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“May I?” Orion asked, looking at me expectantly, palms raised.
“Oh. Yes,” I answered before his cool fingertips were palpating my neck, between my jawbone and my choker.
“You were saying?” Orion titled his head, concentrating.
“My appetite is good. I’m eating as much as I can when I can. Slept like the dead last night.”
“Like the dead?” He pulled back and eyed me strangely. Then he laughed. “Must be a local colloquialism I’m not familiar with. I take it that’s a good thing.”
I smiled, amused. “Yes. I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.”
“Good, good. Now, lift your arms. This may tickle.” He pressed under my arms, then onto the balls in my shoulders and into the muscles of my upper arms. “And any fever?”
I shook my head. “Not since the uh…”
“Estrus.” He nodded. “Good, good.”
He checked my ears, my mouth, tongue, eyes. Held my fingers and pressed my nails in quick succession, then moved to my wrist where he mumbled something like a countdown as he pressed against the thin skin there.
Fadon waited patiently by the window while the healer worked, arms crossed, eyebrows in a straight line, watching the whole procedure like a guard.
“I’ve been told,” Orion said, “that the Owl Servant is somewhat of a healer. Thank the gods he was able to see you through your first estrous cycle.
I felt my cheeks heat as I let the comment pass, saying nothing.
Now finished with my wrist, Orion stood back and clapped his palms together. “You seem in remarkable health, child. I was told you had questions for me.”
I stole a glance at Fadon before looking back at the gray-haired man.
“Which of course you’ll want to discuss in private,” he said with a knowing chuckle. “Captain, if you’ll step outside?” He turned to Fadon, who uncrossed his arms, his expression a warning.
“I will stay.”
“Captain Trajan, I have two oaths. One is to serve my queen, the other to serve the ailing. The latter will always be the superior, something your queen knew before she found me in Sadad twenty-odd years ago before acquiring me as her people’s healer. I assure you the omega is as safe with me as anyone. Now, step out of the room.”
Fadon grunted, eyeing me, then eyeing Orion, and finally, he eyed the door. “Very well.”
It would have made me laugh, watching him struggle, but he seemed quite scary right then. I had forgotten how much space Fadon seemed to take up, filling a room with power.
Once he left, shutting the door behind him, I released a breath.
Orion shook his head. “Those alphas. