Chapter 37
Chapter Thirty-Seven
brIGID
“Isee you're in an authoritative mood tonight," Torion said, grinning and following my lead through the dressing room.
I hadn't lit the candles there, knowing we wouldn't need the room, but there was enough glow from the bath ahead of us and the sitting room behind to make our path clear.
"Now there is a tub meant to be shared," Torion noted as we arrived in the room, warm from the fire and gently steaming bath.
"In the future, certainly. I've had mine for the night."
"Oh, have you? This feels familiar," Torion said, his eyes heavy lidded and his hand squeezing around mine, thinking of our first union. "I bet I could talk you in with me."
He likely could, but I had a plan and I was fairly sure I could persuade him into letting me have my way.
I turned, clasping his other hand in mine and stopping by the bath.
There were standing candelabras and a good roaring fire, the roof of the room rising from six points in beautiful stone arches.
The curtains were closed to keep out the cold night, and rugs were layered over the floor to keep the stone from chilling our feet.
The space was warm and romantic, a cocoon for us to share.
"Your wings need to be oiled, and I know you are sore after flying so much. Let me take care of you, Torion. You would do the same for me. You always do as much for me. Let me be the one to look after you for a night," I said, my voice low and coaxing.
His eyes narrowed, and his purr roared in his chest. "Witch," he murmured.
I smiled. I had tried to make the words into a kind of spell. There was lavender and rosemary oil in the water to soothe his senses, but there was only one magic word I really needed.
"Please."
Torion laughed, a sound of surrender, and spread his arms wide as I slipped my hands from his.
Once, months ago, before I'd fallen in love, before the rut, I'd trembled with nerves as Torion had watched me touch him, afraid of failing to hold a man's interest once more.
Now I trembled with an eager hunger. I had more than Torion's interest. I had his love.
Torion and I had touched plenty in recent months, before and after Tylane's birth.
He'd washed me when I was exhausted, and I'd held him close as he'd talked about our future, but it'd been a patient affection, the love we shared without the lust. I'd never experienced that before and I'd relished in it, more secure with my mate by the day.
Knowing we would be alone for hours together, that Torion would let me have my way in taking care of him, I felt something between rising lust and bone deep satisfaction. This was my place in this world. This was my man, my mate.
I unbuckled metal and untied leather, unbuttoned shoulder plackets and peeled away fabric.
His cheeks and knees were chapped by the cold wind, and there were dry, lightened patches on his wings.
He needed me to do this for him, as much as we would both enjoy the process.
He was mine to take care of now. He'd claimed me.
Had I ever really claimed him? I would tonight. I would every day forward.
"Step in," I murmured, circling to his back, positioning the table where I'd assembled more oil and dry clothes and lotions and a little wing wax.
There was a comfortable stool for me to work from and a good lamp.
The tub was double large, and each narrow end rose up in the middle and dipped at the corners to allow wings to hang out over the edges.
Torion hissed as he stepped into the water and groaned, shivering briefly as he sank into the water. It rose just to the low lip of the edge. I'd learned how he filled the tub perfectly, I realized, with an odd kind of pride.
"You know you always take care of me," Torion said, easing against the cool porcelain that rose up his spine and gave his head somewhere to rest.
His wings brushed my knees as I sat, warming oil between my hands.
"I do, but I know my care is often expressed in practicalities.
Managing the keep, maintaining our nest, planning dinners.
You show me how much you love me with every gesture, Torion," I said, pleased with myself for not stumbling over the words.
"I happen to find your practicalities very romantic, witch," Torion rasped as I dug my hands into his shoulders and wing roots, massaging the knots there. He helped himself to a washcloth and soap, lathering over his arms and chest.
"You should know the very sight of you warms me from the inside out," I said softly, stroking my hands out from his back over the thick spines of his wings. "And that once I have set eyes on you, I ache to inch closer, just to feel your skin against mine."
Torion stilled in the water, head turning so I could see his eyes widen, his lips part.
"And you sh-should know that I feel safe here with you. I know myself better as your om—no, as your mate."
