Chapter 30 Finlay
Finlay
I can’t sense who the father is.
The frustration gnaws at me, a hollow ache in my chest where my fire usually burns bright.
I’ve rested my hands on the egg several times since the guys helped me maneuver it into the nest, pressing my palms flat against the smooth obsidian shell, searching for any flicker of recognition.
Any spark of my flame echoing back from within.
But there’s nothing. Just the steady pulse of life, warm and strong beneath my fingers, keeping its secrets close.
While Raven sleeps, I shift into my phoenix form for the first time since she went to ground.
The transformation ripples through me—bones hollowing, skin splitting to make way for feathers, my spine elongating into something sleek and aerodynamic.
It’s a relief to shed my human shape, to feel the familiar weight of my true body settle around me like an old friend.
And then I do something I’ve never done in my impossibly long life.
I extinguish my flames.
The fire that has burned within me since the dawn of my existence—through countless deaths and rebirths, through millennia of searching for the mate who would end my curse—gutters and dies.
The sensation is strange. Unsettling. Like holding my breath underwater, waiting for the moment my lungs will scream for air.
But I hold steady. For Raven. For our egg.
I won’t risk scorching the precious life growing inside that shell.
Without my flames, I look... ordinary.
Phoenixes have hidden among flocks of peacocks in our smaller forms since time began.
They are the creatures that most resemble us—the only ones who could hope to camouflage our magnificence.
But where peacocks shimmer in shades of sapphire and emerald, we burn in hues of bronze, gold, and rusty orange.
Our feathers catch the light differently, holding it, warming it, making it dance.
Our tail feathers fan out like a peacock’s proud display, except at the end of each plume, instead of a rounded eye, there’s a teardrop.
And within that teardrop, what looks like a living flame forever frozen in amber and crimson.
Now, without my fire, those flames are dark. Dormant. I am a phoenix pretending to be something lesser, and it chafes against every instinct I possess.
But I would do far more than this for her. For them.
The guys place the egg in the nest I built, their movements careful and reverent.
Nearly three feet of obsidian perfection, the shell gleams in the bioluminescent glow of the cavern, iridescent swirls dancing across its surface like oil on water.
Solaris and Corvus lower it into the center of the woven branches, their hands meeting beneath its weight, their faces tight with concentration and barely contained awe.
I take my true form and climb into the nest, my talons finding purchase on the blackwood and ironbark branches.
The structure holds firm beneath me—I built it to last, reinforced every joint, padded every surface.
I settle over the egg, feeling its warmth seep up through my breast feathers, and something ancient and instinctual clicks into place.
This is right. This is what I was made for.
Over the almost three days we waited, I plucked myself bald.
It’s not a conscious decision at first. I simply noticed a feather that seemed loose, and I pulled it.
Then another. Then another. The soft down of my breast comes away in clumps, drifting to line the nest around the egg, creating an insulating layer of bronze and gold.
Each feather I remove is a small sting, a tiny sacrifice, but I can’t seem to stop.
The compulsion is overwhelming—an ancient drive I didn’t know I possessed until this moment.
I need to give everything to this egg. Every part of me.
By the end of the first day, my breast is bare and pink, tender to the touch.
The skin pulses with residual warmth, and I press it against the egg’s shell, letting my body heat transfer directly to the life within.
The contact is intimate in a way I can’t describe.
I feel the faint flutter of a heartbeat against my flesh—or maybe I imagine it.
Either way, it brings tears to my eyes that sizzle and evaporate before they can fall.
When hunger finally drives me from the nest, I shift back to human form and eat ravenously, barely tasting the food. And when I return and shift back into my phoenix, the feathers have regenerated. Soft and new and ready to be plucked again.
I watch my mate sleep, her massive dragoness form curled on the warm sand near the nest. Her black scales rise and fall with each slow breath, the white plates of her skull-face peaceful in repose.
Even in sleep, she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
Hundreds of years of existence, and nothing has ever compared to her.
