Page 31 of Returned to the Vissigroth (The Vissigroths of Leander #6)

O nce again, we had shunned the bed in favor of the furs by the fire. Daphne didn’t seem to be complaining about it, and neither would I. I would have gladly slept on a rock if it meant holding her. Feeling her heartbeat, low and even, beneath the palm of my hand.

Last night, she had given me the greatest gift: trust. She had let me worship her body like it was sacred, allowed me to learn her all over again, with every brush of skin, every whispered breath.

It hadn’t mattered that my cock throbbed in protest, aching for the release I denied us both.

Watching her come undone beneath me had been all that mattered.

I hadn’t slept at all. Not really. I’d spent the hours watching the firelight flicker across her features, memorizing the curve of her mouth when she dreamed, the way her fingers curled against my chest. I’d buried my nose in her hair, breathed her in like she was the last clean air left on this planet.

I didn’t want to close my eyes. Not when I had her here. Alive. Soft. Warm in my arms.

A dozen times, I’d nearly woken her just to tell her I loved her. A hundred more, I’d whispered it into the space between her shoulder and my throat, letting the words disappear into her skin.

Now, morning was bleeding pale light into the edges of the tent, softening the world. But still I didn’t move. I didn’t want to disturb her, didn’t want to risk losing this moment to whatever waited outside. Duty. War. Questions we still hadn’t answered.

Instead, I just watched her.

The way she sighed and burrowed closer in her sleep. The way her leg slid over mine, as though some part of her remembered this too—remembered us. Maybe not the past. But the shape of it. The shape of what we were.

Of what we still might be.

And I knew, with a fierce clarity that settled in my bones, that I would wait a thousand more nights, hold my hunger behind my teeth as long as it took, if it only meant I could keep her like this. If it meant she’d choose me, all over again.

A faint shift broke the quiet, followed by the slow flutter of her lashes against her cheek. I stilled, breath held tight in my throat, as if any sound might steal the moment away.

She blinked once, twice, adjusting to the dim morning light that filtered through the tent flaps. Her gaze drifted—unfocused at first—before settling on me.

And then she smiled.

It was small. Sleep-soft and unguarded. But it was genuine.

“Morning,” I said, my voice rasping lower than I intended.

She didn’t answer right away. Just reached out and traced a fingertip along my jaw, as though making sure I was real too. Her eyes met mine fully then. They were wide open and awake, and in them I saw it.

The thing I’d been aching to find.

Recognition. Not of memory, but of me . The way she used to look at me. Like I was the sun and the sea and every horizon she wanted to chase. Like I was hers.

She wasn’t ready to say it yet. I didn’t need her to. That look—gods, that look—was enough to lift me from the weight of every buried grief. It felt like breath after drowning. Like the universe cracked open just to make room for hope again.

My hand moved to the side of her face, cradling her cheek, and my thumb brushed the delicate skin beneath her eye. “You’re looking at me,” I whispered, “the way you used to.”

She didn’t deny it. Didn’t try to fill the silence with words that would only fall short. Instead, she leaned into my palm, eyes glistening, and nodded once.

“I don’t remember,” she said softly, “but I feel it.”

And stars, that was everything.

Just as I was about to say something else, probably something foolish, a sharp knock against the tent post interrupted us. Not a literal knock, but that same clipped thump of a boot heel I recognized as Myccael’s version of asking permission.

Daphne startled slightly. I murmured something soothing and shifted to pull the furs more securely around her as the tent flap swept aside.

“Hope you two are decent,” Myccael announced without looking up, already striding in like he owned the place—which, technically, he did.

Three attendants followed behind him, bearing covered trays and a silver carafe that steamed faintly. One by one, they set the food down near the low table before ducking out again, all brisk efficiency and zero curiosity.

Myccael dropped into a chair like a male with far too much on his mind to care whether he was interrupting. He lifted a piece of flatbread, tore into it with the confidence of someone who’d already moved on to planning three steps ahead.

