Page 117 of Dead Drop

Petra sent word about troop movements. Dov sent word about supply routes. The resistance is growing. Slowly. The way the canopy grows—one tendril at a time, reaching, covering, claiming.

I'll deal with it tomorrow. Tonight belongs to the fire and what we've made in it.

In here—the meat, the warmth, the male with the baby in his arms. The climbing hooks on the wall. The blade. The sling. The pale furs in the room he built for our daughter, the room where she sleeps and makes small fierce sounds in her dreams.

He leans down. The massive frame curves, the effort visible in his shoulders. His mouth finds the crown of my head, his lips in my hair.

"Ada."

Just my name. The way he says it. Like he's checking the word still carries everything he put in it. It does. It always does.

I put my hand on Maren's back. She's warm under my palm. Corvin's arm beneath her, my hand on top. The three of us, layered. The smallest thing he's ever held, cradled in the most dangerous arms in the wasteland.

She stirs. Her eyes open—dark, alert, tracking the firelight. Her mouth works. She makes the sound.

"Hungry," Corvin says.

"I know." I take her from him. The transfer is practiced now—his massive hands passing her to mine, the careful navigation of claws and soft skull and the sling straps. She settles against my chest. I open the jacket. She latches.

His tail finds my knee. His cock does the idle prehensile flex beneath the loincloth. The fire is warm. The night is close.

Somewhere in the wasteland, the world is burning or healing or both. Somewhere, women are being traded. Somewhere, the Ordained are smiling their silver smiles. The work is not done. It may never be done.

But right now the baby is feeding. The meat is cooked. The territory is secure. The male beside me is warm, alive, watching his daughter eat with an expression that could break me if I looked too long.

"Corvin."

"Ada."

The fire crackles. The nightbird sings. The wasteland does what the wasteland does.

We do what we do.

43

EPILOGUE 2: SECOND ROAR

Want to know what comes after?

Three years later, Maren is three — amber-eyed, white-horned, already climbing things that should be too tall for her. The territory is mapped. The Ordained know better than to come this far into the canopy.

Ada has a question she's ready to ask. Not because the rut demands it. Because she wants to.

Second Roar, the bonus novella, is free when you join Allegra Rose's newsletter.

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"Corvin."

He turns. His whole body turns, the tail unwrapping from my ankle. The firelight on his crown horns, casting them in shadow. His amber eyes catchingthe light and throwing it back. The face I've learned to read like terrain—every ridge, every shadow, every micro-shift that tells me what he's thinking before the words arrive. The face I've watched for three years, learning the grammar of his expressions.

He's waiting. He always waits. He lets me find the words.

"I want another baby."

His whole body goes still.

Not the stillness of surprise. The stillness of something very large recognizing something singular. His tail freezes on my ankle. His cock—soft beneath the loincloth a moment ago—goes rigid. Not aroused yet. Just alert. Something inside him hearing something it recognizes.