Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
brIGID
Isucked in a deep breath as I leaned against the large mossy boulder.
Ned MacIntyre, my escort for the afternoon while Torion met some of the betas he'd taken into his confidence, leaned into his cane.
I'd thought the older man a match for my exercise, likely more interested in a slower pace through the winding and climbing paths, but I realized he was more spry than he let on.
The wind rushed against me, sculpting my dress around my body, and I rested an arm over my stomach, as if it might disguise the distinct low rounding that was increasing there.
Time was passing too quickly. I was almost four months along. Some of the staff at the keep had been informed of my pregnancy, which meant all of the staff was likely now aware, and I was further along than I had been…
Before.
It still didn't quite feel real, more like a terrifyingly beautiful dream, or just a very sweet and gentle nightmare.
Like I might wake up and my stomach would be hollow and flat, and there would be no reassuring scar on the inside of my thigh that spoke of accidental but earnest devotion, and Torion would not smile that very particular smile he wore when he first laid eyes on me each day.
"I'm slowing you down, I'm afraid," I said to Ned. I thought he was something between an advisor and a grandfather to Torion, and while he teased me politely and bowed gallantly, I wasn't yet certain he really liked me.
"Nonsense. We are well matched. Now, your young buck made me swear to thrust water and food upon you every time you paused to take a rest, and I'm sure he'll check the bag when we get back. I am too old for a young alpha's punishments, madame, so we will have to obey."
I snorted, but it wasn't hard to follow Torion's rules.
My last bout of nausea had probably been over a week ago, and I was now constantly somewhere between peckish and starving.
At the moment, that gauge was slightly above peckish.
I accepted the tin from Ned and smiled at the collection inside.
Torion and Maggie now regularly conspired together on a number of things, starting with how to coax me into resting and ending with how much they might manage to feed me.
"I take it Torion is waiting for the accounting feast to announce?" Ned asked.
I stiffened, my hand holding the tin of treats moving closer so that my arm might cover my waist. Which was as much an admission of Ned's guess as it was an attempt to hide what he might see there. I forced myself to relax and nibbled on a dried strawberry.
"That was my preference," I said, just loud enough for the old man to hear me on the windy hillside.
The accounting feast was a grand event that took place roughly five months after the alpha's rut and allowed all those betas and omegas who'd been blessed with a pregnancy to announce their impending sons.
Malcolm had attended them while we'd been together, but he'd never taken me—a punishment for my failure to get with child.
Ned MacIntyre nodded. "Smart of you. It will take the wind out of the sails of the men who thought Torion was a fool for claiming you."
I smiled at that and turned my eyes back down to my snacks. "You mean men like yourself?"
Ned laughed, and it was a charmingly rickety sound, without any malice. "Like me, indeed. Like your former beta, who has no issue to announce but will come anyway because he thinks he'll get to gloat."
Spite and curiosity swirled in my head, itched on my tongue. So Malcolm still had no son. So he thought he would get to witness Torion's disappointment in me as an omega. I breathed the petty feelings out.
Malcolm was no longer my concern. Only my child and Torion mattered.
"I hope I live up to your expectations for him," I said, touching Ned gently on the arm.
For a moment, Ned looked stricken by my comment, then his brow furrowed and his smile gentled. He lifted my hand from his arm and brought it to his lips with gentlemanly flair.
"I apologize if I've left you with any impression but that you exceed my expectations, Omega Feargus," Ned said.
He took the tin when I passed it to him and turned us toward the path that would lead us back to the keep.
We walked in quiet for a moment before Ned cleared his throat.
"There are men who have a weakness for women. Your former beta was one, I believe."
I swallowed hard but didn't answer, and Ned offered me a wry curve of his lips, a gleam of approval in his gaze for me. This man was traditional, and I knew perfectly well that a dignified silence would impress him more than a gossipy unloading of woes from my time with Malcolm.
"Then there are men like Torion's father, and I suspect Torion himself, who possess a weakness for a woman," Ned said slowly, keeping us in gentle motion, not meeting my eyes for a moment until he turned his head with a smile. "For your sake, at least, I am pleased."
