Alex

ALEX

E verything hurts. Everything. Even my hair.

I do not want to open my eyes, but the soft scent of cinnamon makes me. I crack one. It's crusty, and it's painful to move my eyeball.

Sylas is curled next to me, his head pillowed on his hands, almost like he is praying. Although in Sylas' case, more like prey -ing. He has a wing over me, the feathers warming and soft in a way which belies the strength within. It's like they're a complete opposite of him.

My bad, sweet, vicious Sylas.

He looks like he hasn't slept in eons, and the last thing I want to do is wake him, only I don't understand what's going on.

"Hey," I croak. It sounds like my voice hasn't been used for a long time.

His eyes fly open, the wing flailing back, as if he's never seen me before. It's only now I see we're not home.

We're somewhere else entirely. Somewhere which looks suspiciously like a cell, given the lack of furniture and window.

"What's happening?" I try to move and fail entirely. I'm bound up in cloth. "Did they find us?" I want to fight against my bonds, but my body is screaming at me, and any fight I have is sucked away with the pain.

" Eregri! " Sylas falls back beside me, his hands hovering over my face. "You are awake!"

"Yes, I'm awake. What's going on?" I flop like a fish out of water.

His hand makes contact with my cheek in the most gentle of touches.

"I thought I lost you." His voice is hoarse, his liquid dark eyes more liquid than ever.

There are new gashes on his body. It looks like he's been fighting again.

"I didn't…" It occurs to me I don't remember anything after our chase in the forest. "Where have I been?" I tremble as he pulls me into his arms as carefully as he can and presses the softest kiss to my lips.

"Somewhere I couldn't get."

"Ah! My patient is awake." A female Tref, broad in the shoulders, unlike the males, and with a creamy green skin, marches into the plain room. "Let me have a look at her, Sylas," she orders.

Sylas gives me another kiss and reluctantly releases me, eyeing the Tref, but at the same time, he is complying with her .

"I am Sontok," she says, bending over me with a smile filled with pointy teeth. "Healer of Ryle," she says pointedly with a glance over at Sylas.

It's a good thing I know the Tref are a completely benign species, the original inhabitants of this planet, and I suspect, are probably still in control of it, no matter what all the Habosu, Lyrans, and Uhaxt believe.

"," I respond. "What's wrong with me? I ache all over and…" I swallow. "I feel sick."

"There is nothing wrong with you now, not since Sylas obtained the relevant ingredients for the anti-venom for the czanak sting…nasty things," she says with a shake of her head and waving a healer's wand over me before narrowing her eyes at the readout. "You have some residual effects which will be the joint pain but otherwise nothing wrong with you at all, and the little one in your womb is also unaffected."

Relief washes over me, cutting through the confusion. I was stung, Sylas brought me here, and even left me to get what I needed.

"Womb?!" I burst out as the important part of what Sontok has said hits me.

"Womb?" Sylas rumbles, instantly at my side, regardless of the look Sontok gives him. "What do you mean?"

"I mean your mate is with young," she says, her voice melodious.

"That's…that's not possible," he stutters out. "I cannot have young."

"What I'm seeing in here"—Sontok puts her hand on my abdomen in a proprietary fashion—"is most definitely part Gryn. I presume, given what I've heard about your nesting, you have been mating your eregri well?"

"I have. Of course I have. She is mine," Sylas grinds out, balling a fist, but somehow he isn't as threatening as he has been in the past. "But I was…altered…by the Drahon…at the farm. My ability to have young…"

"Is very much in evidence, young Gryn." Sontok finishes his sentence and Sylas simply blinks at her.

A soft chime comes from outside the room, and Sontok looks over her shoulder.

"You can release your mate from the healing straps," she tells Sylas. "But she is not to move too much, not until I have a reading of zero."

The chime comes again, and Sontok huffs. "I'm coming, I'm coming." She bustles towards the door. "There's food available in the warming chamber. Make sure she eats," she calls back.

And then she is gone. And then there is just me and Sylas. Silence stretches out. His face is unreadable.

"You are with young," he says, finally. "Our young."

"I'm sorry," I say.

"About what?" He pulls at the cloth binding me, releasing my arms and legs.

"If this isn't what you want."

Sylas stares at me, unblinking, for so long I put my hand out to touch him. His huge, scarred hand wraps around mine, and he brings it to his face, inhaling deeply.

"This is everything I could ever want, my eregri ," he says. "You, me, young in your womb. Our young. Young we created. You are truly my fate, , and I would move planets to be with you forever."