Page 77 of Baited

The female Tref won’t stop looking at me, which earns her a snarl until a little hand curls around my arm and a pair of beautiful eyes gaze into mine.

“It is you?” she croaks. “Is it really you?”

Relief which isn’t mine floods my head.

“I’m here,eregri.I am here.”

“Blayn.” A shaking hand reaches up to touch me on my face. I lean into it. “We’re going to have a baby.”

The scramble in my head unwinds and I can see clearly. I can see her trepidation, her anxiety, and I want nothing more than to soothe it.

“You are with young?” My voice is hoarse, and my heart is beating out of my chest.

Her hand grasps for a strange looking stick and she holds it up to me.

“I am pregnant,” she manages.

I grasp her to me, pressing ky-sses onto her skin, smothering her in them because it’s all I can do as my head spins and I struggle to see her, to see anything. Instead I curl around my mate and hold her tight.

“Blayn!” Rych bellows in my ear as I open my eyes.

Izzy is still in my arms, a confused look on her face, but her hands are clasped behind my neck, and as long as I have her this close, I don’t care about anything.

“What?” I growl.

“You both collapsed,” the Habosu madame states.

“I think I fainted,” Izzy says.

“I don’t faint,” I say, gently stroking my knuckle down the side of her face, unwilling to look at anything else.

“You did,” Rych says with far more glee than necessary.

“My head was hurting,” Izzy whispers.

“Mine was too. My eye felt like it was about to pop out of its socket,” I tell her.

“Too much information,” she responds with a smile. “But mine did as well,” she adds in a loud whisper.

“Thoughtbond!” Rych blurts out. “It’s the thoughtbond! Your mate is not just your mate, she’s your fated one!”

IZZY

Ishove my face into Blayn’s wings, drinking down his soft spicy scent and luxuriating in the feel of his soft feathers. I’m as weak as a kitten after fainting, discovering Blayn had dropped out of the sky, and then somehow our minds linking, resulting in another period of unconsciousness for us both.

Something which seems to have amused Blayn’s fellow gladiator, Rych, significantly. Although I note he’s not far from us, arms folded and eyes watching our every move, even if he does have a smug smirk on his face.

The two madames, having confirmed we’re staying conscious, have bustled off together somewhere.

“What is a thoughtbond?” I ask Blayn as I trace my hand down his chest, swirling over his tattoos.

“I’m not sure.” He gives Rych the side-eye. “But I felt you in my head and heart. Maybe it’s that.”

“You were in my head too.” I lean against him. “Are you okay about the baby?”

“I’m here with you, myeregri,” Blayn says. “I am the happiest I’ve ever been because I have you and you have our youngling in your belly.” He grins at me.

Blayn doesn’t do his little hitched smile, he genuinely grins at me, his entire face holding the smile as he slides his hand over my stomach and pats it.

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