Autumn clung to the land like a stubborn tick. While commendable, its tenacity was for naught. Its hold diminished with each passing day. The days grew shorter, the nights colder, and the trees were one hard frost shy of dropping the rest of their yellow and orange leaves at the foot of their mighty trunks. Winter was on its way. Soon the ground would freeze, the forest would go dormant, and thick layers of white snow would blanket everything in sight.

Oralia despised being away from home during winter. The coming season would be unlike most as, for the first time in decades, she no longer possessed a home to return to. She had no house, no bed, no hearth, destined to spend the bitter months holed up in hiding, burdened with the prospects of death and new life at the same time. The thought was almost as chilling as the cool night air teasing the back of her neck.

“Moonflower?” Sascha’s rumbling voice coaxed Oralia from her thoughts. He thumped the tree with the flat of his hand once more, producing a solid thud. “Are you going to sit down?”

“Of course.”

“Really? Because from here it looks like you’re considering scaling the nearest tree.”

Oralia snapped her eyes away from the closest cottonwood, realizing she had been staring rather intently at it. “I feel like scaling a tree,” she admitted. “Given the circumstances, however, I think that would be ill-advised.”

“And why’s that?” Sascha said with the gentle patience of someone well acquainted with the art of luring stray cats into the home with scraps of food and soothing sounds.

Oralia loved it almost as much as she hated it. Mostly because it was working. Stifling a sigh, she joined him on the fallen tree. “I need to speak with you.”

Good start. Keep going.

“And I…it is not something I can speak about with ease.”

Sascha waited for her to finish.

Oralia was annoyed by his patience. Why couldn’t he interrupt her like everyone else? Would it make admitting any of this easier? No. But a little distraction would have been nice. “The infection is bad, as we suspected, but Novera believes it to be treatable. She has sworn to do everything in her power to find a cure in exchange for liberating her village.”

“I see.” Sascha’s tone suggested he’d steeled himself for the worse and what he got was not that. His voice lifted, betraying the relief that eased the deep worry lines around his doleful eyes. “This is good news then, yes? We already knew you were going to stay and fight. This is more hope than we had before.”

“There’s more.” Oralia took a breath to ease what remained of her frayed nerves. It didn’t help, but at least she was still breathing. “The darkness is not solely responsible for my poor health. There is another condition at play.”

Sascha’s brow furrowed. He looked her up and down, as if expecting to be able to diagnose the issue from a single glance.

The words still didn’t come. Oralia reached for his hand instead and placed it on her stomach. There wasn’t any sort of distinguishable bump yet, aside from what she’d had from dinner perhaps, but surely it was the sentiment that counted.

Suddenly it was Sascha who looked to be mere moments away from bolting up the nearest cottonwood. Eyes wide, he opened and closed his mouth several times before finally settling on a single-worded question. “...You’re?”

“Yes.”

More stunned silence.

Oralia hadn’t known what to expect. She was still reeling from the news herself. Still, nothing at all was not the reaction she’d been hoping for. She lifted Sascha’s hand from her stomach and let it drop, clicking her tusks against her upper teeth as she did so. “I am warning you now, if the next question you ask is whether or not it is yours, you will be the one running for the trees.”

“I can’t believe it.” It was as if her words had drifted in one ear and out the other, unheard. A giddy smile pulled across Sascha’s handsome features. “I’m going to be a dad. You’re going to be a mom.”

The very word nearly sent Oralia scrambling.

Sascha placed his hand on her leg as the smile slowly slipped from his face. The reality of their situation had finally started to settle. His joy swiftly transformed to concern. “The dark magic,” he said. “Will it affect the baby?”

Oh gods, another word she wasn’t ready to hear! Oralia severely wanted to slap her arms to stop her skin from crawling. She refrained from doing so, prevented only by the concerned stare her fuckmate was giving her. “I do not know. Novera says the…it is strong, though.”

“The it?”

Oralia almost smiled. Her refusal to call the ‘it’ by any other name was ridiculous and it was a small relief that Sascha thought so as well. It meant he was still functioning, at least. Better than her, anyway. Unfortunately, the next words out of Oralia’s mouth immediately swallowed the temporary relief Sascha’s interruption had provided. “If left untreated, the infection will claim me and the it.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Sascha processed the information in silence before contributing his thoughts. “I see why you are reluctant to call the it by any other name.” His hand moved from the top of her thigh and settled over her own, offering a reassuring squeeze. “I’m sorry. You must be terrified.”

“I am.” Terrified was an understatement. And yet, amongst the spiral of fear and anxiety, she kept glimmers of hope too. Having a family brought with it some form of normalcy. She could settle down, put up the sword, do all the things she’d been swearing to do since retirement. Provided she and the ‘it’ survived, of course. After liberating a village from realm control without an army. Just her, a handful of fighters, against an enemy with all the resources it needed to hunker down for the winter and wait them out.

Her thoughts had finally caught up to what her body had been trying to tell her all evening — they were doomed. She was doomed. The entire situation at hand was doomed.

Fuck.

“I’m here for you, Moonflower.” Sascha squeezed her hand again. “For you and little Merrick.”

