"I'm not ready."
"Maybe not." She squeezes my hand again. "But your daughter might not have time to wait until you are."
The truth of it settles over me like a shroud.
She's right. I can feel it in my bones—some instinct deeper than thought, older than reason. The curse is already stirring inside me. Already shaping my son into something dangerous. And every day I spend hiding here is a day closer to losing my daughter before she's even born.
"I'll go," I say, and the words feel like surrender. "Not because I forgive him. Not because I trust him."
"But because your children need his resources."
"Yes."
Yaern nods slowly. "When?"
"Soon. Before the curse activates. Before—" I can't finish.
Before it's too late.
"Then we'll get you ready," she says, practical as always. "More food. More rest. Build your strength back up." She stands, starts clearing the breakfast dishes. "And Kess?"
"What?"
She pauses at the washbasin, looking back at me over her shoulder. "When you see him—and I know this is rich coming from someone who's never been mated—but maybe try not to kill him on sight? At least until you've used his library?"
A laugh escapes me—broken, surprising, the first real laugh in weeks.
"I'll try," I manage. "No promises."
"That's all I ask." She turns back to the dishes, but I can hear the smile in her voice. "Now eat your porridge. You're going to need your strength for dragon-slaying. Or dragon-forgiving. Whichever comes first."
I pick up the spoon.
She's right.
Whatever comes next, I'm going to need all the strength I can get.
27
Kess
I goto the village library anyway.
Not because I expect to find anything—I told Yaern the truth, that the priests destroyed everything about warrior omegas and cursed bloodlines centuries ago, burned the texts and salted the earth where the knowledge had grown. But the nightmares won't stop clawing at me every time I close my eyes, and I need to do something besides lie in Yaern's narrow bed feeling my children move beneath my hands and wondering which one will kill the other.
The library is barely worthy of the name—a single room at the back of the village hall, shelves warped with age and dampness, most of the books water-damaged or moth-eaten or both. Dust motes drift through the single shaft of light from a grimy window, and the whole place smells like mildew and forgotten things. The kind of collection that survives not because anyone values it, but because no one cares enough to destroy it.
I don't expect to find anything.
But I have to look. Have to try. Have to do something besides wait for the nightmares to show me my daughter dying.
The librarian is an ancient omega named Britt who's been tending these shelves since before I was born, her spine curved with age, her fingers gnarled around the cane she uses to navigate the narrow aisles. She watches me search with rheumy eyes that see more than they should, tracking my movements as I pull down volume after useless volume.
"Looking for something specific?" she asks after I've discarded my third book—a water-stained history of the northern kingdoms that tells me nothing I need to know.
"Cursed bloodlines. Dragon shifters. Anything about—" I stop, pressing my hand to the swell of my belly where one of the twins is shifting restlessly. "About what happens when cursed alphas father twins."
Something flickers across her weathered face—recognition, maybe, or the shadow of an old memory surfacing after years submerged.
