Page 111 of Dead Drop

"Good work yourself."

That rumble in his chest again. The almost-laugh. The humor that lives between us.

The understanding that we're building something here, in the canopy, in this aerie, in the room with the pale furs. We're building it together. One patrol at a time. One conversation at a time. One morning at a time.

Outside, the night is complete. The drop is still there, fifty-three floors of air, the clean fall, the option that was always mine. The calculation that was right three times on a rooftop when I was empty and alone and had nothing left to lose.

The numbers changed.

The sum of her life. The sum of his presence. The sum of the territory we're holding.

The sum of the world we're making.

I'm not going over the edge.

I'm going to stand. I'm going to fight. I'm going to hold this territory, raise this daughter, keep this male safe, teach the ones who come to the aerie seeking refuge that their survival is worth something.

I'm not afraid of the height anymore.

I'm not afraid of the fall.

I'm not afraid.

And in the pale light of the furs across the aerie, in the warmth of his arms around me, in the steady rhythm of his heartbeat against my back, I am exactly where I choose to be.

EPILOGUE: ADA

The baby is three months old. She has his eyes.

Not the color—not yet. Newborns shift. But the shape of them, the way they track movement with a focus that shouldn't belong to something this small. When I hold her against my chest, her gaze finds the canopy light the way his finds the horizon: steady, alert, already assessing.

I named her Maren.

Corvin didn't speak for a full minute when I told him. He sat at the fire with his hands on his knees, his tail frozen mid-sweep. His jaw shifted. The brow ridge creased. Then his hand came up, covered mine where it rested on the swell of my belly—this was before, a month before she arrived—and his thumb traced a slow circle on my knuckle.

"Maren," he said. Testing it. His voice rough in the way it gets when the language is carrying more than it was built for.

"If you don't want?—"

"Maren."

That was the conversation. The name stuck.

She sleeps against my chest now in the sling Corvin made—woven canopy fibre, lined with the soft pale fur from the nest.She's tiny. Five and a half pounds at birth, the labor shorter than I expected. My body knew what to do. It moved with the brutal efficiency of something remade for exactly this purpose, and she came into the world silent. No cry. Just those eyes, already open, already watching.

She cried later. She has lungs. She has opinions.

The morning is cool. The canopy is doing what it does in early spring—the new growth pushing through the bare winter branches, pale green against the dark bark. The air smells like wet earth, new leaves, the mineral scent of the stream running high from snowmelt.

I strap on the blade. Hook the climbing hooks to my belt. Settle Maren in the sling, her head tucked under my chin, her weight warm against my sternum. She makes a sound—the small huff that means she's awake but not unhappy. Her fist closes on the collar of my jacket. His scent in the fur lining. She knows the smell. It calms her the way it calms me.

The short hair is lighter. That's the first thing I notice every morning—how much easier it is to move. Two months ago, I asked him to cut it. The practicality was obvious: Maren grabbing at my braid like it was a toy, the weight pulling when I climbed, the annoyance of it in the furs when he had his hands in it. But when I held the braid out to him—the dark length of it, the thickness, the part of me I'd been carrying for years—I expected him to drop it.

He didn't. He cut it with one careful claw, the blade edge precise. Then he wound it into the leather ties of his loincloth, looped it tight, knotted it like it was treasure. He didn't explain. I didn't ask. The braid sits there now, close to his body, woven into the places where his cock rests. A piece of me he carries the way I carry the weight of his scent.

This is what nine-foot predators do with sentiment. They hide it between the leather and the scales, and they never speak about it.

Corvin is waiting at the aerie edge. He's been doing the perimeter check since before dawn—the northern ridge, the stream crossings, the eastern markers I redesigned six months ago. His dark red hair curls around his crown horns, thick and damp from the mist. His wings are folded against his back. His amber eyes settle on me and hold.