“Not predawn joy,” she argued.
They stood silent, watching the flickering flames in the hearth.Dragons loved the heat and ambience of fires.It was part of them, and since Kai had conceived, she reveled in their sight and feel, so Aodh ensured that he or Tana kept the fireplaces always filled when Kai was in residence.
Talk to me.
It’s...she sighed through their link and aloud.
He looked from the fire to his mate and saw that Kai’s gaze was no longer on the large blaze but at the illuminated broadswords hung crisscrossed above it.Yesterday, when he returned from the meeting, he sat down and shared with her everything that happened at the meeting, so he didn’t have to stretch his mind far to know what had her up walking the night.
He’d hoped his loving would have distracted her much longer.
“The war.”
She nodded.“I just can’t help but think about all those poor humans in the district that will die in the fray.It’s always the innocent who don’t have the means to protect themselves that suffer in conflicts.”
He could hear the weight of those words in the soft lilt of her voice and feel her concern in the tension in her fingers and how she gripped his hands.It was his job to protect her and their unborn child and lead his people into victory against any enemies.The burden of it all was like a massive stone settled on his shoulders.
The difference was that he was used to it.It came with his position and was who he was as a leader.It never left him even in times of peace, because when you shift into the biggest fucker in the world, others were always trying to figure out a way to take you down.
However, the magnitude of the concern was overwhelming to his soft-hearted, human mate.Kai’s only worry had been caring for ill parents and protecting her sister.Now she was the mother of a Thunder, encumbered with fear for helpless humans.
“I feel weak and powerless to stop what is coming.”She sagged back against him.
He tightened his arms.“You are not.You are everything, mate-wife, that gives me strength...”he pressed a hand to her lower belly.“You carry everything that gives our people strength and hope.”
His markings flared cornflower blue, reflecting his love for her.He buried his nose in her dense, wild curls and exhaled smoke through the coils, his dragon marking her.Fuck, they couldn’t do this without her, had been eking out a half existence before Kai.
His dragon stretched inside of him, wanting to curl around Kai and comfort her.
“We still have weeks to go, love.”He shifted to the side to draw her gaze to him.
Once she’d turned her face to the side and gazed at him, he vowed, “If I promise to ensure we devise a plan to minimize the harm to those in the Dispatch District, will you trust me to see it through, and you stop worrying and focus on your main job?”He patted her stomach.“Our offspring?”
She smiled, and his world shattered into dust; he imagined himself hovering before the earth’s ash, basking in her glorious, radiant sun.
Kai raised her hand and placed it along his cheek.“I trust your word, Aodh.”
His vision was tainted with a sapphire haze from the flames raging in his eyes.Fire roared in his core and heated his blood and it dove southward and filled his cock which had relaxed during their conversation of war, only for it to thicken and harden with a fiercer need than he’d woken with.
“You trust my words, do you?”he offered her a wicked smile as he grabbed the ends of the tie holding her robe closed, then pulled, unraveling it.“Then I give you mywordthat when I have my meetings with the leaders today, I’ll invite Avalore.Khuzaimah was right, she’s got a warrior’s mind.”
And I’m sure Avalore has become Liekki’s claimed-mate by now.So, she’d no longer be an outsider.
Aodh had seen the electricity sparking between the two when he left them at the meeting grounds the previous day.
Good.I like her.
“She can help us understand the setup regarding the Dispatch.”
“Hmhmm...”She stroked along his cheek with her thumb and kissed him on the chin.
“Will you set it all away for now, so I can start our day off right, little flame?”He reached inside the side of the robe and cupped one of his mate-wife’s ample breasts.
“Oh...yes...”She rested her head on his chest and arched into his teasing hand.
Aodh gripped her covering with his free hand and shoved it down her shoulders and off her body.
“Fuck, you’re beautiful.”He admired her body covered by the dancing firelight.As the robe fluttered to the floor around their feet, he snaked a hand around her hip to caress the top of her thigh.
