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M y son .

His son .

Daisy was… pregnant? Pregnant ?!

Daisy’s mouth fell open, and something began roaring in her ears, even louder than her screeching heartbeat. She was pregnant? With Filak’s son ?!

A choked noise escaped her throat, and she yanked back from Filak on the bed, clapping both her tingling hands to her lower belly. As if she could feel something, know something, see something — but nothing looked different, nothing felt different. And how — how would Filak even know? And she’d still been on Lew’s intensive concoction, it was good for a month, it had worked for years and years …

But Filak was still staring at her, the furrow still cut deep in his brow. “ I … scent this, sólin mín ,” he said, and as if to demonstrate, to make it extra clear, he slowly bent down, and inhaled deep against her skin, against that fresh red line of his vow. “ Scent him in… your blood.”

In her blood. No , no, that couldn’t be possible, Daisy couldn’t be pregnant, she couldn’t. She’d felt nothing, seen nothing, nothing …

“But,” she croaked at him. “ That doesn’t make sense, Filak . I wasn’t supposed to be able to get pregnant, not yet, my protection was supposed to be good for a month! And our agreement, it’s only been two weeks! And I was definitely not supposed to…”

But her voice faded, because a horrible new suspicion was rising, festering, screaming through her skull. Had this been… on purpose? A plot? A plan to trap her here with him, forever? Even if she decided to leave?!

But Filak only blinked at her, and something bobbed in his throat. “ Two weeks… for mate,” he said, hoarse. “ For see… me . Not … our son .”

What? Wait , did he mean — did he think a son had been — separate from that two-week agreement, somehow? Exempt ?! Something Daisy would want from him, even if she didn’t want… him? Even if they weren’t together?

But oh gods, oh no, that look in Filak’s eyes, the rising confusion, the stubbornness, the disbelief. Dragging up visions of that terrifying night in Lew’s apartment, nei, Daisy , nei …

“Why would you think that?” Daisy asked, as her body edged further backwards on the bed, away from him. “ Why would I have still wanted to have a son with you, even if I left you?!”

It came out sounding far too shrill, like an accusation, or maybe a curse. Harsh enough that Filak flinched beneath it, and his face had gone very pale, his marks looking almost mottled against his white skin.

“Son is… gift,” he said thickly. “ Son is art. Son is… light. Blessing from gods, beyond price.”

The chaos roared higher in Daisy’s ears, pummelling against her ribs, because… he believed that. He really, really believed that. He wanted that. All this time, Filak had wanted a son . With her .

“But,” Daisy gulped, her voice sounding very far away. “ You never — you never said! You should have told me!”

The words echoed through the room, striking against the stone walls, against Filak’s pale face. “ I … tell you,” he whispered, though his voice wavered. “ Ach , sólin mín , I tell you.”

What? No . He hadn’t. Of course he hadn’t. Not once. Right ?

But the way he was staring at her again, as if Daisy was an unfathomable foreign enigma, a painful confusing mistake. “ I tell you,” he said again, harder this time, waving his claw between her vow, and the empty chair beside their bed. “ I tell you, before I make vow! Julian sit here, and tell you in common-tongue, how I wish to grant you son!”

His voice sounded strained and wounded now, as if he was on the verge of weeping, and it took a long thudding moment for those words to settle, to sink through the screeching in Daisy’s skull. Filak had told her. Before he’d made the vow. That morning when Julian had sat here, and translated for them, and said…

You welcomed the promise of his son. Your art shall be part of the son you make together. You ought to know the truth of your mate, and the son he longs to grant you.

Oh, gods. Oh , fuck. He had said it. And Daisy had thought… she’d heard…

“I thought you meant — sun,” she whispered, raising her jittery hand to her heart, drawing the familiar shape against her skin. “ The kind of sun in the sky. With clouds. Stars .”

