Chapter 31 Finlay
Finlay
“You’re so pretty.”
Raven’s voice is soft, barely above a whisper, her breath warm against my feathers.
Her fingertips brush across the bronze and gold plumage of my breast, tracing the delicate barbs with a touch so gentle it sends shivers rippling down my spine.
The sensation is exquisite—each feather a nerve ending, each stroke a caress that resonates deep in my ancient bones.
I pull my head from under my wing and look at her.
Her sapphire eyes are heavy-lidded with sleep, her black hair tangled and wild around her face.
Even exhausted, even rumpled, she’s the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.
Slowly, I tilt my head from side to side, studying her expression, then lift a wing to show her the egg nestled beneath me.
The shell gleams in the bioluminescent glow of the cavern, obsidian black with iridescent swirls that dance like captured starlight. Nearly three feet of perfect potential, warm and pulsing with the steady rhythm of new life.
“I can’t believe I laid an egg.”
Her hand trembles as she reaches out to touch the shell. I watch her fingertips trace the outline of the scale pattern that has emerged on the surface—the intricate map of ridges and whorls that mark this child as hers. Her touch is reverent, almost worshipful; her breath catches in her throat.
Then she goes still.
“It’s female.”
The words hang in the air between us, heavy with meaning. Her smile softens, transforming her face into something radiant, and she continues to stroke the shell with a tenderness that makes my heart ache. A daughter. We’re having a daughter.
I coo to her—a low, warbling sound that vibrates through my chest—and nuzzle her with the side of my beak, careful not to cut her delicate skin with the sharp edges.
She smells of sea salt and jasmine, and the warm copper undertone of recent exertion.
Beneath it all, I catch the faintest hint of something new. Something that smells like hope.
“You made a beautiful nest.”
Pride swells in my chest, ruffling my feathers involuntarily.
I spent hours weaving those branches, selecting each piece of blackwood and ironbark for strength and smoothness.
Hours more lining it with the softest materials I could find—furs and moss and feathers plucked from my breast during the desperate days of waiting.
To hear her appreciate it, to see her eyes trace the careful construction with genuine admiration, fills me with a warmth that has nothing to do with my inner fire.
Raven slips into the nest with me and the egg, her movements slow and careful.
The branches creak softly beneath her weight, settling into new configurations as she curls her body around the egg.
Her clothes rasp against the woven wood, a whisper of sound that blends with the distant lap of water against stone.
She stretches a wing out, draping it over the egg and tucking it beneath my wing, creating a layered canopy of protection.
I watch her eyes drift closed, long lashes fanning against her cheeks.
A deep purr rumbles from her chest—a sound I feel more than hear, vibrating through the nest, through the egg, through my body where we’re connected by overlapping wings.
She’s purring to the baby within. Singing to our daughter in the ancient language of dragons.
Carefully, I lower my wing, covering my mate and egg in a cascade of bronze and gold feathers.
The sensation is strange—the cool, smooth leather of her wing membrane pressed against the soft, sensitive underside of my wing.
Two completely different textures, two completely different creatures, joined together over the life they created.
It feels odd. It feels perfect. It feels like everything I never knew I was missing through millennia of lonely existence.
The guys filter into the chamber slowly, their footsteps muffled against the sand.
I see them take in the scene—me perched on the nest, Raven’s black hair spilling out from beneath my feathers like a dark waterfall, the gentle rise, and fall of my wing as she breathes beneath it.
Their scents reach me in layers: baked bread and honey from Corvus, hot chocolate from Keir, rich earth, and meadow flowers from Hemlocke, aged oak and smoldering embers from Solaris.
“How is she?” Corvus asks, his silver eyes soft with concern. Then he puts his hands up—one clenched in a fist, one flat palm facing me. “Fist is a negative answer, palm is a positive.”
I stretch my neck forward and touch his palm with the tip of my beak. The skin is warm, slightly callused from decades of wielding weapons. I feel the tension ease from his shoulders at the contact.
Then I use my beak to carefully nudge a stray lock of Raven’s hair back under my wing, tucking it away from the cool air of the cavern.
“Does she know the gender?” Solaris asks next, his amber eyes bright with barely contained curiosity. His brogue is thicker than usual—it always gets that way when he’s emotional.
