Chapter 29 #2
The bond screams between us in the sudden privacy—his need to touch me, to verify I'm real, warring with his understanding that I don't want him anywhere near me. I feel his want bleeding through the connection, sharp and desperate, and my body answers with a pulse of heat I can't suppress.
He knows. I see it in the way his nostrils flare, scenting my arousal. The way his hands clench at his sides, fighting the instinct to reach for me.
But he doesn't move. Doesn't act on it. Just holds my gaze with those golden eyes gone dark with everything he's not letting himself do.
"The ritual," he says, voice rougher than before. "I won't let you do it. Not without exploring every other option first."
"You won't let me?" I cross my arms over my chest, using the anger to push down the want. "You don't get to let me do anything. Not anymore."
"Then consider it a strong recommendation." He doesn't back down, doesn't soften. "Three hundred years of curse transferred all at once. The mystic doesn't know if anyone can survive that—warrior omega bloodline or not."
"It's her only chance—"
"You don't know that." He takes a step closer, and I have to fight not to step back—or worse, forward.
"I've been in those archives for weeks, Kess.
Day and night. There are references to partial transfers—ways to move the curse in stages instead of all at once.
Methods for weakening the curse before attempting transfer.
" His jaw tightens. "The priests destroyed most of the texts, but not all. There might be another way."
The words trigger something—a memory from before, from the gaps I found in the archive. The missing texts. The fragments that referenced warrior omegas but led nowhere.
"You removed them." The realization hits like ice water. "The texts about warrior omegas taking on curses. You had Corvith pull them from the library. That's why I couldn't find anything when I was researching before."
He doesn't deny it. Just stands there, absorbing the accusation.
"Yes."
"Why?" But I already know. Can see it in the set of his jaw, the guilt he's not trying to hide.
"Because I knew what you'd do if you found them.
" His voice is steady, but I feel the pain bleeding through the bond.
"You'd volunteer. Sacrifice yourself without hesitation.
And I couldn't—" He stops. Starts again.
"I was already poisoning the bond to try to save you.
I wasn't going to hand you a different way to die. "
"So you made the choice for me. Again."
"Yes." No excuses. No justification. "I was wrong. I know that now. I knew it then, probably, but I did it anyway because I was terrified of losing you."
"And now?"
"Now those texts are back in the archive." He holds my gaze. "I had Corvith restore everything the night you left. Whatever you need to find, it's there. No more hiding. No more deciding what you can handle."
I want to rage at him. Want to scream about all the time I wasted searching for information he'd deliberately hidden. But there's something in his admission—the lack of defense, the simple acknowledgment that he was wrong—that takes some of the heat out of my anger.
Not all of it. Not even most of it. But some.
"And if those options don't work?" I force out. "If we run out of time looking for alternatives that don't exist?"
"Then we do it your way." Steady. Absolute. "But not before we've exhausted every possibility that doesn't involve you dying in front of me."
The rawness in those last words catches me off guard. Slips past the anger I'm using as armor.
"The curse activates in less than three months," I say flatly. "Your son will kill our daughter unless we stop it. We don't have time for exhaustive searches."
Something flickers in his eyes at your son—pain, yes, but also something harder underneath. He noticed. Noticed that I claimed the daughter but distanced from the son.
"Our son," he corrects quietly. "Who didn't ask to carry this curse any more than I did. Who's as much a victim of it as she is." He holds my gaze. "I'm not going to let you blame him for something he can't control. Not when we can still save them both."
The correction lands harder than I expected. Because he's right—the baby isn't choosing this. The curse is.
"Then we work fast. Together." He holds up a hand before I can protest. "Separate workspaces. Whatever distance you need. But two people searching cover more ground than one, and I've already identified three promising texts that reference curse transfers."
"And if we don't find another way? If there is no other option?"
"Then I'll cut my own heart out and hand it to you if that's what the ritual requires." His voice doesn't waver. "But I'm not watching you die without fighting for every alternative first."
