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Aodh's devastatingly handsome bulk consumed her vision as he stood before her.

Smiling at his overwhelming, commanding presence as she rose from her seat wasn't hard.

“Do you mind eating in the Hall this morning?”

“No. Not at all.” The boisterous crowd of Drahks would make it easier to keep her thoughts from straying.

“Then come on, little flame, let’s eat. So, you can keep your word.” Aodh pulled her against his side and gave her the most salacious stare, only offset by the love she felt coming off him.

She may have issues with something right now, but she didn’t doubt this dragon-shifter's love for her.

Kai settled against him and allowed Aodh to lead her out the door.

~YH~

“Ladon, please tell Tana not to bring up my afternoon meal. Avalore should be here shortly, and we’re going to do some sword training and maybe take a walk.

We will return for a late lunch in the hall.

” Kai finally made it to the last stairs.

She felt more encumbered these days as the baby had seemed to double in size over the last couple of weeks, making her appear as if she were about eight months pregnant.

Even though the little Drahk gave her body the strength to move about without lumbering, things like traversing multiple stairs could be cumbersome. Kai was thankful that the young guard didn’t offer to assist her; it would have made her feel she wasn’t managing.

Kai talked and gathered with other pregnant Drahk a few times, and none of their pregnancies slowed them down a bit.

They still worked, flew multiple aerial maneuvers, and trained as hard as their male counterparts, including Avalore, who had barely begun to show at all yet in the two weeks, and she carried twins.

“Yes, Aguya. I’ll be right back and then provide you both with an escort to the practice arena.” Ladon moved past her and entered the archway of the Hall to carry her message to Tana.

Feeling restless as usual, Kai exited the building in the opposite direction from the guard. She sighed as the sun bathed her skin, radiating warmth. If she wasn’t standing before a blazing fire, the sun was the next best thing.

Unable to stand still, Kai walked. She needed to keep moving and stay busy, so she’d spent the last hour cleaning and wiping down the small suite where her nest sat waiting for the day she delivered.

The place was spotless, not a speck of dust. Tana ensured that the place stayed ready, even though, by everyone's calculations, she still had more than a week to go.

But no one knew because it had been centuries since the last human-Drahk birth.

Most of her late afternoons, she dug around in her garden and waited for Aodh to finish work for the day.

She knew most of his long days consisted of early mornings in the sky with Liekki and various teams flying through maneuvers and attack plans.

In contrast, his afternoons had him in the McKenna offices in strategy meetings and on the radio with others from the preternatural council.

The only thing that broke up his day of dragon military tactics was his afternoon meals with her. Which, most days, he came home for, where they managed to pack as much food and lovin’ as possible into a couple of hours.

Thoughts of those afternoon trysts made her heart flutter and her sex ache.

Pre-dawn and afternoons were their times, since the nights belonged to the babe inside her.

It never seemed to rest at night, its most active time.

All the pushing and shoving around her uterus made it practically impossible for her to get comfortable unless she was curled in one of the forelegs of the Mckenna.

Aodh’s dragon could connect with the small one and settle it down.

So, following the evening meals, Aodh would debrief her on his day, and then they retired to the hoard room.

He’d shift, and she’d tuck in tight for the night until she woke in the morning in their bed and was tantalized by her mate-husband’s arduous kisses.

She’d made plans with Avalore today, since Aodh and Liekki would be down by the southern coast working on long-range flame throwing, and over a large body of water was the best, so as not to have one of the inexperienced young adults, Eilidh and her friends, inadvertently set off a forest fire.

Avalore’s dragon had yet to emerge, but it didn’t stop her friend from spending long hours with one or both of Liekki’s broadswords in her hands, working alongside Khuzaimah, learning and helping to train.

Thoughts of her friend caused Kai’s feet to power through the forest underbrush.

Not considering where she was headed, just needing to move, she walked as she thought about all the marvelous ways Avalore had changed in the last two weeks.

Not only had all Avalore’s scales come in, but the shorter woman’s body had begun to transform in other ways.

