Ever, ever after
Rohan
Seventy-eight braids, that’s how many Alara has woven into my hair since we met.
And though she won on taking the old ones out, I still have her very first one she did.
I will burn before that one is undone.
That’s the first time she touched me that way. Her small hands were hesitant but determined. I’ll never forget that look of accomplishment that spread across her face when she did it.
I think I fell in love with her in that moment.
Her eyes were so alight with life.
“Dada.” I smile down at my daughter, hair as red as her mother’s and I tap her on the nose.
“That’s right, I’m your dada.”
She giggles, and I smile, my heart warm.
“Rohan?”
My head snaps toward the sound of my beautiful bonded, and know I’ve been caught.
My beautiful bonded rounds the corner, hands on her hips as she shakes her head.
But she’s never looked so beautiful.
“She needs to sleep in her cot.”
“No,” I say slowly, getting to my feet with my daughter in my arms. “She can sleep with me when you’re resting.”
“She’s one year old.”
“And?” Drogonah grumbles his agreement behind me that has me nodding.
“Of course he agrees with you,” she says, exasperated.
Escor and Sparks come out from behind him, looking guilty, and Alara’s mouth drops open.
“Seriously?” she says, pointing at them. “You’re supposed to be on my side!” She looks around at all the dragons in the cave, including the two cavern dragons that decided to stay with us in the end and then she laughs. “Unbelievable.”
“They want to see her, too,” I shrug, and my daughter grabs my hair, tugging gently.
Approaching Alara, I drop a kiss to her forehead.
She tries to glare, but the love that shines in her eyes makes it fail.
“Come on, let me read you another bedtime story,” she says. “Effy made us a pie, and we can have some of that before bed, but don’t tell your father.” She eyes me and then takes Rose, who giggles.
I look at them as she nuzzles our daughter, and my chest heats, heart pounding.
This is what I protect. This is what I live for.
“Will you be back soon?” she asks me, and I step forward, hand on her stomach, the other on the back of Rose’s head as I dip down to kiss her just because I can’t help myself.
“I will. Go home and rest.”
“Okay.” She breathes. “See you after.”
I nod and watch her wander out of the cave, another life already growing inside of her.
I was determined to never have children, the bloodline ending with me, but when I found out she was pregnant with Rose, everything changed.
My life narrowed down to her and the baby growing inside of her.
She was nervous to tell me, my Little Whisperer, but I dropped to my knees then and there, cradling her small belly and vowing to be the best father I could be.
So I may have been a little over protective…
and I may have carried her everywhere I could, and made sure she ate all the time, rubbed her feet when she complained that they hurt, and I may have dragged her to see a healer from Lothmere, begrudgingly provided by Alexandar, to make sure the pregnancy was going well, but she tolerated it.
The dragons were just as bad, especially Escor. He slept outside the cabin and still does. Sparks slept inside until he got too big, and Drogonah… well… let’s just say a few have been thoroughly told off for getting too close to her, though he would deny it.
And then Rose Helga Asgarr came into the lands on a late spring morning. All screams and red hair. Her mother’s pointy ears and my nose. Ten fingers and ten toes. Healthy.
I fell in love again that morning with Alara, at how well she did, how brave she was because she was so scared something would go wrong, but nothing did.
And then I fell in love with my child as soon as she was placed in my arms. She was so tiny, looking up at me and I couldn’t stop staring.
She was real, she was here, and I would kill anyone who looked at her wrong.
And then six months later, I put another baby in Alara because seeing her with my daughter makes me feel a little… unhinged.
I can’t take my hands off of her, and my Little Whisperer wanted more children anyway, so who am I to deny her?
So, now she has another life in her belly and I don’t need to tell Escor and Sparks to follow her on the short walk home, they do so without a word. Protecting her, always.
Drogonah rumbles behind me, and I turn to him.
“Ready?” I ask him.
He peels his gums back in a snarl.
I’ve had word from my brother… and it’s time to go hunting.
I don my mask and stalk through the tunnels. Drogonah, as large as he is, is silent too.
But do you know who isn’t silent?
The hurried footsteps ahead, the heavy breathing, the fear coming off him, unable to mask it.
I grin behind my mask, following him in the dark, Drogonah as my guide.
He falls, a pained grunt coming from him. My eyes narrow on him in the light of the lava just up ahead.
The predator inside of me comes to the surface and my shoulders tighten, my feet steady, ready to capture my prey.
Drogonah growls in excitement and he yelps, scrambling to his feet and running ahead, blindly.