Orpheus walks back into the chamber, his bare feet padding softly against the stone.
His black hair is disheveled, falling across his forehead in messy waves, and shadows smudge the skin beneath his gold eyes—evidence of the sleepless vigil he’s been keeping alongside the rest of us.
He moves with the fluid grace of his basilisk, even in human form, each step silent and deliberate.
He walks to the edge of the nest and stops, his feet sinking slightly into the soft sand. “Can I see?”
His voice is quiet, respectful. He knows what this means to me—to all of us. His golden eyes look hopeful as he stares at me, and I dip my feathered head in permission.
Carefully, I stand and raise my body, exposing the egg beneath me. The movement sends a shiver of cold across my breast, the absence of the egg’s warmth immediately noticeable. I’ve grown accustomed to its presence, its heat, its steady pulse of life.
Orpheus’s breath catches.
The black scales are clearly visible on the shell now, a pattern emerging from what once appeared to be solid obsidian.
They’re a mix—some smooth and glossy like Raven’s belly scales, others ridged and textured like the armored plates along her spine.
The iridescent swirls seem to follow the scale pattern, creating something that looks almost like a map. Or a promise.
“Wow.” Orpheus leans closer, his gold eyes wide, tracking every detail of the shell’s surface. “That egg is bigger than the eggs Raven and I were born in.”
I can’t respond in this form—phoenixes don’t have the vocal cords for human speech—so I simply tilt my head, acknowledging his observation.
He’s right. This egg is massive, even by dragon standards.
Nearly three feet of potential curled within that shell.
My chest swells with pride that has nothing to do with whether the child carries my fire.
This is Raven’s child. That makes it mine, regardless of blood.
Movement catches my eye, and I turn my head to see Raven slowly raising her skull.
Her sapphire eyes blink open, hazy with sleep, and she looks around the interior of the cavern with the disoriented confusion of someone waking from a deep dream.
Her gaze sweeps past Orpheus, past the hot spring, past the scattered remnants of her violent entrance—and locks on me.
On me, sitting on our egg.
Something shifts in those sapphire depths. Something soft and warm and achingly vulnerable.
Keir notices her waking before anyone else. His stormy gray eyes flick to her rising head, and in the next heartbeat, he blinks out of existence. The air rushes into the space where he stood with a soft pop, and I stare at the empty spot for several moments, waiting.
He reappears with a live deer clamped in his jaws.
The animal thrashes and kicks, its hooves scrabbling against the stone floor, its terrified bleating echoing off the cavern walls.
The scent of its fear floods the chamber—sharp and acrid, cutting through the mineral tang of the hot spring.
Keir releases it, and the deer staggers, legs splaying on the unfamiliar terrain.
Raven lunges.
The movement is so fast I barely track it—one moment she’s lying on the sand, the next she’s airborne, her massive body uncoiling like a striking snake.
Her jaws gape wide, revealing rows of razor teeth, and she snatches the deer from the ground in a single fluid motion.
Two bites. That’s all it takes. The deer disappears down her throat whole, barely a bulge visible as it slides down her serpentine neck.
She’s still hungry. I can see it in the way her nostrils flare, the way her tail lashes against the sand, the predatory gleam that hasn’t left her sapphire eyes.
Ziggy’s displacer beast arrives next, blinking into existence with a deer wrapped in its tentacles. The creature releases its prey with a wet slap against the stone, and Raven is on it before the deer can even register its new surroundings. Another two bites. Another swallow.
Between the two of them—Keir blinking in and out of existence like a ghost, Ziggy’s beast appearing and disappearing with its eldritch grace—they bring six deer for Raven to devour.
She eats them all with a ferocity that borders on desperation, her body demanding fuel to replace everything she expended during the labor.
Once full, she settles back down with a heavy sigh that stirs the sand around her snout.
Her massive body curls close to the nest, her scales warm against the woven branches, and she drapes one enormous wing over me and the egg.
