Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
brIGID
I'd forgotten how tired pregnancy made me, but on that day, it was a small blessing. If a nap was what my body wanted, it would help itself to one. I slept fitfully that night, but at least I did sleep.
Still, when the front door of the keep opened with a creak and groan, then voices called out, I was sitting up from the bed before I'd finished waking.
It only took a drowsy moment of blinking into darkness for the low tenor of Torion's voice to reach me, and then I was in motion.
I stumbled through the bedroom long enough to grab a robe and only managed to get the damn thing on and tied around my waist by the time I reached the stairs down to the main hall.
"Brigid."
I stopped on the top step, bleary eyes blinking in pleasure to see Torion taking the stairs up two at a time.
"Are you all right?" I asked, reaching out, my hands eager to grab hold of him.
"The challenge failed before I'd even made it to the Isle," Torion said. "Everyone is fine."
I scowled at him as he reached me, my fingers fisting in his shirt. "Are you hurt?"
He smelled wonderful, like sea air and musky sweat, and when I swayed into him, his arms wrapped around my waist to hold me still. "I'm fine," he laughed. "Didn't even get to enjoy a moment of fighting."
He bent and pressed his lips to my forehead, quieting the storm in my thoughts that had been plaguing me since Samuel Cameron had given me word of the challenge in Bleake Isle.
I sighed, settling against Torion's chest, and finally heard the raised voices below.
Torion's hands held my shoulders in place against him, preventing me from twisting to see what was taking place.
"I told Ronson we'd stash some of the troublemakers here in the keep cells," Torion said. "De Roche leant us black irons for the cause."
"Is it safe to have them here?"
"The cells are the one part of the keep it seems my father kept in the best repair. There's no danger to us, and they'll have their trial soon enough. Brigid, there's something I must tell you."
I frowned and leaned back, suddenly able to see the fervent excitement, even shock, making Torion's features vivid and wild.
"What is it?"
"Not here," he whispered. He called instructions down to the men below and then guided me back to the bedroom. "The most astonishing thing took place today."
Aside from the challenge? I wondered, but my thoughts were slower than Torion's intense energy, and he placed me back on the edge of the bed, taking his seat beside me and clasping his hands in mine. His dark eyes were wide, an absent smile on his lips.
"Mairwen is a dragon."
I blinked. "Aren't we…all?"
Torion huffed and shook his head. "She transformed, Brigid. She was one of the most ferocious dragons I'd ever seen!"
Mairwen? Quiet, sweet Mairwen? My mind remained blank at the suggestion.
"Torion, do you mean she…flew?"
Torion laughed at my own bafflement, apparently a match for his own. "Flew. Breathed fire. Fought off the dragons attacking Cadogan! I wouldn't have believed it was her, not even with Cadogan bellowing at us all not to hurt her, but she shifted back in front of my very own eyes."
For a moment, I only stared at Torion. He was telling me a fairy story, one I'd never even heard the likes of. But he wasn't joking, and he looked as startled by the tale as I felt hearing it. "But…but how?"
Torion shook his head, grinning now. "I've no idea! But I think they might know, and Niall said Ronson and Mairwen would come here soon and explain it all. She has wings, Brigid!"
"Where on earth did they come from?" I asked, sitting up, racking my own memory, as if I might suddenly recall seeing the woman with wings during her visit. As if such an unheard of sight might've somehow slipped my notice.
Torion shrugged, laughing again. "I can't blame Ronson for carrying her off once he had her back out of her dragon's shape. I'd have done the same with you if you'd flown into battle for me. But I'm… My head is reeling. It won't settle until they come and tell us what happened, I think."
"A dragon?" I repeated stupidly, just in case his answer might change to something sensible.
Torion rose from the bed and proceeded to pace, describing Mairwen's dragon—Mairwen's dragon—in detail.
To imagine the gentle woman as a dragon at all was a challenge, but the vision Torion painted, in brilliant shades of copper and rust and turquoise, not to mention the size of her talons and spikes measured in a wide span of Torion's hands, made the whole story even more impossible to believe.
As I sat watching him, I realized I hadn't yet mentioned my spotting or how scared I'd been.
I didn't know if it was that weight in my mind, or the fact that it was some hour of the night or pre-dawn and I was still groggy with sleep, but I couldn't grasp at Torion's excitement in the wake of this news.
A female dragon was certainly some kind of marvel, but I wasn't sure how it would be accepted widely.
"Would you like to fly?" Torion asked, slightly breathless at the conclusion of his story.
"Now?" I glanced out the window into the dark, frowning slightly.
Torion grinned and threw himself back down onto the bed on his side. "No, I mean if it was possible for you to be a dragon like Mairwen, would you like that? To be able to fly?"
"No."
Torion's eyes widened, and I pressed my lips flat. He propped his head up on his hands. "Really? I thought you liked flying."
"I—" I shook my head and fell back to the bed, rolling to face him on my side.
"I do like flying. And if my suddenly being able to transform into a dragon was only a simple matter of doing just that, I would enjoy flying on my own.
But, Torion, this is going to…create a rather large commotion for Bleake Isle.
