Chapter 32 Rhystan
Rhystan
The first week is the hardest.
Not the research—though that's brutal enough, endless hours bent over crumbling texts in a language that died before I was cursed. Not the timeline pressing down on us like a physical weight, the knowledge that our daughter's life is measured in weeks now instead of months.
No, the hardest part is having my pregnant mate three feet away and not being allowed to touch her.
She's sitting across the table from me right now, morning sun catching the red-gold streaks in her hair as she frowns at a manuscript.
Wearing one of the dresses I had made for her—soft fabric that won't restrict her growing belly.
Four months pregnant and showing clearly now, the swell of her visible even when she's hunched over ancient texts.
My dragon rumbles in my chest. Mate. Pregnant. Ours.
The beast doesn't understand why we're keeping our distance.
Doesn't understand betrayal or broken trust or the complicated mathematics of earning back something you destroyed.
It only knows that she's right there, carrying our children, and we're not wrapped around her keeping everything dangerous away.
Soon, I tell it. Maybe. If we don't fuck this up again.
The dragon subsides, unconvinced.
"This section mentions 'vessels of sufficient strength,'" Kess says without looking up. "But it doesn't define what that means. Physical strength? Magical capacity? Spiritual fortitude?"
"Probably all three." I keep my voice neutral, professional. "The curse isn't just physical. It's divine punishment compressed into blood and bone. Whatever vessel receives it needs to be strong enough to contain that without shattering."
"Good thing I'm not the shattering type."
"No." I let myself look at her—really look, just for a moment. "You're not."
She glances up, catches me watching. Something flickers in her expression before she banks it.
"Stop looking at me like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you're memorizing me in case I die."
"I'm not." I return my attention to my own manuscript. "I'm looking at you like I'm trying to figure out how someone so intelligent can be so determined to get herself killed."
She snorts. "Sweet talker."
"I try."
The bond hums between us—not the damaged, weakened thing it was when she first returned, but something stronger.
Growing. I don't know if it's the proximity or the pregnancy or just time doing what time does, but I can feel her more clearly now than I have in weeks.
Her determination. Her fear, buried deep where she thinks I can't sense it.
And underneath both, something warmer that she's not ready to acknowledge in daylight.
She told me she loved me. The night before we thought the ritual would happen, before we realized we needed more time—she said the words out loud. I love you. I hate that I do.
I'm holding onto that like a rope thrown to a drowning man.
The second week, the riders return from the eastern monasteries with three more texts.
One is useless—a philosophical treatise on the nature of divine punishment that spends forty pages debating whether curses are moral correction or cosmic cruelty. I throw it across the room after page twelve.
"Feel better?" Kess asks without looking up from her own reading.
"Marginally."
"There's a whole shelf of religious commentary if you want to keep throwing things. Might be therapeutic."
"I'll keep that in mind."
The second text is more promising—fragments of a ritual that references "the willing vessel" and "blood calling to blood." But the key passages are damaged beyond reading, the ink faded to ghostly shadows that no amount of candlelight can illuminate.
The third text is the one that matters.
"Rhystan." Her voice is sharp, urgent. "Come look at this."
I'm at her side before she finishes speaking, close enough that her scent fills my lungs. She doesn't pull away—too focused on what she's found to maintain her usual distance.
"Here." She points to a passage near the bottom of the page.
"It's talking about curse transfers, but look at this part.
'The strength of the vessel determines the nature of the transformation.
A weak vessel shatters. A strong vessel adapts.
The strongest vessels do not merely contain the curse—they metabolize it. Change it. Make it their own.'"
"Metabolize," I repeat. "Like your contamination."
"Exactly like my contamination." She looks up at me, and for a moment we're just two people working toward the same goal, the animosity between us forgotten.
"I'm not just containing your curse effects, Rhystan.
I'm processing them. Adapting to them. That's why I'm still alive when I should be dead. "
"So when you take the full curse—"
"My body might do the same thing. Not just hold it, but transform it. Make it survivable."
Hope is a dangerous thing. I've learned that lesson too many times to trust it blindly.
But looking at her face, seeing the fierce certainty in her eyes, I let myself feel it anyway.
