A servant girl rushes forward with a robe as he shifts. He takes it without looking away from me, those golden eyes tracking my every movement as he belts the silk around his waist. His hair is wild, his chest still heaving from the flight, and even covered he looks like something out of a fever dream—beautiful and dangerous and completely, devastatingly mine.
Not mine, I remind myself. Not anymore.
We stand in the courtyard, twenty feet and a lifetime of hurt between us.
"Kess," he says again. Like he can't stop saying my name. Like he's been starving for the shape of it in his mouth.
"Don't." I hold up one hand. "I'm not here for you. I'm here for the baby." I press my other hand to my belly. "Because there's something wrong—something about your curse that's going to kill my child unless we figure out how to stop it. That's the only reason I'm here."
He absorbs the blow without flinching, though I feel the pain of it lance through the bond. "I know. Whatever you need. Whatever the baby needs. It's yours."
"I need your library. Your mystic. Your knowledge about the curse." I take a breath. "And I need to tell you something."
He goes very still, bracing for another blow.
"It's twins, Rhystan. I'm carrying twins."
"Twins?" The word comes out strangled, like he can't breathe around it. I watch the information hit him—watch his face cycle through shock, wonder, and then a dawning horror as he starts to process what that means.
"Twins," I confirm. "I found out after I left. And before you ask why I didn't tell you through the bond—" I cut off his protest before he can make it. "You lost the right to know things first when you decided I didn't have the right to know about my own pregnancy."
He absorbs that blow without argument. But his eyes have dropped to my belly, and I can see him recalculating—the size of me, the way the twins move, everything he missed while I was gone.
"A boy and a girl," I continue, watching his face. "I've been having dreams. Nightmares. And I found a journal—" I stop, force myself to keep going. "The curse activates at month six.Your son will try to kill your daughter in the womb. That's what cursed bloodlines do. Male heirs eliminate threats."
The color drains from his face.
"No." The word is barely a whisper. "No, that's not—I didn't know?—"
"Of course you didn't know. You've never fathered children before. None of your omegas survived long enough." The words come out harder than I intended, but I can't soften them. "But it's true. I found a journal from an omega whose mate was one of your blood-bound warriors. Even the diluted curse was enough. And yours isn't diluted, Rhystan. Three hundred years of the War God's rage, and now it's growing in our son."
For a moment he just stands there, absorbing the blow. I feel his horror through the bond—the grief, the guilt, the weight of yet another way his curse destroys everything it touches.
Then something shifts.
His spine straightens. His jaw sets. The shaking stops, replaced by a stillness that's somehow more dangerous—the stillness of a predator who's identified a threat to his family.
"Then we stop it." His voice has changed too. Harder now. Certain. The voice of a king who's commanded armies, who's survived three centuries of war and loss and still keeps fighting. "I don't care what it takes. I don't care what it costs. No curse is killing my daughter."
My daughter.The possessiveness in those words sends something complicated through my chest.
"There has to be a way," he continues, and he's pacing now, energy coiled tight, mind clearly racing. "The journal mentioned warrior omegas taking the curse—that's the key. Your bloodline was designed for this. We find the rest of that text, we find how it works, and we end this."
"That's why I'm here." I cut through his spiral before he can take over completely. "The journal mentioned a way. Somethingabout warrior omegas taking the curse into themselves. But the page was torn out. I need your resources to find the rest."
"You'll have them." No hesitation. He stops pacing, turns to face me fully, and for a moment he's every inch the dragon king—powerful, commanding, absolutely certain. "Everything. The library, the mystic, every forbidden text I've collected in three hundred years. I'll have it all laid out for you by morning."
"Good. And Rhystan?—"
"I know." Some of the hardness softens, but the determination stays. "You need me to stay away. I understand. But Kess—" He takes a step toward me, then stops himself, hands clenching at his sides. "If you need anything. Anything at all. You tell me. I don't care if it's the middle of the night, I don't care if you hate me, you tell me and it's done."
The alpha command in his voice shouldn't make heat pool in my belly. Shouldn't make some omega part of me want to bare my throat and let him take care of everything.
I shove that feeling down hard.
"No more lies," I say instead. "No more tea. No more deciding what I can and can't handle. You give me access to what I need and then you let me work. Those are my terms."
Pain flashes through the bond—sharp as a blade between ribs—but he holds my gaze steady. "Done."