I returned his smile, but I knew what his words weren't saying. Ned thought Torion's loyalty to me would affect his care for Grave Hills, as if our alpha might only have enough room in his heart to do his duty in part, not in whole.
"You underestimate him," I said softly, because I couldn't help myself.
Ned glanced at me, but I kept my eyes forward and wet my lips.
"You underestimate not how much he cares, but how seriously he takes the responsibility of caring.
Even if he only loved this place a little, he would never offer less of himself, and we both know his love for the Hills is a far sight more than a little. "
Ned hummed in acknowledgement, but I caught the hint of a hidden smile twitching at his cheeks.
I glanced up from my notes at the knock on my office door, my brow furrowing.
"Come in?" My frown smoothed as Torion appeared, darting through the door and shutting it quickly behind him.
I'd only made it as far as rising from my seat before Torion had crossed the room and wrapped his arms around me, head bowing and mouth covering my hello.
He groaned into the kiss and I sighed, my arms lifting to circle his shoulders, taking hold of his wing roots to keep him close.
Not that he seemed inclined to move away, as he crowded closer until I bumped into my desk.
His tongue stroked against mine, his hands sliding down and molding around my ass, squeezing gently, trying to fuse our hips together.
Desire breezed through my veins, warm and languid.
I moaned into the kiss, melted in Torion's arms. I was embarrassingly responsive in the past few weeks, although I wasn't certain Torion had noticed yet, given his need for me had always been…
so much. Tylane's tail, this man enjoyed kissing me.
When it went no further than that, he still walked away from me with a grin on his face and a swagger in his step. But lately…
"Don't you dare walk out of this room," I gasped out when Torion started to pull away. I was clinging to him, my body throbbing with need.
Torion looked down with fire in his bright eyes, his cheeks warm with color and lips damp and shining from my kisses. "I don't have long."
I blinked at him, dazed for a moment, and then recalled that Torion was meeting with Alpha Worthington from Skybern. Damn.
He cleared his throat and then added with a low rasp, "So I won't be able to knot you."
I grinned and nodded. "A compromise, good." Then I turned in his arms, bracing one hand on my open notebook and using the other to hike my skirts.
Torion groaned loudly behind me before falling eagerly into my back, helping me lift fabric out of the air, his hand sliding up to cover the mound of my belly, the other circling above and sliding down into the collar of my dress to fondle my breasts.
"H-how is the meeting going?" I asked as some distant part of my head rose up in the urgency of the moment, demanding I express interest in Torion's duty.
"Brigid!" He laughed, his breath on my neck creating gooseflesh. His fingers found a nipple to play with at the same moment he guided himself to my entrance, and we both exhaled with rushing moans. "Fuck. You're so wet already. Have you been thinking of me?"
Truthfully, I hadn't been thinking of Torion at all.
I'd been focused on my work with perfect attention until he'd stepped through the door.
But for a month now, it was as if the second I set eyes on him, my body prepared itself for pleasure.
I'd taken to avoiding meeting him throughout the day, if only so I wouldn't interrupt us both with my desire.
"P-please," I hiccuped.
Torion sank into me with one endless, smooth stroke, and my entire body bloomed at the union. I collapsed down to my elbows, arching my back to take him deeper, carelessly wanton and so perfectly empty headed.
"Damn, now all I can think about is knotting you," Torion said, breathless as he covered my back with his warmth, staying deep inside of me and cuddling me as I bent over the desk.
He moved in deep nudges, the hand on my stomach sliding down to touch me between my trembling legs.
"As soon as Worthington leaves, I'm taking you back to bed. "
I whined, trying to pin my lips together to keep the words inside of me. Except when had a secret from Torion ever served me? He took every confession I offered and protected it, protected me. And this one was hardly likely to disappoint him.
"I wish you were in rut again," I gasped out, and Torion bucked in surprise over my back. "Every time I'm near you, I just want you to drag me to bed and keep me there for days until I'm too weak to move again."
Torion let out a long, low curse and began to move, rough and deep, never pulling more than halfway out of me.