Chapter 31
Finlay
“You’re so pretty.”
Raven’s voice is soft, barely above a whisper, her breath warm against my feathers. Her fingertips brush across the bronze and gold plumage of my breast, tracing the delicate barbs with a touch so gentle it sends shivers rippling down my spine. The sensation is exquisite—each feather a nerve ending, each stroke a caress that resonates deep in my ancient bones.
I pull my head from under my wing and look at her. Her sapphire eyes are heavy-lidded with sleep, her black hair tangled and wild around her face. Even exhausted, even rumpled, she’s the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen. Slowly, I tilt my head from side to side, studying her expression, then lift a wing to show her the egg nestled beneath me.
The shell gleams in the bioluminescent glow of the cavern, obsidian black with iridescent swirls that dance like captured starlight. Nearly three feet of perfect potential, warm and pulsing with the steady rhythm of new life.
“I can’t believe I laid an egg.”
Her hand trembles as she reaches out to touch the shell. I watch her fingertips trace the outline of the scale pattern that has emerged on the surface—the intricate map of ridges and whorls that mark this child as hers. Her touch is reverent, almost worshipful; her breath catches in her throat.
Then she goes still.
“It’s female.”
The words hang in the air between us, heavy with meaning. Her smile softens, transforming her face into something radiant, and she continues to stroke the shell with a tenderness that makes my heart ache.A daughter.We’re having a daughter.
I coo to her—a low, warbling sound that vibrates through my chest—and nuzzle her with the side of my beak, careful not to cut her delicate skin with the sharp edges. She smells of sea salt and jasmine, and the warm copper undertone of recent exertion. Beneath it all, I catch the faintest hint of something new. Something that smells like hope.
“You made a beautiful nest.”
Pride swells in my chest, ruffling my feathers involuntarily. I spent hours weaving those branches, selecting each piece of blackwood and ironbark for strength and smoothness. Hours more lining it with the softest materials I could find—furs and moss and feathers plucked from my breast during the desperate days of waiting. To hear her appreciate it, to see her eyes trace the careful construction with genuine admiration, fills me with a warmth that has nothing to do with my inner fire.
Raven slips into the nest with me and the egg, her movements slow and careful. The branches creak softly beneath her weight, settling into new configurations as she curls her body aroundthe egg. Her clothes rasp against the woven wood, a whisper of sound that blends with the distant lap of water against stone. She stretches a wing out, draping it over the egg and tucking it beneath my wing, creating a layered canopy of protection.
I watch her eyes drift closed, long lashes fanning against her cheeks. A deep purr rumbles from her chest—a sound I feel more than hear, vibrating through the nest, through the egg, through my body where we’re connected by overlapping wings. She’s purring to the baby within. Singing to our daughter in the ancient language of dragons.
Carefully, I lower my wing, covering my mate and egg in a cascade of bronze and gold feathers. The sensation is strange—the cool, smooth leather of her wing membrane pressed against the soft, sensitive underside of my wing. Two completely different textures, two completely different creatures, joined together over the life they created. It feels odd. It feels perfect. It feels like everything I never knew I was missing through millennia of lonely existence.
The guys filter into the chamber slowly, their footsteps muffled against the sand. I see them take in the scene—me perched on the nest, Raven’s black hair spilling out from beneath my feathers like a dark waterfall, the gentle rise, and fall of my wing as she breathes beneath it. Their scents reach me in layers: baked bread and honey from Corvus, hot chocolate from Keir, rich earth, and meadow flowers from Hemlocke, aged oak and smoldering embers from Solaris.
“How is she?” Corvus asks, his silver eyes soft with concern. Then he puts his hands up—one clenched in a fist, one flat palm facing me. “Fist is a negative answer, palm is a positive.”
I stretch my neck forward and touch his palm with the tip of my beak. The skin is warm, slightly callused from decades of wielding weapons. I feel the tension ease from his shoulders at the contact.
Then I use my beak to carefully nudge a stray lock of Raven’s hair back under my wing, tucking it away from the cool air of the cavern.
“Does she know the gender?” Solaris asks next, his amber eyes bright with barely contained curiosity. His brogue is thicker than usual—it always gets that way when he’s emotional.
I touch Corvus’s palm again, and I watch emotions flicker over Solaris’s face in rapid succession. Hope. Fear. More hope. A desperate, aching longing that mirrors what I see in all of their faces.
“Fist boy, palm girl.” Keir says, practically vibrating where he stands. His stormy gray eyes are wide, his hands clenched at his sides, his whole body thrumming with anticipation.
I pause, looking between Corvus’s raised hands. Let them wait. Let them feel this moment stretch, this precipice between knowing and not knowing. Then I reach out and touch Corvus’s palm.
The reaction is immediate.
Keir makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob. Hemlocke’s pink eyes go glassy with unshed tears. Corvus’s silver gaze softens impossibly further, his war drake’s mask crumbling completely. And Solaris—ancient, stoic Solaris—presses a hand to his chest as if his heart might burst through his ribs.
“A baby girl?” Thauglor’s voice comes from behind my bondmates, deep and rough with emotion.
They part to let him through, and I watch the most feared black dragon in history hesitantly approach the nest where his daughter sleeps. His sapphire eyes—the same shade as Raven’s, the same possible shade as the egg’s future occupant—are fixed on the spread of my wing with desperate longing.
“I know I shouldn’t be here.” His voice is barely above a whisper, as if speaking too loudly might shatter something precious. “I had to see my daughter.”
