Kaitlyn
Linton insists I sit on his lap while I eat. He actually doesn’t need to insist. I’m happy to be there. I know he likes it, and he is surprisingly comfortable as well as smelling delicious.
I bite into an apple, and he represses a groan. It seems like me eating fruit is one of his particular triggers, and he’s getting lumpier by the second.
“Have you heard anything about my sister?” I ask him as a distraction.
We’ve been back at what he calls his lair for a month now, and during that time, Linton has taken steps to reestablish himself in the area as a place where the inhabitants can come, store their crops in his vast cool underground cellars, ask advice (in a move I was absolutely not expecting, Linton is extremely knowledgable about agriculture), and ask for scales, which he can now produce on demand.
And occasional when he least expects it, making him one surprised mothman.
“I have put out some messages, but as yet, nothing has come back to me. If she is in the Yeavering, we will find her,” Linton says. “I like the idea of you having a sister.”
“You do?” I furrow my brow.
“I do. Because you cared enough about her to come here in her place. If you had not had a sister, we might never have met.” He nods.
When you put it like that, in mothman logic, I can’t fault it.
The underrealm doesn’t discriminate. Although it appears Linton and I were indigestible, as were Warden, Reavely, and unfortunately the Selkies, the shadow/mist creatures.
Meaning Warden and Linton have been hunting the things down night after night. Dispatching each one individually to the realm where they belong.
The Brag trots into the hall, hooves ringing as usual, loudly against the stone flags.
“It is time for me to return to the Shadow Keep, old friend. The Selkie last night was the final one,” he says, eyeing up my apple.
Linton growls at him, reaches out to the bowl in front of us, and throws one at the Brag. Warden catches it with ease, his hooves dancing on the stone flags before he transforms into his biped form and throws himself down in a nearby heavy oak carved chair and takes a bite.
“You want to go back there?” Linton says incredulously.
“You want me to stay here?” Warden answers in a similar tone.
Linton huffs. He hasn’t minded fighting alongside Warden to deal with the Selkies, but I sense his patience is at an end with the big centaur.
But Warden is generally noisy, busy, and loud.
Everything Linton is not. My mothman might have gained some clarity in his mind since the hunter’s moon, his former persona and life coming back to him, the horrors of the Night Lands receding, but he still has the occasional night terrors, and he very much dislikes noisy Warden, even if he’s generally okay with quieter Warden.
“It’s fine, Linton. I need to get back. I suppose the prisoners probably haven’t been fed since I left.”
Unable to help myself, I gasp at the callousness of his words, even if I know now what might lurk within the walls of his prison.
“Don’t fret, Kaitlyn. They don’t actually need feeding.” He laughs uproariously. “My job is to stop them from getting out into the Yeavering.”
“A task you took upon yourself.”
“What else am I to do with eternity?” Warden growls at him. “I am the last of my kind. The chances of me finding a mate are naught.”
Linton sniffs. “Still believe you can only mate with another Brag. Outdated,” he says, pulling me close.
“I harbour no such prejudice.” Warden stands, finishing off the apple in two bites. “It’s complicated.”
I guess it’s always complicated in the Yeavering.”
“My mate and I have been breeding hard,” Linton says as Warden heads towards the door, picking up his saddlebags.
I slap him on the chest, just over the slight scar from where the arrow pierced his second heart. “Shush!” I warn him.
Linton ignores me.
“She is with young.” He slides a hand over my stomach. “You will come back in due course for the birth celebration?”
Warden turns and looks at both of us.
“Fyr-baeth - Here-Wulf - Wuldres Thegn - Gast-Bona - Sund-Hengest,” he says. “As impossible as it sounds, there is more for us all to do.”
Linton snorts. “I’ll have nothing to do with the Shellycoat, and you know it.”
“The Yeavering doesn’t,” Warden says. “So, we need to celebrate every occasion. Of course I will return.”
Linton smiles, still not seeing my shocked expression as Warden takes his leave with a deep bow to me. The sound of his hooves once he’s back in his Brag form echo away.
“What did you mean by all of that? I’m not pregnant.” I grab Linton’s face. “I think I’d know.”
Linton lifts his antennae. “What do you think these are for?” he asks.
“Usually to make you come in your trousers,” I respond, with all the cheek I can muster.
He closes his eyes, and a delicious shudder flows through him.
“Linton!” I raise my voice to utter his name, pulling him back from whatever dirty thought is filling his usually crowded mind.
“I sense pheromones, hormones, and many other things through my antennae,” he rasps. “Your scent has changed. You are with young.” He cups my stomach. “And I cannot wait until you swell.” He pants out a breath.
“You can sense I’m pregnant?” I ask.
Linton twitches his antennae. “Yes.” He smiles. “And I will always be able to sense when you’re fertile too. That way, we can breed over and over.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” I murmur, pressing a kiss to his lips.
“I love you, my Kaitlyn,” he replies, hungrily taking my kisses. “And I will breed with you for as long as you want, or we don’t have to breed again at all. Whatever you want, you can have.”
“I want you, Linton. And I already have you.”