She attempted a wretched little smile, but Filak only kept staring at her, and she felt the smile falter and fade, twisting into something almost like a sob. Stupid . Foolish . Ridiculous …

“ Nei ,” came Filak’s voice, thin and scraping in her ears. “ Nei , Daisy . We speak of son after, also. We learn this in book. We speak it in Skyli . Ach , we speak of Kalfr son, just two days past! You know sonur is son . You know .”

Daisy flinched further back against the bed, yanking her knees up against her chest, wrapping her shaking arms tightly around them. “ I didn’t know,” she croaked. “ I mean, I suppose I did know sonur , but I didn’t” — she gasped for air — “ I didn’t connect it, I didn’t know you wanted it, I didn’t think it was a risk!”

It came out in a wail, and Filak just kept staring at her, again as if she was something foreign, something wrong. “ But … you know risk, Daisy ,” he said, halting now. “ I send midwife to you. Gwyn . She tell you. I send Eben to you. He tell you. Even Efterar say he offer this to you, keep my son away from you — and you say no!”

What? Daisy gaped at Filak again, the protests whirling up hot and urgent. Of course that hadn’t all happened, right? And yes, maybe she could remember Efterar offering her pregnancy prevention, and she hadn’t thought she’d needed it — but when had Gwyn come to her, or Eben ? Gods , she’d only met Eben a few times, in the dyflissa and back in the sickroom, and…

The memory swirled up into the chaos, the vision of Eben earnestly talking to her in the sickroom, just like… just like the way Gwyn had, too. Both of them had come to see her, droning on about tedious facts and probabilities and options, but Daisy had only half-listened, caught instead in the threat and the thrill of Filak , so close outside that sickroom, and still so far away.

And now Filak was here, near enough to touch, but he was all disappointment and disbelief, his bleak eyes searching her face. “ You pray for this, Daisy ,” he whispered now, as his hand dropped to his groin, to the soft hanging length of his cock. “ Last eve. I tell you all these prayers. For strong seed and fucking. For plenty. For good filling of my son.”

No. No . Daisy squeezed her eyes shut, shook her head, but Filak’s impossible words just kept dangling there, the conviction ringing through his voice. He’d said that, yes, he’d thought she’d understood it too, and then…

And then Daisy had knelt and painted him so slowly, so carefully. She’d given him that eye. She’d even kissed the fresh ink, marked it all over her lips. As though it really had all been a prayer, an urgent heartfelt plea to the gods, and then…

“Gods hear you,” came Filak’s hushed, halting voice. “ They no hear my prayers, but they hear you. They see you, sólin mín .”

They heard her, they saw her, his gods answering her prayers, giving her a son. Giving her a gift, art, light, a blessing beyond price…

And for a breath, as Daisy’s prickling eyes caught on Filak’s pale watching face, she could almost see it, almost believe it. She could… stay. She could be Filak’s mate, and they could live in the Skyli together, and raise a son. A small, dark-eyed orc son, who might grasp his tiny clawed hands at rocks, or pencils, or both. Who would be raised by parents who loved him, and maybe by all Filak’s Nor -ka-esh kin, too, in a safe place, a home , free of danger and attacks and darkness…

But no, no, the vision was already fading away, breaking into the darkness. Because the darkness was so close now, maybe it always had been, creeping and curling around them…

Because no matter what else Filak had tried to tell Daisy , he’d still agreed to those two weeks. He’d promised to give her that time and space to choose. And the entire time, he’d also been trying to spawn his son upon her. Trying to trap her in a way that was far worse than the dungeon, than the chain on her neck in the dark. In a way that was permanent, forever, impossible to escape.

Daisy’s stomach churned, the ache pulsing behind her eyes, because — because Filak still had told her that part of it, hadn’t he? He’d told her again and again, without shame, without hesitation or remorse.

I rule you. I trap you. I break you. Mine . Mine , mine, mine.

And Daisy had kept ignoring it. She’d kept looking away, pretending she hadn’t heard, trying not to see…

She’d been a fool. Such a stupid, stupid fool.

And before she could shatter apart beneath it, she shoved off the bed, groped for her clothes, and ran.