Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
brIGID
Icaught myself sighing for the third time and pressed my lips together hard, sitting up straight at my stool and reaching for my tea. I grimaced as cold, bitter liquid touched my tongue and set the cup down.
"Wake up, you silly fool," I breathed, glaring down at yesterday's cup of tea, the leaves now atrociously steeped.
Glancing around the cottage, I found the kettle steaming over a weakly burning fire and shook myself. The sun was high in the sky, and I'd barely started my day. Not that it was easy to wake after tossing and turning on a lumpy, prickly mattress for half the night. More than half the night, really.
But this was my life—my real life. The one I'd set aside to be the alpha's omega.
It was a relief to return to it, to my normal patterns and the work that I loved.
Except my patterns weren't normal, because I wasn't sleeping and I couldn't focus. And my work was…
"Well, what did you expect? The whole Hills must know you're the omega by now. They'd hardly expect to find you here for healing," I groused to the empty room.
I slapped my own cheeks lightly and marched to the fireplace, determined that today would be the day that went well.
I would make good progress harvesting herbs in the woods.
I would take a tincture to the farm to the south and let the Murrays know I would be at the cottage if they needed anything.
They would get the word out to other locals.
And if word reaches the local dragonkin too? What will they think of you abandoning the alpha?
"I didn't abandon him," I muttered. "He didn't put up even a whiff of an argument."
And he hadn't called me back. Even though I knew emissaries from Skybern had visited two days ago. Maggie, of all people, had been the one to let me know. She claimed my absence had been remarked on, but not by Torion.
Not to me, at least.
Huffing a sigh, I lifted the steaming kettle over a fresh cup and poured, then blinked down at the clear liquid.
Damn. Tea required tea leaves. Setting the water aside, I pawed through the clutter of tins I’d left out on the work table until I found the one for tea and groaned as I found it empty.
I'd forgotten yesterday to walk up to the village.
And it wasn't just tea I'd run out of. My stores had been emptied out while I was away to keep mice and bugs from moving in and staking their claim.
I'd been surviving on the few things I'd scavenged from the keep kitchens, but the apples and bread had run out yesterday evening as well.
I gazed balefully around the cottage that had once felt cozy and sacred, safe.
Now it just looked small and decidedly bare.
The quiet had been a relief when I'd arrived, a pleasant kind of solitude compared to the constant activity of the keep.
But when night had settled in and I tried to find sleep in the loft, suddenly solitude had turned into being wholly alone.
I missed the days before I'd gone to the keep to speak to the newly risen alpha, before I knew Torion and had made myself comfortable in his bed.
No, he had made me comfortable there. That bastard.
Shoving my hair back from my face and into a knot at the back of my neck, I scanned the room and made a list in my head.
I needed food, provisions, tea. I needed to get out of the cottage and make my return to the area known again.
Everything would be all right with a little time.
This was just an adjustment after being away for so long.
And if there is no babe, I might never have to go back.
I stopped in place in the center of my cottage, my fist around the strap of my bags, and blinked at the stray thought.
I could break my bargain with Torion. He would be…
unhappy with me. I knew that much. But in another ten years, he could find a new omega, perhaps even sooner. I could be written out of his history.
He's mine, a defiant thought snarled, jolting me.
My throat tightened, and my stomach churned. My knees were wobbly, and my feet too heavy. I wanted to sink down to the floor and close my eyes and give up on this wretched day.
Except in the sudden silence, without all my huffs and sighs, the clattering sound of an approaching wagon reached my ears.
I pressed my hand over my stomach, as if that might settle its sudden turmoil, and returned my bags to the hooks, crossing to the door.
Perhaps word of my return had spread after all and I finally had a patient.
At least that would give me some purpose.
But as I cracked open my door, bracing against the cold morning air, it was not a local farmer I saw turning off the road toward my cottage.
I swallowed a yelp, one hand grabbing onto the doorframe to hold me up, as I caught sight of Torion's dark curls and broad wings, his face lifted to catch morning rays.