The membrane is thin enough to let the bioluminescent glow filter through, casting everything in soft blue-green shadows.
The weight of it is comforting. Protective. A shelter within a shelter.
I hear the change in her breathing when she falls asleep—the deep, even rhythm of true rest. Her dragoness trusts me to guard our egg. Trusts me completely.
I’ve never felt more honored in my entire existence.
When the chaos of her feeding is over and the chamber has settled into peaceful quiet, I shift back to human form.
The transformation is gentle this time, almost reluctant—my phoenix doesn’t want to leave the nest, doesn’t want to abandon its post. But I need to use my voice.
Need to express gratitude that chirps and trills can’t convey.
I slip out from under Raven’s wing carefully, moving slowly so as not to disturb her sleep.
The air outside her shelter feels cool against my bare skin, and I realize I’m covered in a fine layer of down—remnants of my plucked feathers clinging to my human form.
I brush them away as I approach the others gathered in the egg chamber.
Ziggy stands near the water’s edge in his human form, tall and lean with the same predatory grace he carries in his displacer beast shape.
His dark hair is disheveled, and exhaustion lines his face, clear in the shadows beneath his eyes and the slight slump of his shoulders.
He’s been hunting for hours. For his daughter.
“Thank you for your help, Zigmander.” I extend my hand, and he takes it. His grip is firm, warm, slightly sticky in the way of his kind. We shake, and I pour every ounce of genuine gratitude I possess into the gesture.
“Anytime!” His voice is bright and enthusiastic, but then his expression shifts. The reality of the situation seems to hit him all at once. “My nest daughter is having her first baby.” His face pales, the color draining from his cheeks. “I’m a grandpa.”
The word hangs in the air between us, heavy with meaning.
“Thankfully yer aging has slowed because of yer mate.” Solaris’s brogue cuts through the moment, warm and teasing. He claps Ziggy on the shoulder with one massive hand, his amber eyes crinkling at the corners. “Ye barely look older than she does.”
I smile at the exchange and pull my phone from.
.. somewhere. I’ve never quite figured out where my possessions go when I shift, only that they’re always there when I return to human form.
The screen illuminates my face as I open the family chat and upload the images I took of the egg nestled in my nest. The black shell gleams in the photos, the scale pattern clearly visible, the iridescent swirls catching the bioluminescent light like captured galaxies.
I hit send and wait.
The responses come almost immediately; the chat exploding with notifications.
Mina: Her egg looks like the one she was born in.
Thauglor: My baby’s first egg.
Klauth: Do we know who the father is?
Corvus: Raven hasn’t told us.
Lily: Can we do a daddy and gender reveal party?
Thorne: Yes! Can we?
Azalea: I’ll get decorations. Dad? Wanna help?
Bella: Can I bake the cake?
Keir: Let’s not overwhelm her.
Finlay: This is a blessing none of us were expecting. Let’s wait to see what Raven wants.
The chat goes silent after that, but if I know the displacer beasts in this family, they’re already planning.
They’re far too hyper to sit still, too excited to wait for permission.
Right now, they’re probably zipping all over the continent, blinking from shop to shop, gathering supplies for a celebration that may or may not happen.
I can’t bring myself to be annoyed. Their joy is infectious, even through a screen.
I pocket my phone and make my way back to the nest, moving quietly past my sleeping mate.
Her wing still forms a canopy over the egg, but there’s space for me to slip beneath.
I climb back into the woven branches carefully, feeling them shift and settle beneath my weight, and I shift back into my phoenix form.
The transformation is a relief. My human body feels too small now, too limited. In this form, I can wrap myself around the egg, can press my chest against its warm shell, can feel the flutter of life within.
May as well sleep for a while.
I tuck my head beneath my wing, extinguish the last ember of flame that tried to reignite during my shift, and let the steady pulse of the egg’s heartbeat lull me into dreams.
For the first time in millennia, I dream of the future instead of the past.