Tamsin’s voice pulls me from my reverie. She’s appeared at my side, her hand sliding into mine with the easy familiarity of two years of marriage. Her other hand rests on the swell of her belly—five months along now, just starting to show in ways that make my dragon instincts go haywire.
“I’m observing.” I pull her closer, my arm wrapping around her waist.
“You’re hovering.” She tips her face up, and I take the invitation, pressing a soft kiss to her lips. She tastes like the honeyed tea Aisling insists all the pregnant Fire-Bringers drink. “But I love you anyway.”
“I love you.” Three years of saying it, and the words still feel like a gift every time. “Both of you.”
My hand joins hers on her belly. The baby kicks against my palm—strong, insistent, already making its presence known. The sensation steals my breath every single time.
“Active today.” Tamsin’s smile is radiant. Pregnancy suits her—she glows with it, her power somehow brighter, her fire burning steadier. The Crown rests dormant at her chest as it has for two years, its threat contained, its purpose fulfilled. She’s more than its guardian now. She’s a queen, a wife, soon to be a mother. She’s everything.
“Takes after its mother.” I spread my fingers wider, chasing the movement. “Restless. Impatient. Determined to make its presence known.”
“Excuse me?” She pokes my chest with her free hand. “I seem to recall a certain dragon who couldn’t wait ten minutes for dinner last night because he had ‘strategic concerns’ about?—”
I kiss her again, partly to stop the teasing, mostly because I can. Because she’s here, and she’s mine, and I spent six centuries not knowing what I was missing.
“Get a room,” Rurik calls from across the space.
“We have several,” I reply without breaking the kiss. “In two different locations. The benefits of splitting our time between a fortress and a kingdom.”
Tamsin laughs against my mouth. The sound vibrates through me, warm and perfect and exactly what I never knew I needed.
The doors open again,and Zyphon enters with Nasyra.
He looks... different. Has for two years now, ever since Ulrik’s death started unraveling the curse that consumed him. The purple cracks are gone from his scales entirely. The shadows still answer him—will likely answer him until he dies—but they no longer feed on him. No longer consume him from within.
He looks younger. Lighter. Like the dragon he might have been if tragedy hadn’t shaped him into something darker.
Nasyra walks beside him, her hand resting on a belly that matches Tamsin’s almost exactly. They’re due within weeks of each other—something the Fire-Bringer women find endlessly amusing and the dragons find endlessly terrifying. Two pregnant mates. Two sets of protective instincts driving us all to distraction.
“You’re late.” Selene’s voice carries across the room. “The children nearly destroyed Rurik before you could witness it.”
“We saw through the window.” Nasyra’s mismatched eyes—one purple, one pink—sparkle with amusement. “We decided to wait until the carnage was complete.”
“Tactical delay.” Zyphon’s voice is dry, but there’s warmth beneath it that wasn’t there two years ago. His hand rests on the small of Nasyra’s back, guiding her toward the couches with a possessive tenderness that makes something settle in my chest.
We made it. All of us. Four brothers who spent centuries alone, who buried themselves in duty and grief and the careful absence of hope. And now?—
Now we have this.
Tamsin releases my hand to cross the room toward Nasyra. They embrace carefully—bellies making it complicated—and then sink onto a couch together, heads bent close, already deep in conversation. Selene and Aisling drift over to join them, and within moments, the four women are a closed circle, voices overlapping, laughter punctuating whatever secrets they’re sharing.
The Fire-Bringer sisterhood. Stronger than ever. Bound by fire and survival and the peculiar joy of loving impossible dragons.
“They’re plotting something.” Rurik appears at my shoulder, Ember still cradled against his chest. The baby has fallen asleep, her tiny fist curled in her father’s shirt.
“They’re always plotting something.” Drayke joins us, Kael on his hip, Lyric clinging to his leg. The king of dragons, reduced to a climbing structure for toddlers. He’s never looked happier.
“Let them plot.” Zyphon’s voice is quiet, his gaze fixed on Nasyra with an intensity that speaks to three centuries of waiting to hold her again. “They’ve earned it.”
They have. We all have.
Later,after dinner has devolved into cheerful chaos and the children have been carried off to bed, I find myself on the ramparts with my brothers.
The same ramparts where Tamsin asked me to claim her. The same view—mountains stretching endlessly, stars blazing overhead—but everything else has changed.
“Remember when this fortress was quiet?” Rurik leans against the parapet, a cup of wine in his hand that he’s barely touched. “When the most exciting thing that happened in a given week was Auren reorganizing the library?”
