Nilak lies down upon the cool ground. Her wing unfurls, and she crooks it in invitation.
“Would you like to shelter under Nilak’s wing?” Stesha whispers in my ear.
I bury my face in his shoulder to blot my tears. “Please. Yes, I would.”
Stesha keeps me tight against him with one of his arms while he pulls blankets from Nilak’s saddle bags and puts them on the ground. He lays me down carefully, stretching his body out beside mine. Nilak’s wing covers us, making a small, dark, cozy space around us.
“How is this happening? I don’t understand.”
Stesha holds me close and speaks in a soft voice. “There was poison in your blood. Mistress Hawthorne rid you of it.”
“But I was never poisoned. I would have remembered such a thing.”
“I think you were poisoned and you didn’t notice. Emmeric made snide comments to me over the years, calling me a fool for not noticing what was right under my nose. He meant you. My mate. You were right under my nose. Living in my house. Riding with me on my dragon. An Alpha’s pride is that he always knows his mate, and he took that away from me.”
But I spoke to Emmeric as little as possible, and I never accepted any food or drink from him. I try to remember anything strange, but I can’t.
Stesha is watching me closely. All my need for him is echoed in his eyes. It’s all I ever wanted, once upon a time.
I turn my head away from him. “You only want me now that you know I’m an Omega. If I wasn’t good enough for you before when I was a Beta, you don’t get to suddenly decide I’m acceptable now.”
“I have only wanted one mate all my life.Mymate. I have been true to her and no one else. I have been so constant that it has nearly killed us both.”
“You should have known it was me,” I accuse.
Pain crosses his face. “Yes, I should have. I’m so sorry, Zen.”
If Stesha is right, and I’ve been an Omega and fated to him all along, then all this suffering has been for no reason. Tears crowd in my throat and well up in my eyes. I never used to be such a crybaby, but ever since the queen’s crone gave me that potion, my emotions have been so raw. So close to the surface. I wonder if this is what it’s like for all Omegas. “I wish you had known,” I sob into the front of his shirt. “I knew. I knew it was you who was my mate.”
Well, I never knew Stesha was my Alpha, but I felt that there was a connection between us. I only ever wanted him.
Stesha smooths the tears from my cheeks. “Do you remember when you cut your hand on Minta’s scale in these mountains? I healed the cut, and I tasted your blood. It wasso sweet. It hummed through me. I tasted something, so faint, but it was there. I should have known then. For years, I was tormented by the knowledge that my Omega was close by but I couldn’t reach her. You knew, but I wouldn’t listen to you. I’m so sorry, Zen. Please tell me I’m not too late.”
After all that’s happened, all the heartbreak and pain, how can it be anything but too late?
Stesha takes my hands and kisses my palms, and then he presses them against his chest where his heart is thundering. “If you never trust me again, I will understand. If you lock your heart up in a box and seal it away from me, I will never reproach you for it, but I will forever be searching for the key.”
29
Stesha
Zenevieve is lying on her side facing me, tears shimmering in her eyes. A sob rises in her throat. “It’s too late. I’m broken. I don’t know how to trust anyone ever again.”
I press her hands harder to my chest as agony blazes through me. Hearing her talk this way terrifies me. The despair in her scent is so close to Mirelle’s before she perished. “It’s never too late. Please don’t say that. We can still be happy together. Happier than any fated pair who has lived or will ever live.”
I couldn’t believe it when I caught her scent just as my rut was coming on, sweet and intoxicating and clamoring for me to see Zenevieve for who she really is. My mate has been under my nose this whole time. I could feel she was close, but I could never catch her elusive scent. With Zenevieve in my arms and my lungs full of her perfume, I pulled aside the covering on the window and watched her flinch away from the dazzling light, and I knew. Her designation was finally emerging. She’s my mate, and I was right to obsess over her all these years. My mate.Mine.
“I wish I could just be angry with you,” she cries, her shoulders shaking. “I can bear it easier than all this pain and knowing what we’ve lost.”
“I’m so sorry for the pain,aash’lin. I wish I could take it away, but I can catch all your tears and treasure them.”
“And if I’m always broken?”
“I will cherish all your beautiful pieces, but to me, you are always perfect.”
“So I will be your penance?”
I smooth her hair back from her tearstained face. “It’s not a penance to be your mate. It is my purpose. All of your days, and all of mine, I will be yours.”
