Az hadn’t so much as hesitated before going into the heart of Hybern’s war-camp.

Cassian leaned his head against the back of the chair, rustling his wings through the gaps crafted to accommodate them. “Nesta will scry on her own, eventually, if she’s capable.”

“If Briallyn and Koschei find just one of the Dread Trove items—”

“Let Nesta try it her way first.” Cassian held Az’s stare. “If we go in and order her to do it, it’ll backfire. Let her exhaust her other options before she realizes only one is viable.”

Azriel studied his face, then nodded solemnly.

Cassian blew out a breath, watching the flames leap and flutter. “We’re going to be uncles,” he said after a moment, unable to keep the wonder from his voice.

Azriel’s face filled with pride and joy. “A boy.”

It wasn’t a guarantee that a High Lord’s firstborn would be his heir. The magic sometimes took a while to decide, and often jumped around the birth order completely. Sometimes it found a cousin instead. Sometimes it abandoned the bloodline entirely. Or chose the heir in that moment of birth, in the echoes of a newborn’s first cries. It wouldn’t matter to Cassian, though, if Rhys’s son inherited his world-shaking power, or barely a drop.

It wouldn’t matter to Rhys, either. To any of them. That boy was already loved. “I’m happy for Rhys,” Cassian said quietly.

“So am I.”

Cassian looked over at Az. “You think you’ll ever be ready for one?” Ever be ready to confess to Mor what’s in your heart?

“I don’t know,” Azriel said.

“Do you want a child?”

“It doesn’t matter what I want.” Distant words—ones that prevented Cassian from prying further. He was still happy to be Mor’s buffer with Azriel, but there’d been a change lately. In both of them. Mor no longer sat beside Cassian, draped herself over him, and Azriel … those longing glances toward her had become few and far between. As if he’d given up. After five hundred years, he’d somehow given up. Cassian couldn’t think why.

Az asked, “Do you want a child?”

Cassian couldn’t stop the thought that flashed: of him and Nesta against the wall a level below, her hand rubbing him exactly the way he liked it, her moans like sweet music.

He’d left her unsatisfied—she’d run off before he could make it even between the two of them. He’d gone up to Windhaven after the meeting earlier, and hadn’t seen her at dinner. Wasn’t even sure what the hell he’d say to her, how they’d have a conversation.

It was like the unfinished bargain inked across their backs, that imbalance of pleasure. And a matter of what he unashamedly could call male pride. She had the upper hand now. Had looked so damned smug when she’d cut him: quick off the mark.

His knee bounced, and he glowered at the flame.

“Cassian?”

He realized Azriel had asked him a question. Right—about children.

“Of course I want children.” He’d contemplated it often, what manner of family he’d build for himself, how he’d make sure his children never spent a moment thinking they were unloved and unwanted; never, ever spent a moment hungry or scared or cold or in pain.

But no female had ever come along who’d tempted him enough to fight for that future.

He supposed, deep down, that was what he was holding out for: the mating bond. What he’d seen between Feyre and Rhys.

Cassian blew out another breath and got to his feet. Azriel lifted a silent brow.

Cassian aimed for the door. He wouldn’t be able to rest, to focus, until he evened the playing field. As he entered the hall, he muttered without looking back, “Turn a blind eye, chaperone.”

Curled up in bed, a book propped on the thick down comforter, Nesta was just getting to the sizzling first kiss in her latest novel when a knock thudded on her door.

She slammed the book shut and sat up against the pillows. “Yes?”

The handle turned, and there he was.

Cassian still wore his leathers, the overlapping scales of them full of shadows that made him look like some great, writhing beast as he shut the door.

He leaned against the carved oak, his wings rising high above his head like twin mountain peaks.

“What?” She slid the book onto the nightstand, sitting up further. His eyes dipped to her sleeveless silk nightgown, then quickly returned to her face. “What?” she demanded again, angling her head. Her unbound hair slid over a shoulder, and she saw him mark that, too.

His voice was rough as he said, “I’ve never seen you with your hair down.”

She always wore it braided across her head or pinned up. She frowned at the locks that flowed to her waist, the gold amongst the brown glimmering in the dim light. “It’s a nuisance when it’s down.”

“It’s beautiful.”

Nesta couldn’t stop her swallow as she lifted her gaze. His eyes were blazing, yet he remained leaning against the door, hands trapped behind his body. As if he were physically restraining himself.

His scent drifted to her, darker, muskier than usual. She’d bet all the money she didn’t have that it was the scent of his arousal.

It set her pulse hammering, careening so far off the path of sanity that she scrambled after its vanishing leash. To let him affect her so easily, so greatly—unacceptable.

She didn’t dare look below his waist, not as she shaped her lips into a cool smile. “Here for more?”

“I’m here to settle the debt between us.”

His words were guttural. Her toes curled beneath the blanket.

But her voice remained surprisingly calm. “What debt?”

“The one I owe you for last night.”

He spoke as if there was no room in him for teasing, for humor. His eyes drifted lower than her face, noting the hammering of her pulse. “We have unfinished business.”

She grappled for anything to guard against him. “Male pride is a thing of wonder.” When he didn’t respond, she threw another wall his way: “Why are you even here? You made it clear enough that last night was a mistake.”

He was having none of it. “I never said that.” His attention remained fixed on her hammering pulse.

“You didn’t need to. I saw it in your eyes.”

His gaze snapped to hers. “The only mistake was that I came before I could taste you.”

Nesta knew he didn’t mean her mouth. Or her skin.

Cassian went on, “The only mistake was that you ran off before I could get on my knees.”

Breathing became difficult. “Won’t your friends tell you this is a mistake?” She gestured to the air between them.

“My friends have nothing to do with this. With what I want from you.”

He said it with such intent that her breasts pebbled. His eyes dipped again, and when he saw her nipples hard against the silk of her nightgown …

His entire being seemed to focus on it. On her. All five hundred years of being a trained warrior, an apex predator. All of it, narrowing on her.

His appraisal enveloped her like a rush of wind, of fire. “What about training?” she breathed.

“This stays out of training.” His eyes had turned wholly dark.