“Good,” he said mid-chew, nodding at me. “You’re up. We’ve got more data from the drones.”

I glanced at Daphne, who was sitting up now, pulling her hair back with one hand, the furs still gathered modestly around her. She didn’t look particularly embarrassed, more quietly amused.

Unbothered, Myccael poured himself a cup of tea and continued. “They found another room through a passage branching off the northwest shaft. It looks like it could be some kind of armory. The inscriptions match the same pattern from the Zuten wall panel.”

I rubbed a hand across my jaw. “And?”

“And,” he said, pointing at the bread like it had personally helped him, “we’re widening the primary hole. I gave the order at first light. Should be ready by midmorning. We’ll go down then, so we can see it with our own eyes.”

“Who's going?” I asked.

“You, me, two guards, Zavahr. Mother, if she insists.” He shot her a look, one brow arched knowingly, and winked at me. Daphne, however, looked so pleased that I couldn't be mad at Myccael. Damn him.

She shrugged and teased. “I’ll decide after breakfast.”

Myccael grinned. We both knew that nothing would stop that seffy from going with us. Maybe Myccael was wiser of the two of us. By inviting her, he got pointers for a fight he would have lost otherwise. It was hard not to admire his shrewdness.

It was surreal how easily he moved between command and casual.

Like the sight of me half-dressed, seated beside the mate I’d waited twenty rotations to touch again, was no more noteworthy than a change in the weather.

And in a way, that was just like Myccael.

Unapologetic. Purpose-driven. And too used to battlefields to flinch at anything less than blood.

I sat up straighter, accepting a plate of food one of the servants had brought. “Did they find anything else?”

He shook his head. “Nothing yet. Dragoons have been scouring the mountains for however the Eulachs are getting in and out."

"It might not matter, there's a chance we'll figure it out from the inside," Daphne suggested, stealing a piece of meat from my plate.

Myccael reached for a second slice of bread, this time slathering it with thick, golden cream. “You know,” he said, between bites, “I used to hate breakfast. Mallack tried to make me eat before training every morning. I’d fake nausea, claim my stomach couldn’t handle food before drills.”

Daphne gave him a mock-stern look over the rim of her cup. “And did it work?”

“Only once,” I grunted. “After that, I made him run laps until he was so dizzy he couldn’t not eat.”

“I threw up halfway through,” Myccael added with a shrug. “He made me finish anyway.”

Daphne’s eyes danced with amused horror. “That sounds… awful.”

“It built character,” I replied dryly, then added, “And lungs of steel.”

“Which I never would’ve needed,” Myccael countered, “if someone hadn’t saddled me with twice the expectations.”

Daphne’s smile dimmed, just a little, and I felt the tension pull in her shoulders. But before either of us could speak, Myccael leaned back and added, more softly, “But it kept me alive. So I guess I owe you for that.”

I glanced at him, surprised by the seriousness in his tone. He met my eyes and then looked at Daphne. “Both of you, really.”

The silence that followed was warm and fragile as it stretched between us, only interrupted by the fire crackling gently.

Outside, the camp was waking, boots crunched on gravel, distant voices called orders.

But in here, it felt like we were suspended, just the three of us.

A mother, a father, and a son, piecing something back together.

“I wish I remembered,” Daphne said, her voice quiet but sincere. “All of it. The boy you were. The things we shared.”

“You will,” Myccael said. “Or you won’t. Either way, we’ve got time. We can build something new.”

Her eyes shimmered, and she reached across to squeeze his hand. “I’d like that.”

I couldn’t help but watch them—my mate and my son—sitting across from one another, talking like this. It shouldn’t have been possible. And yet here we were.

And for a few precious minutes, there was no war, no ancient technology waiting beneath our feet, no gods watching from their hidden planes. Just family. A strange, beautiful, broken family, learning each other all over again.

I could’ve stayed in that moment forever.