Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
brIGID
Ipaused in the door of Torion's office, my hand raising to rest over my racing heartbeat as I caught sight of the pair of them.
Torion's arm curled toward his chest, cradling Tylane there even as she squirmed and kicked impatiently, small grunts of sound from her precious bow lips entertaining them both.
"I thought it might be feeding time," Torion said, glancing up at me with a soft smile. "She gets bossy, like you, when she's hungry."
Tylane's face turned into Torion's shirt, likely leaving a wet mark from her open mouth there. She slapped a small red fist to his heart, and the grip of her perfect possession squeezed in my own chest. This tiny child owned us absolutely with the blink of her eyes.
"Did it startle you when she wasn't with the nurses?"
I shook my head and entered the room. "I knew she'd be with you. They said as much."
"Did you get some sleep?"
I laughed. "After last night, I was so tired it was impossible not to. Have you, yet?"
Torion turned his face back down to gaze at Tylane, and even as the lines of tension eased, they didn't vanish completely. His head shook slightly.
"But not because of our little terror," I said, crossing to the desk.
"Noo," he cooed, lips quirking up. "Not because of this little fire queen. Let me hold you both while you nurse her?"
That sounded like an unnecessarily complicated production, but his office chair was comfortable.
Torion and I hadn't really had very much time for each other in the past month, for all the time we did spend together.
I accepted Tylane from his hands and waited for him to push the chair back from his desk.
On second thought, Torion had an extremely accommodating lap, and his arms were wonderfully warm and strong. It wouldn't matter what position it left him in as I settled down to take my seat, he would hold us exactly as we wanted for as long as we wanted without a word of cramp or complaint.
"I've missed you," I murmured, as his wings closed around us.
"I'm sorry, my love," Torion whispered, burying his face in my hair, breaths brushing through the strands to slide hotly down the side of my throat.
"I didn't mean it that way. You don't owe me an apology any more than I might owe you one for how much of my focus is on our daughter. I just wanted you to know."
"Mm. In that case, I've missed you too."
I smiled as Tylane nestled in my arms, my dress pushed aside for her to latch onto my breast. "I know you have." I'd felt it in the bond between us that had grown clearer by the day, stronger—a gentle longing, one born of appreciation and patience and awe.
Torion huffed out a laugh and we settled into quiet, little sounds of suckling satisfaction and small gurgles lulling us both into contentment.
As the rhythm of Tylane's nursing and the steady thump of Torion's heart soothed my exhausted nerves, I could almost drift back into another sleep here, warm and surrounded by the people I loved.
"I was thinking you might like to visit Bleake Isle, see what Mairwen is about there," Torion said slowly, words just stiff enough to rouse me from contentment.
My eyes, which had drooped, now opened again, searching the room for threats.
When I found none, I glanced down to my baby, once more awed by the sight of her, by her existence, before Torion's suggestion took root in my thoughts.
My gaze strayed over the top of Tylane's dark head to peek through the window of Torion's wings at the scraps of paper littering his desk.
"You've received word about Skybern?" I guessed.
Torion sighed, the movement of his chest a rolling wave of tension at my back. "Seamus and Ronson's men both reported the same. We're not long from Damian coming here himself."
I blinked at that. "To negotiate?"
The silence of Torion's refusal to answer turned into a high, glaring alarm in my mind.
I started to sit up, but Tylane's immediate scowl and fuss made me pause. Torion's hands stroked my arms and pulled me deeper into his hold. Such a small person has total command over our actions, I thought.
"Torion?" I pressed.
"We think he means to challenge me."
I choked and my head twisted, Tylane letting out a little wail of irritation at my unrest. "As alpha?"
Torion's left hand slid up my arm, fingers finding the back of my neck to distract me from my shock with a massage. Part of me wanted to snap at him to quit coddling me, but it would've been a shame if he'd stopped, so instead I just tried to frown more seriously at him.
"Most likely," he said, nodding.
"How long have you known this?" And why hadn't he said anything?
"Just today. Well, I had considered that his challenging me would be a more direct solution if he really wanted a foothold here, but it's such an extreme route. It seemed too absurd for him to actually decide to do so."
"So taking Grave Hills into his territory really was his aim in asking you to sell estates to dragonkin from Skybern," I muttered, resting my head into Torion's working fingers.
"No doubt. Will you go?"
"Go?"
"To Bleake Isle. With Tylane."
"Absolutely not," I snapped, before I'd even considered another answer.
A small, cowardly part of me stirred restlessly, cried out, Think of what happens to you if he loses the challenge.
Think of Tylane. But the moment I looked down at her face, my choice was already made.
I'd desperately wanted a child—a daughter, if I was being entirely honest—but a child to love and care for.
I had one now, and I would protect her with my life. But she wasn't just mine.
Torion hadn't just created her with me. He hadn't just stood at my side.
He'd scooped me out of the ashes of my past that I'd buried myself in.
He'd brought me back to life with care and love and patience.
If the rut hadn't resulted in my pregnancy, I would still be deliriously happy, mated to a man who deserved the love he'd kindled in my heart.
I owed Torion my loyalty, and I wanted Tylane to know that her mother knew how to love with everything she had.
"You won't lose," I said to Torion.
"If I am outmatched, I will surrender, and you and I will have to flee, immediately.
Seamus will be on hand. But I can't guarantee Worthington won't insist on seeing me brought down fully to avoid further challenge from the dragonkin who might support me.
We'll run in disgrace, but we may also be running into a life of hiding. "
I was holding Tylane too tightly and I twisted on Torion's lap, trying to ease my grip on her, placing one hand on his chest and letting my fingers dig into his shirt.
There was a ferocious, echoing roar of denial in my chest and heat in my throat, and I swallowed it down hard as I met Torion's gaze.