At the very least. Possibly for all of dragonkin. "
I expected that Torion might be struck by the words, grow thoughtful. I almost felt bad for poking a hole into his balloon of excitement. Instead, he just smiled softly.
"You take on such worries, little witch," he said, reaching for me, pressing a kiss into my forehead.
"You don't think it's true?" I asked, a little tartly.
"I know it's true. You're always right. If it's possible for our women to have their own dragons, the betas are sure to resist the change.
I just can't help but consider the ways it might improve matters for omegas, after that resistance has been dealt with.
" Torion brushed my hair back and looked me over, smile stretching wide again. "I think wings would suit you."
The only response I could think of was a kiss, and with Torion returned to me, it was far too easy to fall back asleep.
There was more spotting the next day, and if I found Torion's resulting panic somewhat gratifying, no one but I needed to know.
If there was also a brief, half-hearted wrestling match to keep him charging out of the bedroom in search of a doctor—he was too concerned for me to really fight back—that was our business too. In the end, we made our bargain.
He would go fetch a doctor discreetly, whom I would meet with in my office.
We wouldn't be able to keep the secret of my pregnancy for very long in the keep.
Servants were far cannier than most dragonkin gave them credit for.
But I wanted to wait at least until my quickening, when I was first able to feel the flutters of life, before we made any official announcement.
I hadn't gotten to experience that my first time, and it seemed as if it might be a marker, a moment where I could start to enjoy the idea of being pregnant, instead of only clinging nervously to the hope it presented.
"I'm less concerned with the little bit of blood than I am your age, Madame," Doctor Thistlethwaite said, glancing down at his watch rather than meeting my eye.
I pursed my lips, already prepared to hear as much, but Torion let out a brief snarl. "She's not yet thirty-five. She's hardly in her dotage." His hands rested on my shoulder, standing behind me as I sat on the bench in my new office, mulling over the irony of being its first patient.
"And yet most women come to their first rut more than a decade prior to her. Young women's bodies are more…flexible, able to bear the growth and change that comes with a dragon brewing inside of their bodies. The more they age, the more their body fixes itself into position."
I stiffened in my seat, offended and worried over the words, but Torion scoffed loudly.
"That's absolute rot," Torion said.
"Torion," I murmured, worried he might go too far in speaking against the doctor.
I wasn't sure I was convinced by Thistlethwaite's claim either, but I knew better than to offend the man who might become responsible for my care.
"I understand your disappointment, my lord, but it would be best for us to begin planning to preserve the heir's life now, in case of any…later concerns," Thistlethwaite said.
My eyes closed and I took a shuddering breath, my hand rising from its limp resting place on my lap to cover my lower stomach in reflex.
It would be a cruel fate to bring a child into the world I never got the chance to meet, but I already felt those stirrings of love, found the clock hands spinning too fast as I spent an hour dreaming of the child.
Torion's hands tightened briefly on my shoulders before releasing me, and he moved around the bench, catching the doctor by the shoulder and drawing him quickly away from me.
"Come speak to me in the hall a moment," Torion said, his voice thick with what I suspected was a barely restrained growl.
I started to rise, to speak my alpha's name, but as if he could read my mind, he shot me a quelling look and I sank into my seat.
I knew what Torion would do next, knew that he wouldn't stand for the doctor's claims or any plan that might sacrifice me in exchange for an heir.
And while I wasn't sure if my own desires matched his, there was a small warmth in my chest at understanding that I was Torion's priority.
The voices outside of the door were muffled, although the doctor's began to rise with irritation, and Torion's interruptions were quick and heavy.
Footsteps receded, and I could hear only my own heartbeat in my ears and the slow inhale and exhale of my breath for a moment.
Then the door opened again, and the ambient noise of the keep outside my office bubbled the world back to life.
Torion's head was shaking before I could so much as open my mouth.
"I'm not having a doctor attend you when his practice leans more towards butchery than healing. Catherine Eames gave birth to four sons. And those sons’ omegas have all successfully given birth to more sons.
I bet you anything she'll know more about the matter than that doctor knows about his own balls. "
My lips twitched, and my heart ached. "Come sit with me," I said.
Torion's eyes narrowed. "Not if you're going to try and convince me that the doctor was in any way right."
I shrugged and tried to sound playful. "You must admit even you said my muscles were stiff." Torion scowled at me, and I sighed. "Torion, even if I make it to the birthing—"
"Brigid, please," he said, the hard stone of his voice starting to crack.
"Dragon births are dangerous. You may have to make a choice—"
"I have already made it, but I'm not sure you're prepared to hear it," Torion bit out, crossing the stone floor and hitting the bench hard, wrapping his arms around me.
"—or the worst may happen and we get no choice at all," I continued, closing my eyes and pressing my face to his chest.
"I…I can't let that happen, little witch," Torion whispered, his head bowing over mine and lips brushing over my hair. "Damn it, I never should've brought that man here."
I knew these were realities we might have to face eventually, and only if I'd managed to keep the babe alive longer than I had before.
But I found my arms wrapping around Torion's chest, found myself clinging to him like he was my anchor, and that reliance didn't scare me for once.
I had greater battles to fight than my feelings for Torion now.