Her smile starts slow and spreads until it takes over her whole face. "Make the nursery big enough for more than one. Eventually."
My breath stops in my lungs. I look up at her—this woman who arrived in Nightfall Cove with a dead car and a bruised soul and became the center of everything.
"As many as you want, sha'keth va'run."
"As many aswewant."
I pull her against me. She tucks into the space beneath my chin—the space that existed before I met her but belongs to no one else.
Tomorrow, more letters will arrive with the Bloodstone seal. More threats. More ghosts from a kingdom I left behind.Gar'than will deliver my message and the clans will sharpen their response.
Sarah falls asleep against my chest, her breathing slow and even—the rhythm of a woman who no longer fears the dark. My hand rests on her stomach, palm wide enough to span the place where our child grows.
I walked away from a throne when I left the Bloodstone Mountains. Crossed the border with nothing but a stolen motorcycle and a rage too big for the mountains to hold.
Tonight, with my mate warm against my chest and my child growing beneath my hand and my brothers sleeping under the same roof, I understand what I couldn't see back then.
I didn't walk away from a throne.
I walked toward a better one.
