Page 81 of Storms of His Wrath

Naya already knew it. Even Oppo knew it. He just hadn’t seen it clearly until this moment. And now he didn’t know how to become what his mate needed, because beyond everything else, he still wanted her by any means necessary.

She’d already told him he’d damaged her too deeply for them to be together. Even as he’d held her trembling body, watched her shatter beneath his touch, felt her melt into his embrace—she’d made it clear she couldn’t be an example to Omegas with him as her mate.

She couldn’t be proud of him. Couldn’t let him continue to taint everything she represented. Because that’s exactly what he’d done to her.

Oppo would never understand the full scope of it. His brother’s path had been different—five years of noble sacrifice, of choosing love over selfish desire. Akoro couldn’t look at him and his mate and compare himself, not when he had grown to be a beast while Oppo had stayed on the sidelines, not getting his hands dirty.

The question burning through his chest was whether Naya could accept that, now she had an understanding of what they could be together?

When Oppo finally left, he took no answers with him.

Later that day, a sharp knock interrupted Akoro’s spiraling thoughts. “Come,” he called, expecting perhaps Nrommo with more reports or one of the servants with the evening meal. Instead, Oppo stepped through the doorway again, but this time he wasn’t alone. A small figure darted past him into the chambers, moving with the boundless energy that only children possessed.

“Uncle Akoro!” Nnimi’s bright voice filled the space as she launched herself toward his bed with complete fearlessness.

Akoro’s heart stopped. This tiny person—his niece, his brother’s daughter—stood before him with sparkling eyes and copper-threaded braids, looking so much like a miniature version of her mother that it took his breath away. But there was something of Oppo in the shape of her face, the determined set of her small jaw.

“Careful, shku nulri,” Oppo said gently, using what must have been an endearment in the Omega tongue. “Uncle Akoro is still healing from his injury.”

“I’ll be careful,” Nnimi promised solemnly, then climbed onto the chair beside his bed with the practiced ease of someone accustomed to being around adults. “Papa said you got hurt saving everyone from the scary magic.”

“Something like that,” Akoro managed, still struggling to process the surreal reality of having this conversation with his brother’s child—family he’d never known existed until a few days ago.

“Does it hurt very much?” she asked with the direct curiosity of childhood.

“Not so much anymore.”

“Good.” She nodded with satisfaction, then reached into a small bag she’d been carrying. “I made you something. For getting better.”

She pulled out a piece of parchment covered in the kind of artwork only a four-year-old could create—stick figures with wild hair and enormous smiles, surrounded by what might have been flowers or possibly stars. One figure was clearly much larger than the others, and she pointed to it with pride.

“That’s you,” she announced. “And that’s Papa, and that’s Mima, and that’s me, and that’s Princess Naya. We’re all together and happy.”

The innocent drawing hit Akoro with unexpected force. Here was a child’s vision of family—simple, uncomplicated, built on love rather than duty or politics. In Nnimi’s world, it was perfectly natural for everyone she cared about to be together and happy. No impossible choices, no competing loyalties, just the basic truth that people who loved each other belonged in the same place.

“It’s beautiful,” he said, his voice rougher than intended. “Thank you.”

“You can keep it,” she said generously. “I made lots more at home.”

Home. She spoke of the hidden canyon as home, the place where she’d grown up safe and loved despite being separated from half her family. Yet here she was, accepting him into herworld with the openness of a child who’d only known love and trust.

“Nnimi,” Oppo said gently, “why don’t you show Uncle Akoro the book you brought?”

She brightened immediately, pulling a slim volume from her bag with reverent care. “It’s about desert flowers! Princess Naya said she wanted to learn about them, so I thought maybe you would too.”

For the next hour, Akoro found himself drawn into his niece’s enthusiastic explanation of various flora, her small finger pointing out illustrations while she recited facts in the serious tone of someone sharing extremely important information. She switched between languages without thought, occasionally lapsing into Shtonma when excitement overwhelmed her vocabulary in the Common Tongue.

Watching her animated face, seeing the intelligence that sparkled in eyes so much like Oppo’s, Akoro began to understand what his brother had tried to tell him. This was what love looked like when it was allowed to flourish—joy, family, the simple pleasure of sharing knowledge with someone who mattered.

“Uncle Akoro?” Nnimi said during a lull in her botanical lecture.

“Yes?”

“Are you going to marry Princess Naya?”

The question came with such innocent directness that Akoro nearly choked. Across the room, Oppo’s eyebrows rose toward his hairline, though he made no move to intervene.

“Why do you ask that?” Akoro managed.

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