Epilogue #2
“I spent centuries being afraid to feel.” The words come out before I can stop them. “After Lyric died, I decided it was safer to be cold. To keep everyone at a distance. To never let anyone close enough to hurt me again.”
“And now?” Drayke’s hand clasps my shoulder. The weight of it is grounding. Familiar.
“Now I have a mate who makes me feel everything. A child on the way who already owns my entire heart. Brothers who refused to let me freeze over completely.” I meet each of their eyes in turn.
“Now I understand that the fear was never about protecting myself. It was about denying myself the very things that make existence worthwhile.”
“Getting philosophical in your old age.” Rurik’s tone is teasing, but his eyes are suspiciously bright.
“Getting honest.” I let out a breath. “Something I should have done centuries ago.”
“You did it when it mattered.” Zyphon’s voice is steady. “That’s enough.”
It is. Somehow, impossibly, it is.
I find Tamsin in our chambers, already in bed, one hand resting on her belly while she reads by candlelight.
She looks up when I enter, her smile soft with sleepiness. “The brotherhood bonding session is over?”
“It wasn’t a—” I stop. Reconsider. “Yes. It is.”
Her laugh fills the room as I strip off my shirt and climb into bed beside her. She sets her book aside immediately, turning into my arms with the ease of long practice. Her belly presses against my side, warm and round, a constant reminder of the miracle growing inside her.
“Good conversation?”
“Philosophical.” I press a kiss to her forehead. Her hair smells like the roses that grow in Valdoria’s rebuilt gardens—one of her favorite additions to the palace we’ve spent two years restoring. “I may have gotten emotional.”
“You?” She pulls back to stare at me with exaggerated shock. “The ice dragon? Emotional?”
“Your influence.” I capture her lips in a slow kiss. “You’ve ruined me completely.”
“Good.” She settles against me with a contented sigh. “That was the plan all along.”
“Diabolical.” My hand finds her belly again, drawn there by instinct I no longer fight. “Scheming witch princess, seducing innocent dragons.”
“Scheming witch queen,” she corrects. “And there was nothing innocent about you.”
“There was nothing about me at all, before you.” The truth of it settles into my bones. “I was frozen. Going through motions that looked like living but felt like nothing. And then you collapsed at my gates, half-dead and burning with determination, and I—”
“Hated me?”
“Started thawing.” I pull her closer. “It just took me a while to realize it.”
She’s quiet for a moment, her fingers tracing the claiming mark on my chest. Fire contained by ice. Her flame wrapped in my frost. Two years later, and the mark still pulses with warmth when she touches it.
“I was so afraid,” she admits softly. “When I showed up here. Afraid you’d turn me away. Afraid Morrigan would find me. Afraid I’d spend the rest of my life running from everything I’d lost.”
“And now?”
“Now I have sisters who would burn the world for me. A mate who makes me feel safe and loved and wanted every single day. A kingdom that’s rising from the ashes.
A baby who kicks me in the bladder at three in the morning.
” She laughs, and I feel it vibrate through my chest. “Now I have everything I never dared to want.”
“So do I.” I press a kiss to her hair. “So do I.”
The baby kicks again, as if agreeing with us. Tamsin groans, shifting to find a more comfortable position, and I rearrange myself to accommodate her. It’s a dance we’ve perfected over the past months—her growing belly, my protective instincts, the constant negotiation of space and comfort.
“Do you think it’s a boy or a girl?” she asks.
“I think it’s ours.” I spread my fingers across her belly, feeling another kick. “That’s all that matters.”
“Diplomatic answer.”
“Strategic answer.” I smile against her hair. “I’ve learned that expressing preferences about such things only leads to trouble.”
“Coward.”
“Survivor.” I tighten my arms around her. “There’s a difference.”
Her laughter fades into comfortable silence.
Outside our window, the Brotherhood fortress settles into nighttime quiet—or what passes for quiet now that children live within its walls.
Somewhere, Drayke is probably still trying to convince the twins to stay in bed.
Rurik is likely singing off-key lullabies to Ember.
Zyphon is watching Nasyra sleep with the intensity of a dragon who spent centuries believing he’d never see her again.
Four brothers. Four mates. Three children with more on the way. A family none of us ever thought we’d have.
“I love you.” Tamsin’s voice is drowsy, already slipping toward sleep.
“I love you.” I press one last kiss to her temple. “Both of you. All of you. Every version of our future that includes you in it.”
She doesn’t answer. She’s already asleep, her breath evening out, her hand still resting over mine on her belly.
I don’t sleep. Not yet. I lie in the darkness with my mate in my arms and my child beneath my palm.
Tamsin taught me how to be alive again. She crashed into my life and refused to leave, burned through every wall I’d built, showed me that the things worth having are never safe. That love is dangerous and terrifying and absolutely, completely worth the risk.
I spent most of my life being frozen.
Now I’m finally alive.
And I wouldn’t trade a single moment of this warmth—this family, this love, this fire—for all the cold safety in the world.
THE END