She's not moving quickly. She's pregnant and alone and walking through mountain terrain that would challenge a healthy soldier—switchback paths over loose scree, thin air that burns the lungs, wind that cuts through clothing like it isn't there. She's probably exhausted, probably in pain, probably stopping every hundred yards to catch her breath and curse my name.
And she didn't send word. Didn't ask for a carriage or an escort or any of the hundred things I would have given her without question. Just started walking, stubborn and fierce and determined to do this on her own terms because she'd rather suffer than ask me for help.
That's my omega.
I'm moving before Corvith finishes speaking, past him and through the library doors and down corridors that blur together in my peripheral vision. The beast is rising already, scales prickling beneath my skin, wings aching to unfurl. By the time I reach the courtyard I'm already half-shifted, clothes tearing as my body expands into something faster and stronger and infinitely less patient than the man I was moments ago.
The shift completes in midair. I launch myself toward the pass with three powerful beats of my wings, the castle shrinking to a dark smudge below me, the mountains rising sharp and snow-capped ahead. The beast doesn't think—doesn't spiral into guilt or recrimination or any of the thousand ways I've been torturing myself since she left. It just flies, driven by instinct, by the bond pulling taut as the distance between us shrinks.
I find her on the forest road, maybe a mile from the castle gates.
She looks up when my shadow falls across her path—not startled, not afraid, just lifting her chin to watch me descend with those fierce dark eyes that have haunted every dream I've had for twenty-three days. The late afternoon sun catches the red-gold streaks in her hair, turns her skin to honey, illuminates the visible swell of her belly beneath traveling clothes that have seen better days.
Gods, she's beautiful. Fuller now with pregnancy, exhausted in ways that show in the set of her shoulders and the careful way she's holding herself, but still standing. Still fighting. Still the warrior omega who survived my claiming and walked away from me bleeding rather than stay where she wasn't trusted.
I land hard enough to shake the ground beneath her feet. She doesn't step back.
"I could have sent a carriage." The words rumble through my dragon chest, felt as much as heard. "If you'd told me you were coming."
"I didn't want a carriage." Her chin lifts another fraction of an inch. "I wanted to walk."
Stubborn. Infuriating.Mine—though I've lost the right to call her that.
I lower myself to the ground and fold my wings close, making it easy for her to climb on if she chooses. For a long moment I think she'll refuse, will insist on walking the rest of the wayjust to prove she doesn't need anything from me. Pride and practicality war across her face, and I watch without pushing, without demanding, letting her make the choice on her own terms.
Practicality wins. She grabs the ridge of scales at my shoulder and pulls herself up with a grunt of effort, settling into the hollow between my shoulder blades where she fits like she was made for it.
The feel of her on my back—thighs gripping my sides, hands fisted in my scales, the heat of her body bleeding through to warm places that have been cold for weeks—hits me harder than I expected. I've been starving for her touch. Any touch. Even this impersonal contact as I carry her the last mile home, her body rigid with the effort of not relaxing against me.
I fly slowly. Draw it out. Let myself have these few minutes of closeness, the bond singing with her proximity, before she pushes me away again.
The courtyard erupts into controlled chaos when we land—guards snapping to attention, servants rushing to prepare gods know what, the whole castle suddenly alive in a way it hasn't been since she left. I shift back to human form and accept the robe someone presses into my hands, belting it loosely around my waist without much attention to whether it's properly closed. There are more important things to focus on.
She's looking at me.
Her eyes track down my chest where the robe gapes open, across my stomach, lower—and then snap back to my face with a flush spreading across her cheeks that has nothing to do with exertion from the journey. The bond floods with heat she's trying very hard to suppress, and my body responds before I can think about controlling it. I'm half-hard in seconds, obvious beneaththe thin silk, and she notices. Her blush deepens. Her jaw tightens.
Good. Let her see what she does to me. Let her know that twenty-three days apart hasn't dulled anything.
"Kess." Her name feels like the first full breath I've taken in weeks. "You came back."
"Not for you." Flat, immediate, a wall slamming down between us with almost physical force. "I'm here for the baby. There's something wrong—something about your curse. I need your library."
The baby. Singular. But something about the way she's cradling her belly, protective and fierce, makes me think there's more she isn't saying yet.
"Whatever you need," I tell her. "It's yours."
She lays out her terms in clipped sentences. Library access. The mystic's expertise. Distance—she wants my help without having to actually be near me, which is fair enough considering what I did to earn her distrust. I agree to all of it because what choice do I have? She's here. She came back. The reasons matter less than the fact of her presence.
I fall into step beside her as we enter the castle—not trailing behind like a kicked dog, but not crowding her either. She sets the distance between us and I match it, close enough to catch her if she stumbles but far enough that she doesn't feel hunted.
The corridors feel different with her in them. Warmer. More alive. Servants we pass bow and stare, clearly bursting with curiosity about the omega who left bleeding and broken and has now returned pregnant with their king's child. Let them stare. Let them whisper. None of it matters as long as she's here.
Her chambers smell like me.
I watch her notice it the moment we step through the door—the slight flare of her nostrils, the way her body stiffens, the quick glance she throws in my direction before schooling her expression into neutrality. Three weeks of sleeping in her bed, wrapped in sheets that held her scent, and now my own scent has soaked into the room so thoroughly that even I can smell the mingling.
She doesn't comment on it. Just closes the door behind us and turns to face me with her arms crossed over the swell of her belly.