I was wetting my lips without thinking when he found me watching him, and I waited for the smug and wicked smile, the anxious clench of my belly turning into one of hunger.
Though Torion smiled at me in greeting, it wasn't one of victory, of catching me staring at him in sudden desire.
It was shy and… His chin ducked and his glances were brief, nervous.
It seemed to take him hours to reach the cottage, and every look and breath was drawn out.
I'd been waiting here in the cottage like a fool for him to come and drag me back to the keep.
I'd wanted him to demand my presence at his side, so that I might hold onto a little anger with him.
But it wasn't Torion's way. The only demand he'd made of me was what we both wanted, and the moment I'd decided to balk and run away, he'd let me. And I'd tried to be angry with him for that instead.
"Is everything all right?" I asked as he rolled to a stop.
He nodded, staring at me, and it was no longer so hesitant or nervous, but shockingly thorough. Had I changed in the handful of days since we'd last seen each other? Had I changed in his eyes?
"Fine," he rasped out, jumping down from the bench of the wagon.
There was a yank inside of my chest, and I found myself stepping out of the doorway. He answered the movement, a kind of gravity in the air that only applied to us.
Torion straightened, blinking and looking behind him. "I thought you might need…provisions."
Tender aches raced through me. "You thought right."
His head whipped back to stare at me. "Have you been… Why didn't you send for—"
"Torion," I said, giving into the inevitable, into what every inch of me craved and the majority of my thoughts demanded, contrary and argumentative as they were. I crossed to him until I could savor that buzz of energy and excitement that sizzled between us.
He swallowed hard, and I realized his right hand was still fisted around the strings of the wagon. I reached for that hand, and the strings dropped, our fingers gripping tightly. "Hm?" he asked.
He was too damn tall, and even rising up to the tips of my toes—bare toes in the cold grass, but even they were sharply alive—didn't lift me high enough for what I wanted. His eyes widened as I reached my other hand up to the back of his neck, tugging him closer.
Torion groaned and fell upon me, our mouths slanting together, open and starving, tongues clashing for barely a moment before finding their natural rhythm together, stroking and twining and then sliding apart.
Our hands remained clasped, but Torion's free arm circled my waist, lifting me up off the ground, my toes swaying as he marched us to the cottage, only making it as far as the door.
"Wait," I tried to say, but the word was buried in the kiss.
Torion yelped as his head collided with the low doorframe, my own just grazing beneath. He pulled away, blinked at the door, and then growled as if he might intimidate it into accommodating his huge frame. I started to giggle, to slide myself out of his arms, when his glare turned on me.
"Oh no, you don't," he snarled, his arm tightening around me until I was breathless.
With a quick crouch, he ducked us into the darkness of the cottage, pinning me to the scant feet of bare wall just right of my door.
His mouth was hot on mine, the taste of him beautifully familiar, a flavor I'd been craving for days without realizing.
My knees bent, legs wrapping around his waist, a soft cry rising up from my throat when his cock swelled between us, hunting through layers of fabric to press just under my belly.
"Brigid, I—"
I had no idea what he might say, but I couldn't take the chance that it might fracture the moment, that it might lead to him sliding out of my arms, back to the wagon and home to the keep.
"I need you inside of me," I gasped out, my hand on the back of his neck sliding up to anchor itself in his curls. I forced the next kiss, thrusting my tongue against his, and Torion moaned.
He shifted, pulling our hands apart, and I wanted to scratch at his chest, tear at his wings, until I realized he was doing his own urgent tearing, tugging and pulling the fabric between us up out of the way.
The kiss broke as we both fumbled together, breaths panting and mingling.
We'd barely touched aside from the kiss, but my breasts were aching, my core throbbing in anticipation.
My skin had lit up, tingling and brightening, waiting for Torion's attention, but none more so than my suddenly ravenous core.
