Chapter 14 Kess
Kess
He finds me in the training yard when the afternoon sun has turned everything to gold.
I'm running drills alone, the practice sword cutting arcs through crisp autumn air that smells of woodsmoke and dying leaves.
Carter had to report for guard duty an hour ago, but I wasn't ready to stop—couldn't make myself stop, not when each movement feels more fluid than the last, not when my body is becoming something new with every passing day and I need to understand what it can do.
The wooden blade feels lighter in my hands than it did last week, like it's losing weight while I'm gaining strength, and my feet know where to go before my mind finishes deciding.
I sense him before I see him, the way I always do now—that pull in my chest like a hook beneath my ribs, the bond humming to life as he draws closer.
His scent reaches me on the wind before his footsteps do, smoke and stone and something wild underneath, something that makes the omega part of me want to bare my throat even while the warrior part wants to bare my teeth and fight.
I don't stop my drill. Strike, recover, pivot, strike again. Let him wait. Let him watch. Let him wonder what I'm thinking while I make him stand there in the golden light like a supplicant waiting for an audience.
"You've been avoiding me." His voice comes from the edge of the yard, rough and careful, a man picking his way through a field of broken glass.
"I've been busy." Another strike, the impact singing up my arms and settling into my shoulders with familiar warmth. "Training. Reading. Thinking."
"Thinking about what?"
I finish the sequence and turn to face him, letting the practice sword hang loose at my side.
He's dressed simply today, no crown weighing down his brow, no formal robes making him look like a statue instead of a man.
Just dark clothing that makes his golden eyes burn like embers against the shadows of his face, like coins at the bottom of a deep well.
The claiming mark on his throat is visible above his collar—the crescent of tooth marks I tore open in the armory, still healing pink and raw.
Still mine, whether I want him to be or not.
One of us has to break first, and I'm tired of waiting.
"Contamination," I say, letting the word land between us like a blade dropped on stone. "I've been thinking about contamination."
He goes still the way only a dragon can—utterly motionless, not even the rise and fall of breath to prove he's alive, like he's turned to marble between one heartbeat and the next.
"The texts in the archives are mostly destroyed," I continue, walking toward him with the practice sword still loose in my grip, each step deliberate, measured, giving him time to squirm.
"Burned pages, torn sections, whole chapters reduced to ash by someone who wanted that knowledge erased.
But I found enough to piece together what they were hiding.
Alpha blood entering through wounds instead of being swallowed cleanly.
Fatal within days. Purple fingernails first, then a red ring around the pupils, then skin hardening where the blood entered. "
I stop close enough to see the tension carved into his jaw, the way a muscle jumps beneath his eye like something trying to escape.
"Your blood is in me, Rhystan. Has been since the first claiming, since you buried your claws in my hips on that altar." I hold up my hands, nails painted black as a moonless night. "I have all three symptoms. According to everything I've read, I should have been dead weeks ago."
Silence stretches between us, heavy and thick as honey, sweet with everything we're not saying.
"I know," he says finally, quiet as a confession whispered in the dark.
"You know." I keep my voice level even though something hot and sharp is building behind my ribs, pressing against my lungs like a scream trying to get out. "How long have you known?"
"Since the beginning." He holds my gaze without flinching, giving me that much at least—the dignity of looking me in the eye while he admits to keeping secrets.
"I saw the signs after the first claiming.
The way your wounds healed wrong, too fast and too hard.
The texture of the scars when I touched them in the dark.
Then the red ring appeared during your heat—just a flash when your rage peaked, a circle of fire around your pupils that vanished as quickly as it came. But I saw it."
"And you said nothing."
"What was I supposed to say?" His hands clench at his sides, knuckles going white as bone. "That you should be dead? That every contaminated omega in three hundred years has died within days, and yet here you are, still breathing, still getting stronger, and I don't have any idea why?"
"Yes." The word comes out sharp enough to cut. "You were supposed to say exactly that. You were supposed to tell me what was happening to my own body instead of watching from the shadows and keeping secrets like I'm something fragile that might shatter if you speak too loudly."
"I was trying to understand it first. Trying to find answers before I—"
"Before you what? Before you decided I could handle the truth about my own life?"
He's quiet for a moment, and I watch him struggle with something—the truth, maybe, or just how much of it to give me. When he speaks again, his voice is harder, more guarded, a door closing somewhere behind his eyes.
"Contamination protocol in this kingdom is immediate execution.
It's been law for three hundred years, written into the codes by my grandfather's priests.
Anyone showing signs gets a blade across the throat—no trial, no appeal, no exceptions.
If the wrong person sees those symptoms on you, they'll have you killed before I can intervene. "
The casual mention of my potential execution settles into my stomach like a stone dropped into deep water, sinking slowly, sending ripples through everything.
"So you were protecting me."
"I was trying to keep you alive long enough to understand what's happening.
" He reaches into his pocket and withdraws a small glass bottle, dark liquid gleaming inside like captured midnight.
"I had this made for you. Better quality than whatever you found this morning—the color is deeper, won't chip, and it'll hide the purple completely even as it darkens. "
I take the bottle, feeling the cool weight of it settle against my palm. "You had nail polish made for me."
"You need to hide the symptoms. This will help."
There's something in his voice I can't quite read. Something careful, measured. He's telling me the truth about the polish, I think—but not the whole truth. Not about everything.
"What else?" I ask. "What else have you been doing in the shadows while I've been transforming?"
He hesitates. Just a fraction of a second, but I catch it.
