Chapter 26
Kess
Three weeks pass in Yaern's cottage like a held breath.
The bleeding doesn't return. My body has decided to keep them even though logic says it shouldn't—two lives clinging to existence inside me despite the stress and violence and everything that should have ended this before it began.
But something else is happening too.
The bond is getting stronger.
Without the tea suppressing it, the connection pulses back to life a little more each day.
I feel him now in ways I couldn't before—distant, muted by miles of forest and mountain, but there.
A presence at the edge of my consciousness like a heartbeat that isn't mine.
Some mornings I wake reaching for him before I remember he's not there.
Some nights I lie awake feeling the ache of his absence like a missing limb.
I hate it.
I hate that my body wants him even when my mind knows better. Hate that the bond doesn't care about betrayal or broken trust or all the lies he told while I loved him. It just wants. Pulls. Demands.
And the memories won't stop coming.
Not the angry sex in the forest—though that's there too, burned into my body like a brand.
But the other times. The soft times. The night he made love to me slowly, reverently, like I was something precious instead of something to be used.
The way he kissed me like he was memorizing the shape of my mouth.
The way he held me after, his hand splayed across my stomach like he already knew what was growing there.
The way I wanted him. Chose him. Pulled him close instead of pushing away.
Those memories are worse than the angry ones. Because they remind me what we could have been. What we were building before he tore it down with his lies.
"You're brooding again," Yaern says, dropping into the chair across from me with a thunk. "That's the third time today you've stared into your porridge like it personally offended you."
"I'm not brooding."
"You're absolutely brooding." She props her chin on her hand. "Let me guess. Thinking about him?"
I don't answer, which is answer enough.
"The bond's getting stronger, isn't it?" She's too perceptive, always has been. "Now that you're not drinking his poison tea."
"Yes." The admission scrapes out. "I can feel him. All the time. It's like—" I stop. Try to find words. "Like a thread tied around my ribs. Pulling."
"That's the mate bond. It's supposed to do that."
"I know what it's supposed to do." I shove the porridge away. "I just hate that it's doing it now. When I'm trying to stay angry."
Yaern snorts. "Kess, you can be angry and still miss him. Those aren't mutually exclusive."
"I don't miss him."
"Liar."
I glare at her. She grins back, unrepentant.
"Fine." I slump in my chair. "I miss him. I miss the way he looked at me. I miss sparring with him. I miss—" My voice catches. "I miss flying."
The memory surfaces unbidden: wind tearing at my hair, his scales warm beneath my hands, the world spread out below us like a tapestry of shadow and starlight.
The way my stomach dropped when he banked into a turn.
The way I felt free for the first time in my life, weightless, like nothing could touch me as long as I was in his hands.
I dream about it sometimes. Not the nightmares—different dreams. Dreams where we're soaring through clouds, his wings catching updrafts, my body pressed against the furnace heat of his chest. Dreams where I'm not angry anymore.
Where we figured it out somehow, found a way through the wreckage to something worth keeping.
I always wake from those dreams feeling worse than the nightmares.
"You're showing," Yaern says quietly, changing the subject with the grace of someone who knows when to push and when to retreat.
I look down. She's right—my belly has changed. A subtle swell visible now beneath the borrowed shift. Proof written in my own flesh.
"He knew before I did," I say, and the old anger flickers. "Weeks before. He watched me get sick and confused and scared, and he said nothing."
"I know."
"This moment—seeing my body change, knowing they're real—he stole that from me."
"I know." Yaern reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. "He was wrong. He was trying to protect you and he was catastrophically, unforgivably wrong."
We sit in silence. The fire crackles. Outside, children laugh at some game I can't see.
"So," Yaern says finally, her voice shifting into something brisk and practical. "What are you going to do about it?"
"What?"
"You heard me." She leans back, arms crossed.
"You've been here three weeks, Kess. You're past the bleeding scare.
You're getting stronger. The babies are growing.
" She raises an eyebrow. "So what's the plan?
Hide here forever? Raise cursed dragon twins in a village cottage? Pretend the father doesn't exist?"
"I—"
"Because I love you, but this cottage is very small and you're very pregnant and at some point we need to talk about what comes next."
I open my mouth. Close it. She's right, damn her.
"I don't know," I admit. "I can't forgive him. Can't trust him. But—"
"But?"
The nightmares. The dreams that feel like warnings. My son with golden claws, my daughter screaming, blood blooming between my thighs.
"Something's wrong," I say slowly. "With the pregnancy. With the twins. I keep having these dreams—"
"The nightmares about your son hurting your daughter."
"They're getting worse. More detailed." I press my hands to my stomach. "Last night I saw him clearly. Golden claws. Already feral. Already doing what the curse demands—eliminating threats before he's even born."
Yaern's expression shifts from sassy to serious. "You think it's prophetic?"
"I think my body knows something. The contamination, the transformation—maybe it's giving me access to information I shouldn't have." I meet her eyes. "I need to research. Need to find out what happens when cursed dragons father twins. If there's a way to stop it."
"The village library—"
"Won't have what I need." The words taste like ash. "You know it won't. The priests destroyed everything they could find about warrior omegas. About cursed bloodlines. About any of it."
Yaern is quiet for a long moment. Then: "You need his library."
"Yes."
"His mystic. His centuries of accumulated knowledge."
"Yes."
"Which means you need to go back."
The word hangs in the air between us. Back. To the castle. To him.
"I don't want to," I whisper.
"I know."
"I'm not ready."
"Maybe not." She squeezes my hand again. "But your daughter might not have time to wait until you are."
The truth of it settles over me like a shroud.
She's right. I can feel it in my bones—some instinct deeper than thought, older than reason. The curse is already stirring inside me. Already shaping my son into something dangerous. And every day I spend hiding here is a day closer to losing my daughter before she's even born.
"I'll go," I say, and the words feel like surrender. "Not because I forgive him. Not because I trust him."
"But because your children need his resources."
"Yes."
Yaern nods slowly. "When?"
"Soon. Before the curse activates. Before—" I can't finish.
Before it's too late.
"Then we'll get you ready," she says, practical as always. "More food. More rest. Build your strength back up." She stands, starts clearing the breakfast dishes. "And Kess?"
"What?"
She pauses at the washbasin, looking back at me over her shoulder. "When you see him—and I know this is rich coming from someone who's never been mated—but maybe try not to kill him on sight? At least until you've used his library?"
A laugh escapes me—broken, surprising, the first real laugh in weeks.
"I'll try," I manage. "No promises."
"That's all I ask." She turns back to the dishes, but I can hear the smile in her voice. "Now eat your porridge. You're going to need your strength for dragon-slaying. Or dragon-forgiving. Whichever comes first."
I pick up the spoon.
She's right.
Whatever comes next, I'm going to need all the strength I can get.