"We will run if we have to, but you won't fall, Torion.
If Worthington seeks to steal Grave Hills from you in this manner, then he isn't half the alpha you are.
He doesn't have the fire in him to claim us. Tell me you won't fail."
Torion's eyes crinkled at the corners, a little line of worry between his brows. His gravity always surprised me, my young alpha who laughed with his whole heart and whispered sweet pleas in my ear at night and looked so startled when I was brave enough to answer his affection with some of my own.
"I can't refuse orders from you, mate," Torion said. "I won't fail."
I leaned down, grasping his jaw with a firm caress and planting my lips to his, sealing the promise with a kiss.
I pulled the heavy velvet curtains closed in the alpha's suite, shutting out the cold wind that rattled the panes.
I'd given birth to Tylane in the last gasp of summer, and in the less than two months since, the seasons had taken a sharp turn toward winter once more.
It was almost a year since Torion's father had passed and he'd risen as alpha, and in all that time we'd never discussed the beautiful, towering rooms above ours, meant to be occupied by the alpha.
It was a bossy kind of surprise I'd fashioned for him, but he liked me bossy.
The rooms had been aired repeatedly over the summer, and I'd cleared them with Torion's permission months back.
It'd been weeks since there were any lingering scents.
When Torion had left yesterday to visit a northern conclave of betas—all descended from the same old laird who'd ruled as alpha centuries ago—Tylane and I stayed in a guest room as men of the keep dismantled and reassembled our bed in the alpha's suite.
Perhaps it was for Tylane's sake, so she would have her nursery and eventual bedroom in the same place Torion had, or perhaps it was my little ritual to defend Torion's right as Alpha of Grave Hills.
It was his keep, his home, and his bed in the alpha's rooms. Someone might claim them from him someday, but it wouldn't be a lord of Skybern.
A knock sounded softly on the door, and I turned as one of Tylane's nurses appeared.
"She's in the bassinet," I whispered.
"Would you like me to take her down now? The alpha's just arrived."
I shook my head. "He'll want to say goodnight. Would you wait? It won't be—"
"Brigid?" I heard the shout, not urgent but seeking, and I smiled.
The nurse ducked back into the hall, and I glanced around the room for any last second adjustments.
The main room had a sitting area and a table, so we might take our meals here when we wished.
There was an arched opening into the bedroom straight ahead, comfortably large enough for the alpha but still close.
I'd restored our nest myself while Tylane had napped, putting the curtains back up, so that while Torion was inside he wouldn't even be able to tell we weren't in our old rooms anymore.
Branching off from the bedroom was a bathing chamber and then a doorway into the dressing room which led back to the sitting room, so that staff could carry water to the bath without walking through our bedroom.
I was already discussing the potential of getting pumped water up to our bath, and perhaps to a few chambers on the lower floors as well.
Torion had once said that I could claim any domain I wished to rule over—he'd been waggling his eyebrows up at me as I'd taken a seat over his lap—but I did like ruling over the keep, and no matter what changes I made, he'd never batted so much as an eyelash in protest.
"There you are," Torion declared, arriving in the sitting room, giving it barely a glance before marching forward and wrapping his arms around me.
I sighed, giving into the relief of being held by him for a minute or two before rousing myself to lean back and look up at him in expectation. He just smiled drowsily back at me.
"Well?" I asked, unable to pull my arms free of his embrace and settling for raising my eyebrows.
"It went well. They're quite enthusiastic about the prospect of mates, and—"
"Not that," I said, managing to poke him sharply in his ribs. I jerked my head over my shoulder. "What do you think?"
Torion blinked and looked around us, at the tapestries I'd ordered of scenes of Grave Hills, the heavy blue and green curtains hanging from doors and windows, the fires blazing, and our nest glowing silver and white through the archway.
"Ah," he said, smiling. "Feels like ours now. That's good."
I huffed and freed myself. Men. "Say goodnight to Tylane for now. The nurses are going to take care of her so we can have at least a handful of hours of sleep to start."
"We'll be fine for the night, milady," the nurse assured me.
Torion snorted and went to the bassinet, lifting a wrapped bundle from within. "You will, but we might not," he told the young woman before kissing the crown of Tylane's head and releasing a long sigh.
"I bet you slept like the dead last night in the beta's keep," I muttered.
Torion laughed and passed our daughter to the nurse, waiting for them to leave the room and close the door before crossing back to me, wrapping me in an even tighter embrace.
"You did very well for us, mate," Torion said, purring through the word and nuzzling his face into my hair.
"You don't mind that I did it without asking?"
"No, it's better that way. It doesn't look or feel like it did when it belonged to my parents now. I wouldn't have thought that possible, but it's true. And it's our rightful place in the keep," he said, kissing my temple.
I wondered if that was something you heard a lot growing up in the shadow of an alpha, "rightful place.
" Torion said it in regards to my place at his side and his place here in the keep.
It was a kind of surety I'd never had before in my life.
I'd had no rightful place in my father's home, not when he'd replaced my mother with a new omega so quickly.
And Malcolm had never really given me reign over his home either, likely knowing that I was only a temporary fixture, as the omegas before me had been.
Torion had given me leave to claim the keep, and himself, from the very start, and then made my place with him permanent, however unconscious the mating bite had been. He'd celebrated the accident.
I wiggled myself in his grip enough to rise up on my toes and graze a kiss over his mouth.
"I love you," I said. I still didn't say the words often enough, but every time I did, Torion's face lit up and he would hold tight to me, rewarding the small offering with a great cresting wave of affection.
This time, I slipped free before he could sweep me up, catching his rough hand in mine and tugging on it lightly.
"Come with me."