Her dagger is still in her boot by the bed.
I can see it from here—the leather hilt, the glint of steel in the candlelight. She stripped off everything else before pulling me down onto the mattress, but the boot stays within arm's reach. Always. Even now, when she's too exhausted to lift her head, the weapon is right there.
Waiting.
In case she needs to kill me.
I should probably be concerned about that. Instead I find it strangely comforting. She hasn't stopped being who she is just because she let me inside her body. The omega who came here to murder me is still in there, underneath the heat-daze and the reluctant pleasure.
Still mine, even if she hates that she is.
"Stop that," she mutters, her voice hoarse from screaming.
"Stop what?"
"Your heart." She shifts against me and we both groan at the way the knot moves inside her. "Every time it beats I feel it."
"You want me to stop my heart from beating?"
"Yes." But there's no venom in it. She's too wrung out for venom, too thoroughly fucked to muster her usual hostility. "Figure it out. You're three hundred years old. Surely you've learned some tricks."
My beast makes a sound that might be laughter. It's been doing that—expressing emotions I didn't know it could feel. Three hundred years of snarling and screaming, and now it's... quiet. Content in a way that terrifies me because I don't trust it.
But I can't deny how good it feels.
"You bit my throat again," I tell her, pressing my nose into her hair. "I'm going to have scars."
"Good." She traces one of the healing marks on my forearm—her teeth, from earlier, when I pinned her against the headboard. "You've given me enough of them."
My hand drifts to her hip without conscious thought. To the scars there, the ones my claws left during the claiming on the altar. They've healed over now, smooth and pink, but the texture beneath my fingers is wrong. Harder than omega skin should be. Tougher.
Like hide.
Likedragonhide.
Something cold moves through my chest. The contamination—my blood mixing with hers on the altar, soaking into the wounds I made, changing her in ways I don't understand. The texts say it's supposed to kill humans in weeks.
But she's not dying.
She'schanging.
I should tell her. Should warn her that something is happening to her body, that my cursed blood is doing things to her that I can't explain or predict. She deserves to know.
But she's warm against me, her body soft with satisfaction, the bond humming contentment between us. For once she's not looking at me with murder in her eyes. For once she's just... here. Present. Almost peaceful.
I can't take that from her.
Not yet.
Later, I tell myself. When I understand more about what's happening. When I have answers instead of just fears. I'll tell her later, when I know enough to explain it properly.
It's not a lie. Not really. Just... a delay. A kindness.
"Your grandmother," I say instead, steering us away from dangerous territory. "The one who raised you. What was she like?"
A long pause. I feel her weighing whether to answer, feel the bond shift with something complicated—grief and love and old anger tangled together.
"Fierce," she says finally. "Terrifying, if you didn't know her. She taught me to fight before I could read. Taught me to hunt, to track, to survive on my own if I had to." Another pause. "She used to tell me stories about our family. About why we had to hide."