The conviction catches me off guard. This isn't the groveling I expected. Isn't the broken apologies I'd steeled myself against. This is something else—an alpha who knows he's failed and is determined to do better. Not by begging for absolution, but by actually being better.
I don't know what to do with that.
"I need access to the library," I say instead of addressing any of it. "The restricted section. Everything you have on cursed bloodlines, warrior omegas, ritual magic, blood transfers. I'm not sitting in my chambers waiting for you to find answers."
"Already arranged." He nods once. "You'll have your own workspace in the eastern alcove—good light, comfortable chairs, everything you need. Separate from mine."
"Good." I move toward the food tray, suddenly aware of how exhausted I am, how heavy my body feels. The twins shift inside me, responding to my fatigue. "We start tomorrow."
He moves toward the door. I think he's going to leave without saying anything else.
Then he stops. Turns back, one hand on the door frame.
"I'm not going to keep apologizing," he says quietly. "You've made it clear that words don't mean anything right now, and you're right. Sorry doesn't undo what I did. Doesn't rebuild the trust I shattered."
I don't respond.
"But I'm not done fighting for you." His eyes hold mine, golden and fierce despite the exhaustion. "For them. For whatever chance we still have to get through this alive—all of us. You can hate me while I do it. I've earned your hatred. But I'm not going anywhere."
It's not an apology. It's not a plea for forgiveness.
It's a promise.
Part of me wants to rage at the arrogance. Throw something at his head and scream that he doesn't get to decide to fight for me.
But another part—the part I'm trying to silence—respects him more for this than I would have respected another broken apology.
"Just find the ritual," I say finally. "That's all I need from you right now."
"I will." He opens the door. "Get some rest. I'll see you in the library tomorrow."
Then he's gone.
I stand there for a long moment, staring at the closed door. At the bond still pulling tight and painful in my chest.
He didn't grovel. Didn't beg. Didn't give me the easy villain I wanted him to be.
I don't know if that makes things better or worse.
I force myself to eat, bite by careful bite. Bread that's perfectly fresh, cheese aged exactly the way I like it, fruit at the peak of ripeness. He remembered. Remembered every preference I mentioned in passing, every small detail from the weeks we spent together.
The attention to detail should annoy me. Instead it makes my chest ache in ways I don't want to examine.
The twins are moving as I eat. The boy kicking hard against my ribs—sharp jabs that feel almost aggressive. The girl's movements softer, gentler. A flutter rather than a strike. I press my hand against first one, then the other, feeling them respond.
Less than twelve weeks until his instincts activate. Until the curse wakes up inside him and turns him into a weapon pointed at his own sister.
Our son, Rhystan had said. Who didn't ask to carry this curse any more than I did.
He's right. I know he's right. But it's easier to think of the threat as his—his curse, his bloodline, his fault. Easier than accepting that the baby I'm carrying, the son I'm growing inside my own body, might kill his sister through no choice of his own.
I press both hands flat against my belly.
"I'm going to save you both," I whisper to them—to my daughter floating peacefully in the warm dark, to my son who doesn't know what's growing inside him alongside his tiny forming bones. "Whatever it takes. I promise."
The bond pulls, sharp and insistent. Rhystan somewhere in the castle, probably already back in the library. Not because I told him to. Because he decided he's going to fight for us whether I want him to or not.
I should hate that.
I don't.
When I finish eating, I move toward the bed—and stop.
It's been freshly made, clean sheets pulled tight, but underneath the lavender they used to air out the room, I can still smell him.
Faint but unmistakable. Smoke and cedar and something darker, muskier.
The scent of the man who slept here for weeks, breathing in my lingering presence the same way I'm now breathing in his.
I should ask for different sheets. Should demand they scrub every trace of him from this room.
Instead I crawl into the bed and pull the covers up around me. His scent wraps around me like an embrace I didn't ask for, and some traitorous part of me relaxes into it. The twins settle, calmed by the familiar smell of their father.
I hate that it feels like safety.
Tomorrow the real work begins. The library. The research. Hours in the same space as the man who broke my heart, searching for words that might save my daughter or kill me trying.
Tonight, surrounded by his scent, I let myself rest.