren't saying. Ned thought Torion's loyalty to me would affect his care for Grave Hills, as if our alpha might only have enough room in his heart to do his duty in part, not in whole.
"You underestimate him," I said softly, because I couldn't help myself. Ned glanced at me, but I kept my eyes forward and wet my lips. "You underestimate not how much he cares, but how seriously he takes the responsibility of caring. Even if he only loved this place a little, he would never offer less of himself, and we both know his love for the Hills is a far sight more than a little."