"Research," he says. "Every text I can find about contamination, about why some survive longer than others. Looking for patterns."
"And? What have you found?"
"Fragments. Nothing complete." His expression is unreadable now, closed off in a way it wasn't a moment ago. "References to omega bloodlines that could withstand more than others. Warrior bloodlines, they called them. But the details were destroyed centuries ago."
He's holding something back. I can feel it the way I can feel the bond between us—a tension, a withholding, something he's not saying.
"That's all? Just fragments?"
"That's all I've found so far." He meets my eyes steadily, and I can't tell if he's lying or not. "I'm still looking."
I want to push harder. Want to crack open that careful mask and find out what he's hiding underneath. But I'm also tired—tired of secrets, tired of circling, tired of this dance we've been doing since I arrived.
"Fine," I say. "Keep looking. And when you find something, you tell me. No more deciding what I can handle."
"Agreed." He says it quietly, and something in his voice sounds like he means it—a crack in the wall he's been holding up between us, a glimpse of something softer underneath.
He pulls something else from his pocket—a small cloth pouch tied with leather cord, worn soft from handling. "There's one more thing. Tea, a blend I had made for you."
I take the pouch and bring it to my nose, inhaling deeply.
Bitter herbs dominate, sharp and medicinal, the kind of smell that promises healing through unpleasantness.
Something floral hides underneath, almost sweet, like honey trying to mask the taste of medicine.
And beneath that, an astringent note that makes my sinuses tingle and my eyes want to water.
"What's it for?"
"The transformation puts strain on your body—the changes happening too fast, the contamination spreading through your blood faster than flesh can adapt.
" He gestures vaguely at me, at all the ways I'm different than I was a month ago.
"This blend should help ease the strain.
Help your body adjust without being overwhelmed. "
I turn the pouch over in my hands, feeling the dried herbs shift inside like whispered secrets. "You had tea made for me."
"Drink it every night before bed. It'll help with the changes—make them easier to bear."
The gesture catches me off guard, slips past my defenses before I can shore them up.
The nail polish was practical, protective, the kind of gift a jailer might give a prisoner to keep her alive long enough to be useful.
But this feels different, feels like something more—like he's been thinking about my comfort, not just my survival.
"What's in it?"
"Herbs. Roots. Things the healers use for transformation sickness in young shifters." He pauses, and I watch his throat move as he swallows. "It's safe. I wouldn't give you anything that would hurt you."
I believe him. Whatever else is between us, whatever secrets he's kept and lies he's told, I don't think he wants me suffering. The bond tells me that much—the genuine concern underneath his guarded expression, the worry he can't quite hide no matter how hard he tries.
"Thank you," I say, and I'm surprised to find I mean it.
Something eases in his expression, tension bleeding out of the lines around his eyes, his shoulders dropping a fraction of an inch. Not quite a smile, but close—the shadow of one, maybe, the memory of what smiling used to feel like before three hundred years of grief carved it out of him.
"I'm still angry," I tell him. "About the secrets. About not being told."
"I know."
"But I believe you're trying to help."
He nods once, accepting this partial truce for what it is—not forgiveness, not yet, but the possibility of it somewhere down the road. "Drink the tea. Every night. It really will make the changes easier."
Then he turns and walks away, his footsteps quiet on the packed earth, and I watch him go until he disappears into the shadow of the colonnade.
The anger is still there, banked like coals but not extinguished. He kept things from me, made decisions about my own body without consulting me, watched me change and said nothing while I stumbled through the dark alone.
But he's also trying to help. Researching, preparing, looking for answers in burned texts and scattered fragments. The nail polish to hide my symptoms from people who would kill me for them. The tea to ease my transformation into whatever I'm becoming.
Maybe that's enough for now. Maybe trust can be built in small steps, one careful gesture at a time.
That night, I brew the tea the way he described.
Water from the kettle the servants keep hot, poured over the herbs in a ceramic cup one of the kitchen girls brought me weeks ago.
Steep for exactly five minutes—he was specific about that, something about the oils releasing at the right rate—and the smell fills my chambers as the leaves unfurl, bitter and medicinal and earthy.
It reminds me of my grandmother's cottage, the bundles of dried herbs hanging from the rafters like sleeping bats, the way she'd brew remedies for every ailment while telling me stories about wild omegas who lived in the deep forest and answered to no one.
I wonder what she'd think of me now. Contaminated with dragon blood, transforming into something unnamed, drinking tea made by a monster who's trying to keep me alive.
She'd probably approve. She always said survival was its own kind of victory.
I lift the cup to my lips and drink.
The tea is bitter going down, coating my tongue and throat like medicine, like penance for sins I haven't committed yet.
Not pleasant—nothing that's good for you ever is, my grandmother used to say—but not unbearable either.
I finish the whole cup, feeling the warmth spread through my chest and settle into my belly like a small sun taking up residence.
The bond hums quietly between us, that invisible thread stretching across the castle to wherever he is. Still awake, probably, surrounded by his crumbling texts and scattered fragments, looking for answers. Looking out for me in his own guarded, secretive way.
I set the empty cup aside and climb into bed, pulling the covers up to my chin. The tea settles warm in my stomach, and I do feel something—a loosening, maybe, a softening of the tension I've been carrying in my muscles for weeks. Like tight knots slowly coming undone.
He said it would help with the transformation. Make the changes easier to bear.
I think it's working.
I fall asleep with the taste of bitter herbs on my tongue and the bond glowing warm in my chest, feeling safer than I have in weeks.
Trusting, for the first time, that maybe I'm not facing this alone.