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I could tell from his tone that he was mostly joking, but a lump of emotion filled my throat anyway. “Do you really think— Has it been too much? Am I just being ridiculous?”
“What?” he scoffed. “You can be a lot of things, Sparks, but ridiculous isn’t one of them. Why does all this matter so much to you?”
“It just—” I started, and the lump swelled, choking me. My eyes felt abruptly hot. I dragged in a breath, and it came ragged.
“Ren.” West turned me toward him and cupped my cheek. His dark green eyes searched mine. “What’s wrong? You’ve been pushing yourself to the limit all week. These are just Christmas parties. People will have a good time—they aren’t expecting perfection. So why are you? What’s really going on?”
I swallowed hard. Tears I didn’t want to let fall burned behind my eyelids when I blinked.
West had been the last of my mates to trust me, for the same reasons that made him the hardest to brush off when he wanted an answer. And now that I had his love and loyalty, I knew I had every shred of them he had to offer.
It couldn’t hurt him to admit the things churning inside me. The real problem was I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge them to myself. But I didn’t think he was going to let me sweep this topic aside now.
My voice came out quiet. “Staying busy getting things ready for the celebrations—it’s kept me distracted. So I don’t have to think about—” My voice caught again.
“About what?” West said softly.
My hand went to my belly, to the shape of my daughter—our daughter—that I could feel in increasing detail through my own flesh. “I want to meet her. I’m so happy she’s coming. But I’m also—I’m scared for her, West. The last year has gone really well: no major conflicts, everyone getting along reasonably well. But what if that doesn’t last? I’ve never been able to count on keeping the things I care about. I don’t want to take the happiness I feel right now for granted, and then have it be taken away.”
“Oh, Sparks.” My mate trailed his thumbs over my cheeks to ease away the few tears that had managed to seep out. I made myself meet his gaze again and saw nothing but love and compassion there.
“I don’t think we should ever take our happiness for granted,” he said. “But I don’t think you need to be scared either. The last year has gone well because of the work you’ve done, the decisions you’ve made. You’re the best dragon shifter any of our kin could have hoped for.” The corner of his mouth quirked up. “Hell, you even managed to win me over, so clearly you’re doing something very right.”
I couldn’t help snorting in amusement. “The biggest challenge of my rule.” The knot inside me hadn’t entirely released, though. “There are so many things I don’t know. I’ve never been a mother before. I haven’t even been a dragon shifter, really, for all that long. What if I do end up screwing something up?”
“Then we’ll set it right again. We all start somewhere. Look at how much we’ve figured out as we go already. Life’s thrown a hell of a lot of challenges at us so far, and we’ve met them all.” He bowed his head until his forehead touched mine. “You don’t have to tell yourself there’ll be nothing but happiness from here until forever. Just trust that whatever comes, we’ll find our way through it. You can believe that, can’t you?”
When he put it like that, his reassurance didn’t seem so hard to accept. My next breath came a little easier. I raised my head, seeking out West’s lips. He kissed me intently, as if he were pouring all the feeling he had in him into that embrace. I lost myself in it, in him, just for that minute.
“Better?” he asked afterward. “I know I’m not always the most elegant with my words. If you need to talk to the others too to feel more secure…”
I shook my head. “No,” I said. “I think I’m good now. Maybe I’ll want to talk to the others later, but you said just the right things.” Or maybe it was also thatI’dsaid the right things. My chest felt lighter with those worries no longer unspoken.
West smiled. “Come on, then,” he said. “Someone told me there’s some lights we really need to check.”
I elbowed him, and he chuckled as we walked out of the dining hall.
An hour later, as I sat with West and the rest of my mates at our table, filling my hungry stomach and watching so many of my kin doing the same, a sense of satisfaction spread through me in a warm glow. Laughter and upbeat voices carried from all the tables. Kylie and Felix had scooted close together, him offering her a bite of something off his fork. There was nothing in the air right now except the enjoyment of good company and an excellent meal.
I had done well by my people—the people I hadn’t even known were mine until eighteen months ago. My alphas and I had accomplished an awful lot in that time. And when I stopped worrying about the future and let myself just look at what was here in the present, all I could see was happiness.
Even if it didn’t last forever, the fact that we had it now counted for something. And I’d do my damned best to see that we had it for as close to forever as I could manage. That was all anyone could really ask from me.
West leaned over when I’d taken my last bite. “Should I tell them to get the bonfire ready?”
I nodded and got to my feet. This part of the celebration that I’d planned specially for the canine kin felt even more appropriate now. Time for all of us to take a little weight off our chests.
“Everyone,” I called out to our guests. “Please join us in the courtyard now for a special bonfire.”
The crowd followed us out to the courtyard. Flames were already licking over the heaped wood, sending tangy pine smoke up toward the darkening sky. The breeze nipped at my ears as I stepped outside, but the blaze chased the chill away as soon as I got close. Its ruddy light wavered over the faces all around the fire.
“It’s been a good year,” I said over the crackling of the flames, turning to take in all of the kin gathered around me. “And I mostly want us to celebrate those good parts. But nothing good comes from sweeping over past hurts. Any of you who was here on this estate or in one of the settlements that came under siege last year had more than your share of pain. So tonight I thought we could let our old fears and angers go. Anything leftover that we don’t need to hang on to, to free up that space in ourselves for the next year.”
I motioned to the containers of tokens and pencils that Kylie and Felix had set out on one of the wooden benches. “You don’t have to share it with anyone else—just write what you’d like to release on one of these wooden tokens and toss it into the fire.”
I picked up one of the tokens myself, a sanded-smooth rectangle about half the size of my palm. As I stepped back from the bench where the containers were sitting, others gathered around. I printed carefully on the pale birch surface.
Doubting that I can be a good leader. Focusing on fear instead of joy.