The mere mention of the name stopped Oralia’s internal spiral dead in its tracks. The foul word rolled off her tongue tasting of soot and spite. “Merrick?”

“I knew you’d like it.”

“That’s your mother’s name!”

Sascha’s other arm snaked around the back of Oralia’s waist and pulled her closer. His roguish smile came with a wink. “It’s strategic, Moonflower. Name our firstborn after her and Mother will have no other choice but to start liking you.”

“Your mother hates me.”

“Which is why my plan is undeniably brilliant.”

As much as it made her blood boil, Sascha’s teasing served its purpose. Some of Oralia’s inner turmoil eased. She lifted her gaze, meeting him in the eye for what felt like the first time all evening. “What do we do?”

“What you already plan to do, I suspect.”

“Ignore all of my problems until they go away?”

“You’re right, that’s a terrible plan,” Sascha said. “For the record, I think we’d be decent at parenting if we tried. If you wanted to, that is.”

“My mother died in battle when I was nine. Father passed shortly after of a broken heart.” Oralia’s gaze dropped to her feet. “The mere act of staying alive would put me above my parents.” The bar was practically on the floor and yet, it still seemed insurmountable.

“And look at the bright side. If we pass, your sister can raise little Merrick.”

Oralia whipped her head around at him and glared.

Unfortunately, all it did was encourage his teasing smile to spread further across his face, revealing his front teeth. “No? Well then there’s always Grandma Merrick.”

“Who hates me.” While it wasn’t a favorable detail, it was important enough to bring up again, just in case Sascha had missed it the first time.

“We’re asking her to raise our orphaned child, not you. It’ll be fine. Mom will take good care of little Merrick.”

Oralia buried her face into his chest with a groan. “I refuse to name any of our future children after your mother. I will not give her that satisfaction.”

“Oh, so we’re having more than one, are we? How ambitious of you, Moonflower. You’re going to have to stay alive to carry that out, though. At least long enough to complete the collection.”

She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed, feeling as though she was holding on for dear life. She was grateful for the teasing. If anything, it made the moment less devastating than it could have been. Unfortunately, no amount of jesting could fully alleviate the worry gnawing at her from the inside. “I’m still scared.”

He rested his chin against the top of her head. “Me too.”

“I’m scared something will happen to it before it is born. I’m scared the darkness will claim it and me, before it is time. And that you will be left alone.” She took a breath before admitting, “And even if none of that comes to fruition, I’m still scared that I’m not ready for this. Of all the perils I have faced in my life, this one terrifies me the most.”

“You’re more afraid to fuck up our future children than you are to die in battle?”

“Absolutely.”

“Admittedly, that’s not the sort of reassurance I’d like to hear at the moment, but I can’t tell you how to feel. You won’t be perfect at it, nor will I. But at least you can fix the mistakes you make with them. There’s no coming back from death.”

“Stop talking sense.”

His hand moved up into her hair. “Someone has to.”

“Regardless, I am going to have to fight.”

“I know.”

The foul taste of soot and spite vanished from her tongue, replaced instead with that of fermented herring. Oralia nearly choked on her own wretched words. “You’re not going to tell me no?”

With her face pressed up against him, Oralia had no way of seeing Sascha’s reaction. From his voice, she could tell he had one eyebrow raised higher than the other in skepticism. “Would you listen if I did?”

“Of course I would listen.” Heeding his words, on the other hand, was an entirely different beast. It wasn’t in Oralia’s nature to alter course purely on the whim of another, but this was Sascha and he, above anyone else, deserved a say in the matter. His objection would at least make her consider any and all possible alternatives.

It was time to cut the bullshit and get straight to the heart of the matter. Oralia lifted her head and locked eyes with him. “I am about to gather an army to overthrow the realm presence in Lonebrook. I intend to do so while cursed with dark magic and carrying your child. If you have any objection to this plan, say so now, before I commit to something I cannot back out of.”

“I object to everything about this plan.” He allowed the idea to settle before finishing his thoughts. “But I also realize we do not have an alternative. If I want to spend the rest of my life with you and little Merrick, then I will agree. So long as you promise to not push me away when things get difficult.”

That was doable, right? All she had to do was assemble an army, defeat an enemy that had already claimed the high ground, and survive the dark magic coursing through her veins while carrying a child. Oh, and avoid being a complete asshole to her fuckmate while doing so. All perfectly feasible! So, so feasible. A sane person would have thrown in the towel right then and there and declared it a lost cause. That was the thing about sanity, though. Those that followed the path of sanity typically had better options. Oralia was down to just two — pull it off or die trying.

She buried her face back into Sascha’s chest with a groan.

His strong fingers worked their way back through her hair and scraped along her scalp. “What’s that, dear? Was that a ‘Yes, Sascha, love of my life. I swear I’m not going to do that thing where I push people away the moment the going gets tough’?”

Whatever swear words slipped free of Oralia’s open mouth were muffled by his shirt.

“Yes, I know. I love you, too,” Sascha carried on, misinterpreting her sounds as he wished. “I was only kidding about Merrick, by the way. But since you fancy it so much, I suppose I could consider it. For your sake.”