Mira was asleep. Curled on her side in Solomon’s precise blanket arrangement. One hand on her stomach. The other tucked beneath her cheek, fingers loose. The tension from earlier finally released.
The pregnancy had changed her face. Fuller, softer. The glow Farmon described was visible even in sleep, fed by two open channels, diminished by the absence of a third.
My third. The one I’d sealed shut.
I knelt beside the bedroll. At the stream, I’d knelt to tend her feet. Here, no audience, no justification. Just the man beneath the crown needing to be close to the woman he’d failed.
My hand reached for her face. Stopped an inch from her cheek. The memory of every flinch she’d ever made from a man’s hand rising toward her pressed against the gesture.
Then my knuckles brushed her cheekbone. Featherlight. Her skin was warm and the scent of her filled the space between us and my wolf went still for the first time in months.
She didn’t wake. Or she chose to remain still.
My thumb traced her jaw. Once, slow.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. Barely a breath. The words I couldn’t say in daylight because daylight demanded a leader. “For all of it.”
Her breathing didn’t change. But her fingers on her stomach curled, just slightly, around the bump where three heartbeats drummed.
I withdrew my hand and stood.
The envoy from Veyndral was due tomorrow. They would see the hunters, the alliance, the human woman carrying heirs to the throne.
Tomorrow I would stand in front of my kingdom and tell the truth.
Tonight I stood in the dark and practiced being worthy of it.
64
— • —
Lucian
The memory of her weight against my chest lasted longer than it should have.
I’d returned to the command area after the den, run three hours of perimeter logistics on no sleep, and the ghost of her fingers on the back of my neck still burned beneath my collar. The scent of her clung to my shirt. I hadn’t changed it.
Dawn buried the man beneath the king. The camp resumed its machinery and Mira was already at Farmon’s medical station by the time I reached the northern ridge, reviewing compound schematics with the focus of a woman who’d slept on bandaged feet and woken up ready for war.
She glanced up once. Across forty meters of clearing, her eyes found mine and held for two seconds. The same eyes that had been closed beneath my knuckles four hours ago.
Then she turned back to Farmon, and the distance between us filled with duty.
The envoy was due at noon.
Twenty soldiers, council representatives, and Commander Voss, a man who’d served my father and considered that fact permission to say whatever he wanted to my face.
“They’re close,” Percy said, appearing at my shoulder. “Solomon picked up movement from the north ridge. Fifteen, maybe twenty.”
“Formation?”
“Military column.” His jaw worked. “They’re not here for diplomacy, Lucian. They’re here to assess whether you’ve lost your mind.”
“Then we’ll give them a clear answer.”
“Will they accept it?”
I looked at him. He’s in his warrior state now. The alpha who’d gone rogue, crossed a portal alone, and chose his mate over his loyalty as a soldier. Percival understood defiance better than anyone in this camp.