"Keep reading," I tell her. "Find everything this text says about metabolization. I want to know exactly what we're working with."
The third week, she starts practicing the ritual words in earnest.
The old tongue is brutal—harsh consonants and guttural stops that were never meant for human throats. She practices for hours, repeating phrases until her voice goes hoarse, starting over when I correct her pronunciation.
"The third syllable is too soft." I demonstrate, letting the sound rumble up from my chest. "It needs to come from here. Like a growl."
"Easy for you to say. You're part dragon."
"And you're part warrior omega. Your ancestors spoke this language. It's in your blood."
She tries again. Better this time—the consonant sharp and decisive, the vowel that follows dark and resonant.
"Good. Again."
"You're enjoying this." She narrows her eyes at me. "Making me repeat myself over and over. It's payback for something, isn't it?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Liar."
But she's almost smiling, and the bond pulses with something that isn't anger.
We've fallen into a rhythm over these weeks.
Not comfortable exactly—there's too much history for that, too much hurt still unhealed.
But functional. Productive. We work together during the days and retreat to our separate spaces at night, and somewhere in between we've started talking like people who might actually like each other.
I'm not fool enough to think that means she's forgiven me. The tea, the hidden pregnancy, the texts I removed from the archives—all of it still sits between us like a wall we're slowly dismantling brick by brick.
But the wall is shorter than it was. And some days I can almost see over it.
The fourth week, I find her asleep at her workspace.
It's late—long past the hour when she should have retired to her chambers. But she's been pushing herself harder than ever, driven by the timeline that gets tighter every day. Five months pregnant now, her belly round and heavy, the twins growing stronger every day.
Including our son. Including the curse he carries.
She's slumped over a manuscript, one hand still resting on the page, her breathing slow and even. In sleep, the fierce determination that defines her softens into something younger, more vulnerable. The candles have burned low, casting warm shadows across her face.
I should wake her. Should send her to bed, where she'll be more comfortable, where the twins won't be compressed by the awkward position.
Instead, I cross the room and lift her into my arms.
She stirs but doesn't wake—just makes a soft sound and turns her face into my chest, her body relaxing against mine with a trust she'd never show while conscious. The bond floods with warmth, hers and mine tangled together until I can't tell where one ends and the other begins.
Mine, my dragon rumbles. Ours.
I carry her through dark corridors to her chambers, shouldering open the door, laying her down on the bed with as much care as I'm capable of. She's still wearing her day clothes—I should probably leave, let her sleep in peace.
But when I try to pull away, her hand catches my wrist.
"Stay." The word is barely audible, more breath than sound. Her eyes are still closed. "Just... stay."
I shouldn't. There are a thousand reasons I shouldn't.
I kick off my boots and lie down beside her anyway.
She doesn't reach for me. Doesn't pull me close or curl against my chest. Just keeps her hand wrapped around my wrist, like she needs the physical proof that I'm there.
I lie in the darkness and listen to her breathe and feel the twins shifting in her belly through the bond. Our son, restless and aggressive, already fighting. Our daughter, quieter, gentler, the one we're racing to save.
Two weeks until the curse activates fully.
Two weeks to master the ritual and gather the final components and hope that her warrior omega bloodline is strong enough to metabolize three centuries of divine rage.
Somewhere in the small hours, her breathing changes. Deepens.
"I can feel you brooding." Her voice is rough with sleep. "It's very loud."
"My apologies. I'll brood more quietly."
"Appreciated." A pause. Then, softer: "You didn't leave."
"You asked me to stay."
"I didn't think you would."
I turn my head to look at her. In the darkness, I can just make out the shape of her face, the glitter of her eyes watching me.
"There's not much I wouldn't do if you asked."
"I know." She's quiet for a long moment. "That's part of the problem, isn't it? You'd do anything for me. Including lie. Including drug me. Including make decisions about my body without consulting me."
"Yes."
"At least you're not pretending otherwise."
"I told you I was done apologizing." I keep my voice even. "I meant it. But I'm not going to pretend I wouldn't burn down the world for you. I would. The difference now is that I'd ask first."