“Drogonah,” I murmur. “Go hunt.”
He vanishes into the darkness. He knows these tunnels in The Pit. He’s even carved some out himself. So it won’t be long before he gets to him.
I follow my prey from behind, anticipation making my fingers tingle.
So long, I have waited for this.
So long, he’s tried to run and hide after the collapse of the Enclave.
But he couldn’t hide forever.
He runs into an open space, the lava on either side illuminating the room and Drogonah jumps down off another entrance ahead, landing right in front of the prey with a deathly growl.
He screams like a little bitch. Squeals, really, scrambling back, but he’s not looking where he’s going and runs right into me.
I don’t move, and he bounces off of me, turning to see what happened.
And that’s when he sees me.
I tilt my head as he freezes in fear, his mouth opening and closing like some type of fish.
I look him over.
He looks skinnier than when I last saw him, just like she was.
And he looks like he has a few bruises too, just like she had.
I look down at his clothes.
Threadbare, full of holes.
Just like hers were.
Good.
He’s suffered trying to survive when no one would take him in, a bounty on his head so large he’s had nowhere to go.
Not in the city.
Not out in the lands.
Where dragon and Dragorie hunt.
“I…I…” he tries, and my head tilts the other way.
“I have been waiting for this moment for a very long time,” I say, taking a step toward him.
He scrambles back, only to freeze at the growl from Drogonah behind him.
“P…please.” He says, holding up shaky hands.
“Hmm,” I say, circling him. “I wonder how many times she said that until you beat her voice out of her.”
He trembles.
“How many times she asked until you beat her near death.”
He pisses himself.
“I just wonder how long you can last until your last breath.”
I stand in front of him again, lifting the mask up so he can see the anger.
Feel it.
Stare into my fucking eyes as I kill him.
Slowly.
“She… she’s just a slave.”
I blink, once. Slowly.
And then I punch him.
He falls to the floor with a satisfying crack, but it’s not enough.
I’m on him, holding him by the throat as I hit, and hit, and hit him. Finally letting out the pent-up rage I’ve felt since the moment Alara finally gave me his name.
But I don’t stop there.
I break his legs next. The bone poking through.
Then his fingers. Arms.
I stab into him too. Making sure the cuts don’t hit anything life-threatening because this won’t be quick.
No.
He will suffer.
“Please…” he gurgles and coughs blood, but I don’t stop.
I continue to make sure he bruises the way she did, scars the way she did.
It goes on for hours.
I’m sweating and panting by the time I’m done, Emerish is barely recognizable.
I go to Drogonah, who practically dribbles saliva at the thought of his death, and I hop up on his wing, going to the satchel there.
I pull the item out, and then I’m back at Emerish’s side in no time, dragging him over to the far wall near the lava and dropping him back on the ground.
The metal is cold in my hand, and it gives a satisfying click as the collar clamps around his throat.
“Drogonah.”
I lift my axe from my back and get him to heat it. Once it glows, I place the blade where the collar connects together and melt it, making it unable to open.
And yes, he screams because it burns his neck.
I place my axe down once finished, and I grab a chain and throw it up over a rock that points out.
Once it lands on the other side to the ground, I attach the chain to his collar and pull.
The chain digs into my hands as Emerish rises, his feet just off the ground, and then I hammer it into the stone to keep him up.
“You will not die this day.” I tell him, standing and walking toward him as he whimpers. “You will stay here to suffer for the rest of your days. You may last hours, you may last less… but one thing will be clear.”
I grab his broken jaw, squeezing, and his swollen eyes pop open.
“You will die suffering until your last breath for all the pain you caused her.”
Freshly bathed to remove the blood, I walk into the cabin as quietly as I can.
Alara doesn’t need to know what I’ve done, but I’ll do anything to keep her safe.
I round the corner to our room, needing to see her, and there she is.
She’s curled around our daughter in our bed, and I have never felt so much love for two beings before. Never thought it could feel so big, never-ending.
Gods, I love them.
I gently move my mother’s book out of the way that she must have read to Rose, and I curl around my Little Whisperer, my hand resting on Rose’s back.
“Rohan…” Alara murmurs.
“Shh, go back to sleep, Little Whisperer, I’m here.”
She sighs into me without another word, knowing I’ll protect her, and I will.
I once told her I would burn everything to the ground and not let a single flame touch her, and until my dying breath, that’s exactly what I will do for her, for Rose, and for the son in her belly.
My one things.
Always and beyond.