Wads of heavy plaid and coarse linen dug into my stomach, but nothing distracted from the brief tap of damp, swollen flesh.
I gasped, and Torion grunted, our hands all but slapping together before I pushed his out of the way, finding his cock and taking it in a brutal grip.
Torion groaned, head thrown back, knees buckling till they hit the wall.
I guided the slick, pulsing head to my center and dove forward, taking Torion's beautiful, tan, flexing throat between my teeth.
He howled, and I buried my own scream into his flesh as he slammed home inside of me, the sudden stretch an explosion of heat, a sharp stinging edge that built and softened in equal measure as he held us frozen like that, my body not adjusting around him so much as relearning how to hold him better inside of me.
"More," I whispered, kissing the skin I'd bitten. "Harder. Deeper."
I tried to flex my hips forward but Torion had me trapped, my head against the doorjamb, spine perfectly straight down to the slightest tip of my hips to better bury himself inside of me.
He pushed in until I lost my breath, held me in place with just the weight of his body, and pulled his arm from around my waist.
"Yes, my lovely witch," he whispered, and then he hooked one arm beneath my left thigh.
I squeaked as he inched me up the wall with a rough thrust, then repeated the maneuver on my other leg until I was held up in his arms, helplessly pinned on his cock.
Torion stood straight, his chest breathing roughly into my own, the pair of us still fully dressed with heaps of fabric shoved aside.
His eyes caught mine and I squirmed, whimpering, too stuffed to interpret the dark meaning of his stare.
"Is this what you want?" he asked, edging out of me, my mouth falling open with a pathetic sound of protest. My head thumped against the wall as he surged back in, his movement inside of me sudden and rough, our skin clapping together as an almost embarrassing amount of wetness eased the motion.
I couldn't speak as he fucked me, rough and fast, his grunts animal and the soft howl of relief that rose up out of me made of desperate vowels.
"Greedy omega, needing her alpha's cock," Torion snarled out, and I swore the cottage shook with his thrusts.
"T-Torion," I cried out. There was a kind of anger in his voice, in the heavy slap of his hips against mine, the brutal drum of his length inside of me.
It thrilled me, as did the trap his body fashioned for mine, but his brow was furrowed, a determined scowl replacing the usual wonder on his face as he was inside of me.
My hand was still tangled in his hair, and I used it now to distract him, pulling until he shouted and then guiding his face to mine, nibbling at his mouth until the sneer there softened.
Torion wasn't Malcolm, I'd known that plenty early. But no matter what might come between us in the future, I didn't want to be Malcolm now either, dangling my affection just out of Torion's reach.
"I—Ah! Torion, I-I missed you," I forced out between his harsh pace. It faltered as I spoke, Torion's body shuddering against mine, his chest sinking into mine, crushing my breasts as his mouth claimed a kiss, gentler but no less hungry.
His hands squeezed at my ass, and his strokes inside of me sank deeper until he bottomed out, the swelling of his knot stretching me open before he eased out.
"I missed you," I repeated when he let me catch a breath.
"Missed you," he answered in a whisper, sucking on my bottom lip before licking back into my mouth, the kiss taking on the steady, thorough, deep pace of his lovemaking. "Is this… Fuck, Brigid, you feel so good."
I echoed his words, kissing across his cheeks, whining as his knot grew too thick to pull out of me. Torion stepped back, pulling my hips from the wall, and we gasped together as our bodies found a new rhythm, rolling and grinding, his knot throbbing in time with my whimpers.
I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, covered his mouth with mine, and howled into the kiss as I came, quaking in my alpha's arms. Torion swallowed my cries with his own groans, my clenching core milking at his knot until he burst inside of me.
My back slid against the rough wall, but I only kissed and clutched at Torion.
He would see us safely to the floor. And then I would whisper into his ear little filthy words until he fucked me there too.
I would keep him inside of me until we were both too tired to do anything else.
Until there was no chance of him getting back in the wagon and leaving me. Not today, at least.