I touch Corvus’s palm again, and I watch emotions flicker over Solaris’s face in rapid succession. Hope. Fear. More hope. A desperate, aching longing that mirrors what I see in all of their faces.
“Fist boy, palm girl.” Keir says, practically vibrating where he stands. His stormy gray eyes are wide, his hands clenched at his sides, his whole body thrumming with anticipation.
I pause, looking between Corvus’s raised hands. Let them wait. Let them feel this moment stretch, this precipice between knowing and not knowing. Then I reach out and touch Corvus’s palm.
The reaction is immediate.
Keir makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob.
Hemlocke’s pink eyes go glassy with unshed tears.
Corvus’s silver gaze softens impossibly further, his war drake’s mask crumbling completely.
And Solaris—ancient, stoic Solaris—presses a hand to his chest as if his heart might burst through his ribs.
“A baby girl?” Thauglor’s voice comes from behind my bondmates, deep and rough with emotion.
They part to let him through, and I watch the most feared black dragon in history hesitantly approach the nest where his daughter sleeps. His sapphire eyes—the same shade as Raven’s, the same possible shade as the egg’s future occupant—are fixed on the spread of my wing with desperate longing.
“I know I shouldn’t be here.” His voice is barely above a whisper, as if speaking too loudly might shatter something precious. “I had to see my daughter.”
His gaze moves to the way my wing is spread out wide over one side of the nest, clearly sheltering something—someone—beneath it.
“Can I see her?”
Others see Thauglor as a monster. The most feared black dragon in history, with a kill count that spans millennia and a reputation written in the blood of his enemies. They see the white skull-face and the sapphire eyes that have watched civilizations rise and fall. They see death incarnate.
I see a father.
A father who loves his daughter so deeply he would risk his life to check on her. A father who stands before me with his hands slightly raised, his posture deliberately non-threatening, his ancient pride set aside in favor of quiet pleading. A father who just wants to know his baby is okay.
Slowly, I raise my wing to expose Raven and how she’s curled around her first egg.
She’s beautiful like this. Vulnerable in a way she rarely allows herself to be.
Her black hair spills across the nest like dark silk, tangled and wild from sleep.
Her black wings are tucked close to her body, one still draped protectively over the egg, the leather catching the bioluminescent glow.
Her face is peaceful in sleep, long lashes fanning against her cheeks, her lips slightly parted.
She looks young. Soft. Human, save for those magnificent wings.
The egg rests in the curve of her body, nearly three feet of obsidian perfection, the scale pattern on its shell a promise of the dragon within. Mother and daughter, already matching.
“My beautiful, precious baby.” Thauglor tilts his head from side to side, examining his daughter with the thorough assessment of a parent checking for injury. His sapphire eyes trace every line of her body, every scale, every slow breath. Making sure she’s okay. Making sure she’s whole.
“‘Twas an easy birth, auld friend.” Solaris steps forward and rests a hand on Thauglor’s shoulder. The gesture is familiar, comfortable—two ancient beings who have known each other for longer than most civilizations have existed. “Everything went smoothly. Yer daughter is strong.”
“That’s good to hear.” The relief in Thauglor’s voice is palpable, a physical thing that seems to drain the tension from his massive frame. His shoulders drop. His hands unclench. For just a moment, he’s not the feared warrior. He’s just a father, grateful his child is safe.
Raven stirs slowly beneath my wing, disturbed by the voices or perhaps by some instinct that tells her she’s being watched. She blinks her sapphire eyes open, hazy and unfocused, then looks up and around at the gathered males.
Her gaze finds her father.
“Hi, Daddy.” She yawns, the sound surprisingly adorable coming from a creature capable of melting stone with her breath. Even as she speaks, she continues to purr to her baby, the rumbling vibration never ceasing.
“How are you doing? How’s the little one?
” Thauglor’s voice is carefully controlled, but I can feel it in my bones—he wants to ask to see the egg.
Wants to touch it, to feel the life growing within.
But he doesn’t want to anger his daughter.
Doesn’t want to trigger the protective instincts that drove her to hide for three days.
So he waits. He hopes. He asks without asking.
Raven’s response defies everything I know about dragons.