"Brigid," Torion murmured on a heavy purr.
"This is my rightful place, here with you, Torion. You are right for me," I said, echoing the words he'd offered me months ago.
He sat up, trying to twist toward me, but Torion had always given me too much power over him. I only had to pause him with a touch on his shoulder and gently pull him back to the tub, and he relaxed once more.
"I started fighting against falling in love with you the moment you claimed me as your omega, and I lost the battle far sooner than I wanted to admit," I said, leaning forward to kiss the nape of Torion's neck, smiling at his answering shiver.
"I surrender to your love, Torion. And I promise to surrender my love to you, mate. "
"I love you, Brigid," Torion answered, his voice thick with his purr and something richer. He cleared it softly, leaning back as I continued my work on his wings. "Wicked of you to say these things to me while I must behave and let you tend to me."
"You wouldn't have let me finish if we'd been in bed together," I said, and he laughed. Every time I repeated the vow since I'd first told Torion I loved him, I barely got the words out before he was kissing me. It took too little to please him, but I refused to grow complacent.
I loved the ritual of tending Torion's wings, rubbing in the oil that picked up dust and dirt, then wiping it away with a damp cloth in long strokes that made Torion groan and melt deeper into the bath.
I'd asked him once if he found the process sensual when he had to do it for himself, and he'd said it paled in comparison to when I did the work.
When his wings were dry and clean, I warmed a bar of lotion made from lanolin and the oils of walnut, lavender, and clove between my hands.
We talked about Tylane, and then about how the betas of the Hills were adapting more easily to the idea of mating than they had in Bleake Isle.
We'd given the tradition up later than other regions, as the historical records stated, although it had become a practice to tie families together rather than one made with the instinctive demand Torion had followed when he'd bitten me.
"I took Mairwen's advice and made sure the women of the household were always present when I discussed what a true mating would mean for them," Torion said.
"I'd like to do away with the selection ceremony altogether.
Dragonkin are slow to change, but I think it might be possible to prepare them before the next ought to take place.
If mating does become more in fashion again, they'll hardly be relevant. "
"Mm, you can always repeat the process from the most recent. Perhaps it's time to have the men of the Hills be the ones who are measured for their quality," I said.
Torion chuckled and then let out a soft moan as I started circling wing wax over the dense muscle and hide at his back.
I knew this was always the part of the process that left him the most aroused, the cleaning and softening leaving him sensitive, the wax requiring the most massage.
Water stirred in the bath, and I glanced over his shoulder to find his hand moving over his lap, working his cock in a similar fashion to the way I stroked the bones of his wings.
I leaned forward, brushing against the expanse of his wings, making them twitch, and then whispered into his ear, "I said I would be the one to care for you this evening, mate."
Torion huffed out a laugh and squirmed, lifting both of his hands above the water, spread in supplication. "Are you going to let me return the courtesy?"
"Perhaps," I said, a little shyly.
Torion had admired and worshipped my body at every point of the pregnancy and after the birth.
The transformation hadn't given him any pause but to discover new and apparently pleasing changes.
I'd healed over the weeks since Tylane's birth, but it was also the longest period of time of our acquaintance we'd gone without lovemaking.
The majority of our time together, we were now too exhausted to really think of sex.
When I did find myself aroused, the anticipation of waiting turned into nerves.
Would it feel different now? My body had changed so much, and some days I felt more like I was designed for Tylane—her creation, her care, her feeding—than I was my own person.
Torion reached a hand back and I gave him mine, smiling as he drew it over his shoulder to kiss my knuckles and then the inside of my wrist. "I am yours to do as you please with," he said.
As I meticulously buffed and sealed the hide of his wings with the fragrant wax, Torion's breaths grew deeper, hitching in moments with a choked sound like he was swallowing a whine before he released a thunderous purr.
With every sound he tried to stifle, my body grew a little more sensitive, heating at first, tender breasts pulsing as they brushed against the cotton of my shift dress, my core echoing the plea.