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That same night, long after the sun had set and the moon stood high overhead, at an hour when most people would be sound asleep, a dim golden glow began to peel back the darkness that filled the cells underneath the Summer Villa.

Water from the constant rains seeped through cracks in the ancient mortar, and the entire dungeon smelled of damp, rotting straw and unwashed bodies.

In decades past, when the cells beneath the Lothian stronghold had played host to members of the Lothian family who couldn’t be trusted with their freedom during disputes over succession, the room would have been warm with a crackling fire burning in the central hearth and luxurious furniture behind the stout iron bars.

Now, however, the dungeons hosted only two people, and one of them had been born in these very cells.

There had been several times since her village fell to Owain Lothian’s savagery that Noomi considered ending her own life before she could even give birth, but every time she brought a sharp claw to her neck, she swore that she could feel the arms of her fallen Esko wrapping around her.

"Our little kit will be born soon," she’d hear his voice whispering in our ear. "What should we name them?"

Every time she had that thought, her resolve crumpled, and she couldn’t bring herself to slice into the tender flesh beneath her soft brown fur.

The Lothians had burned their burrow to the ground and with it, everything that Esko had ever carved with his own two hands.

Now, the only trace of him that remained in this world was the child they’d made together.

Saku, their son, now lay curled in the only clean blanket in the filthy cell the Lothians rarely bothered to clean, snuggling tight against his mother’s body for what little warmth she could offer in the cold, damp cell.

"Noomi?" a soft, feminine voice called as a woman carrying an oil lamp entered the musty cells. "Are you awake?"

"I am awake, Lady Jailor," Noomi said, more politely than she had months ago when the strange human noblewoman started visiting her cell.

At first, the woman had said nothing, simply visiting in the company of several guards to stare at her.

The soldiers had called the woman ’Lady Ashlynn’, and they attempted to persuade her to leave the cells where the air was foul and the ’aura of a demon’ was unescapable, but the strange noblewoman had insisted on not only staying for nearly ten minutes, but on returning several times later, especially as the birth of her child approached.

"I brought food for you, Noomi," Samira said as she walked carefully across the uneven cobblestones of the cells, holding out a small cloth-wrapped bundle.

"I hollowed out the bread and filled it with tonight’s mutton stew.

The meat might be a little tough but..." she trailed off, glancing at the wickedly sharp front teeth that protruded from the flat tailed demon’s mouth.

"I, I suppose tough meat isn’t a problem for you. "

"There’s cheese too," she added. "I’m told that it helps to sustain your milk while you’re nursing so..."

"Lady Jailor," Noomi said, looking at the nervous noblewoman with a complicated gaze. It had become increasingly obvious as the months progressed that the noblewoman’s belly was growing heavier by the month as a child of her own grew within her belly. Even if she hadn’t been more and more visibly pregnant as time went on, the questions she asked the captive member of the Heart Wood Clan made it clear that she was nervous about giving birth to her own first child.

At first, Noomi hated the way her ’lady jailor’ plied her with food when she asked questions about what it had felt like to give birth, or how she’d known that the time was upon her or a dozen other questions that she surely could have asked one of her own kind but for some reason didn’t.

Over time, however, she’d begun feeling like there was something deeply unusual about this human noblewoman.

Bit by bit, her curiosity had grown while her fear and distrust dwindled, leaving her with a strange mix of emotions tangled in her heart like a burl wrapped around a tree trunk, spiky and strange with a growing curiosity about the character of wood that lay trapped within.

"Why are you doing this?" Noomi asked for what felt like the dozenth time. "And don’t say that it’s because we’re similar," she added as she took the bundle from the blonde noblewoman and began to carefully set out the meal that her captor provided. Not only was there cheese to go with the bread and stew, but her captor had even brought a small crock of fresh ewe’s milk, just in case Noomi’s milk had diminished too much to feed little Saku.

"But, we are the same," Samira said, leaning against the bars of the cell and pressing a hand into her spine to ease the ache she felt after taking her midnight stroll down to the kitchen. Thankfully, the head cook, Otis, seemed to know frightfully little about the needs of a pregnant woman.

When Samira said she got hungry in the middle of the night and didn’t want him to force a servant to remain awake all night long to tend to her, he’d objected at first but he quickly relented when Lady Jocelynn returned to Lothian City taking many of the servants with her.

Now, he thanked the Holy Lord of Light that Lady Ashlynn wasn’t as demanding as her younger sister and that he didn’t need to keep the kitchens running all night long.

Already, he’d begun to wish that he’d fled to wherever Ollie disappeared to when he vanished with that Lynnda woman after Otis set fire to the kitchens for the young couple to escape.

After enduring the beating from one of Lord Owain’s soldiers for allowing two of his kitchen servants to kill Sir Kaefin, set fire to the kithens, and escape into the wilderness, it was a miracle he’d been allowed to stay on as a cook at all.

He’d almost been grateful when one of Lady Jocelynn’s servants took over the kitchens during her stay until he realized that the ’head cook’ didn’t expect to get his hands dirty and only intended to sit in the kitchens giving directions while everyone else worked.

Now that Lady Jocelynn was gone, he was glad to be back to serving the far more understanding Lady Ashlynn. She seldom asked for much and at night, it was enough to set out a few items for the pregnant noblewoman that she might retrieve on her own, or not, depending on her mood each evening.

"Noomi," Samira said softly as she wrestled with what she should say to the captive demon who had strangely become her only friend in this lonely villa. She’d all but given up on the idea of befriending Lady Jocelynn, who seemed to resent her for resembling her late sister.

The strained relationship between the real noblewoman and the one impersonating her fallen sister would likely be impossible to mend, especially when. ..

"Noomi," Samira said, taking a deep, shuddering breath. "You shouldn’t call me ’Lady Jailor’," she said, finally making up her mind to cross the line she’d been afraid to cross.

"I, I’m not really a lady. It’s just pretend," she said, staring into the demon’s soft hazel eyes and trying to find the words she had been struggling to say for the past month.

"My name is Samira," she admitted with a heavy sigh. "I’m not really ’Lady Ashlynn’, I’m just pretending. And, and even though I have a little freedom to move around this villa, I’m every bit as much of a prisoner here as you are."

"Why?" Noomi asked, narrowing her eyes skeptically at the woman standing outside the bars, wearing fine silks with gold and jewels hanging from her neck.

"Why would you do such a thing?" Noomi asked, pausing as she dipped the corner of the cloth into the ewe’s milk so she could squeeze a few drops into little Saku’s mouth.

"Is this why you asked me so many questions about what it’s like to be with child?" the captive woman asked, feeling like she’d finally bitten into a corner of the truth. "So you would know how to act like a woman who was really with child?"

"No, no, that isn’t it at all," Samira said quickly.

"I, I was supposed to be pretending. I have padding that I wore under my dress in the beginning but.

.. but before Lord Owain left, he, he and I.

.." she said, lowering her head awkwardly and blushing.

"So, even though I’m not really the Ashlynn he married," she stammered. "The child in my belly is his."