The newly turned Drahk’s body was more toned, and the muscle definition in her body was cut, proving Avalore’s strenuous training and emerging dragon genetics.

Avalore had become practically fluent in Drahk and preferred to speak it over English, the only language their human government allowed. All others were outlawed from the moment the underground doors had been sealed.

Kai was glad she could understand it, for now, otherwise Avalore and she would find communication awkward. Aodh had told Kai that once Avalore’s dragon emerged, all her friend's other abilities, like a youngling, would transpire—fire-wielding, smoking, shifting, flying, and inhuman strength.

Aodh told her that everyone was watching Avalore, expecting the first sign that her dragon's full emergence was imminent: scale illumination.

Although happy for her friend, Kai still struggled with her inadequacies.

Am I enough ? It wasn’t the first time those secret thoughts flooded her mind. While alone with her guardian daily, she let the thoughts out. Aodh was usually a reasonable distance away from the heart of their territory, doing drills, and she didn’t fear him overhearing them.

However, she knew she still had to be careful because if she wasn’t paying attention to the humming of warmth that was always subtle underneath her skin when her mate-husband was near, he could catch the thread of her thoughts.

Because she wasn’t a Drahk, she had no power or ability to keep him out of her mind. She was just thankful that he respected her enough to erect a veil between them to allow her some autonomy.

The man was remarkable.

Am I enough? She hated the doubts that constantly haunted her since seeing Avalore in the smoke-filled chamber with the precious scale marking beginning to pepper her body.

However, the closer Kai got to the end of her pregnancy, the harder it was to stave off the thoughts and contain her anxiety about her loss.

“If I wasn’t going to keep the ability, why even allow me a taste of them?” Kai stared up through the canopy of treetops, feeling safe enough to release the words where no one was around to hear them.

She noted the cloudless sky, which was bluer today than days before. Everyone in the territory was talking about how the purple hue that had been a constant reminder of the damage to the Earth's atmosphere was receding more and more each day.

Kai exhaled. “Let it go, Kai. Aodh loves you no matter your aptitudes. The Drahk have accepted you and will continue to accept you.”

It was the mantra she repeated to herself to combat her uncommon self-deprecating thoughts.

She turned back in the direction she’d come and realized she had gone further than she intended. Because she’d been trying to outrun her wayward thoughts, she’d mistakenly let her feet carry her far along a path.

Avalore may already be at her place, and Ladon would be looking for her.

Aodh would be upset that she’d gone off without her guard.

He’d told her about the mutant-like human her ex-government had dropped off to the council.

The scientists weren’t only experimenting with Dispatch women, but men, too.

She was troubled, but not a fool. The human government had shown the preternatural council that it could not be trusted. It was why there was always a guard assigned to her when she was outside of their home.

Snap.

Kai froze. Her heart lost a beat, only to restart and raise every hair on her body. Something was off, not right.

Her unborn child allowed her to recognize every Drahk in the territory. She could even feel their presence when they were near—literally, the dragons within each shifter reached out to her baby within her, the Mckenna’s offspring a magnet of comfort and assurance for them.

However, right then, she did not experience an overwhelming sense of connection with whatever was in the forest with her.

She tried to tell herself that maybe a goat had escaped from the pen, a secure livestock enclosure where multiple Drahk workers managed their breeding and upkeep.

However, her reassurance didn’t stop her from placing a hand on the hilt of her long sword strapped to her expansive waist as she pivoted to determine what was behind her.

Run!

Her mind screamed the single word, but the sight of the six-foot abomination before her, with its long, matted, stringy red hair, broad-scaled upper body, thick arms that extended into talon-like fingers, as it stood on odd, furry hindlegs stunned her, and caused her feet growing roots into the soil.

It’s one of them.

“Rrrrrrrrrr!” Spittle came flying out with the raucous roar as every blade-like tooth gleamed in the sunlight from the bearish muzzle in the center of its face. Its beady red eyes locked onto her with a horrific glare.

Bloodlust . If this thing got its hand on her, it would rip her apart and devour her one vicious bite after another until there was nothing left.