Page 100 of Dead Drop

I strap on the blade. Hook the climbing hooks to my belt. Pull on the leather jacket, and the familiar drag is different now with the curve of my belly pushing against it.

I press my hand against the curve, briefly, the way I used to press my hand against the settlement wall before a shift—touching the thing I'm protecting, reminding my body what the day is for. The difference is I'm protecting her from inside now. She's mine. I'm hers.

Corvin is at the edge of the aerie, his tail doing its idle sweep against the bark. His cock quiet beneath the loincloth. The morning light catches on the curve of his horns, makes them glow like there's fire inside them.

"Take the ridge path," he says. "The upper route is wet from last night's rain."

"I know. I'll test the footing."

"Ada."

"I know how to walk in the rain."

He does the thing with his mouth that means he wants to argue and is choosing not to. The brow ridge lifts. His tail tip taps against the aerie floor twice—the percussion of restraint, of choosing her autonomy over his fear.

"If the eastern markers have been disturbed?—"

"I'll fall back to the stream crossing and signal."

"You come back safe," he says. Not a request. Not quite a command.

Just the statement of a fact he's decided will be true.

"I come back safe," I agree.

He studies me. The amber eyes doing their slow read—the set of my shoulders, the way my hand rests on my belly, the readiness in my posture. Then his tail rises from the floor, crosses the space between us, and wraps my wrist once.

A squeeze. His version of a kiss goodbye. The pressure of something holding onto something it loves and letting it go.

"Be loud if you need me," he says.

"I'm always loud."

"Louder," he says. And there's something that might be a smile at the edge of his mouth—the brow ridge lifting again, the soft huff of air that is his closest version of laughter.

I go. Into the canopy, into the territory, into the day. Carrying his scent in my hair and his child in my belly and the knowledge that there's something waiting for me in the aerie when I return.

Not just shelter. Home. The gravity that holds me here.

40

ADA

The pregnancy is further along. Four months, perhaps closer to five. The curve is undeniable now—a firm round swell beneath the fur-lined jacket, heavy enough that I feel it when I climb, when I fight, when I roll over in the furs at night.

I fight differently. Not weaker. Sharper.

Faster decisions, less margin for error. The awareness of something I'm protecting has reshaped my tactical instincts the way the rut reshaped my body—filling me without permission, making me something I didn't plan to become.

I come back from a perimeter check—the eastern ridge, the new markers holding, no Stained sign for six days—to find the aerie changed.

A secondary chamber. Set into the wall of the main nest, sheltered from the wind in a pocket of stone he's carved smooth. Lined with the softest furs I've seen in the aerie.

Pale pelts. The kind he reserves for the deepest layer of the nest, the ones that touch skin. He's woven new branches around the opening, creating a frame, a threshold. A doorway into a room that didn't exist three days ago.

A place for something small.

He's at the fire. His back to the new chamber. His tail doing its idle sweep.