"For starters, my dear, keep Thistlethwaite out of the picture. Rest when you are tired, move when you are not. Don't let them put you to bedrest if nothing troubles you. Is your alpha indulgent?"
I smiled at that. "Indulgent, protective, a little overbearing."
"Let him be. Take every moment of simple enjoyment you can find in these next few months," she said, then took a sip of her tea, considering. With a slight nod of her head, decision made, she lowered the teacup once more. "As for the birth, you should bind the wings."
My eyes widened. Wing binding was highly frowned upon by doctors, who claimed it risked the integrity of the dragon's flight later in life.
"Both my sons had their wings bound during delivery, and one has a dragon and one does not. Of all the gentlemen of local dragonkin who no doubt were left with their wings unbound, the odds are as ill in their favor as my boys. If my sons are any indication, a dragon is a matter of character, rather than anything to do with the manner of birth."
I mulled her words over and nodded slowly. "Then how does one bind the wings before the babe is out of the mother?"
Catherine smiled approvingly at me and nodded, continuing with perfect authority, explaining the method. "If the alpha will object?—"
I shook my head. "Torion mentioned the method himself."
"Excellent. My daughter and I will attend you at the birth. And there is a young woman from Skybern we will call here. Her father was my own doctor, and he taught her all his methods. I trust her far more than any of the physicians here in the Hills, who use the methods written for them by men without a care for women's lives."
"The Omega of Bleake Isle is very interested in progressive delivery methods. Have you heard of a water birth?" I asked.
Catherine Eames sat up straighter and extended her cup toward me for a refill. "I haven't heard of the method, but I have heard ofher.They say she has wings!"
I hoped my friend didn't mind me gossipping about her to Widow Eames, but the woman's excitement raised my own. I'd been focused on my own well being for so long, surviving and hiding from dragonkin, I'd forgotten to care about others.
Feeling bitterly selfish, I realized that just because I wasn't very interested in being a dragon didn't mean it wouldn't be enormously powerful to other women. And if I had my own dragon before Torion, not because of Malcolm, where might I be in life?
Where you are now, a warm voice answered in my thoughts.The alpha would've taken one look at your dragon and begged to claim you.
Perhaps I might've claimed him first.
I tookmy daily constitutional walk with two escorts now that we'd made the news public that I was pregnant. The walks grew shorter as my belly bloomed forward, but the warmer weather delivered refreshing breezes and heady fresh air. Torion had constructed a sheltered hammock in the gardens for me to return to and rest in, and he usually met me there for luncheon.
Today, my return to the keep was marked by noisy activity near the barns, and it didn't take me long of searching the crowd to find the tallest, broadest figure with dark ash green wings.
"Torion?" I called out, my heart sinking as he spun around with thunderous worry and anger tangling his handsome features.
The escorts peeled away, moving toward the crowd of workers as Torion marched in my direction.
"What's wrong? What's happened?" I asked, my hands reaching for him, clasping his arms as he neared and steadying us both. Torion usually wore that expression on my behalf, but I was well and they were readying riders onto horses.
His breath was short as he answered, wings spread wide like a shield. "We just got word. There's a fire at your cottage. I don't know the damage yet."
"The cottage?" I gaped. "Was anyone…" But who would've been at the cottage? It was a wonder we even received word, and I doubted if by now there would be time to salvage anything, even with the river so close at hand.
"Stay here. I'll do everything in my power to save it for you," Torion said, brow tightly furrowed and jaw clenched as he bent toward me.
"It's likely already lost, Torion," I said as his lips landed firmly on my cheek.
"I'll fix it, I promise, love."
"T-Torion—" He was slipping free of my hands, and at first, I couldn't understand the panging ache in my heart. Was it for the cottage? For the last remnants of the mother I hadn't known well enough to value while she was alive?
A little, yes. But as I watched Torion bark orders to the men mounting horses before leaping into flight, I knew that the cottage was a loss I could easily bear. I didn't intend on running away again. I wouldn'tneedto. I was safe here. I was loved.
"Be careful," I called, my hands cupped around my mouth, then falling to rest on my hips, my nails biting into my waist.
A warning—one most likely not even heard—was not enough. Torion would throw himself into rescuing the cottage. And if he was hurt in the process?
I heaved a sigh and marched forward, catching a young human lad by the arm. "Ready my carriage."
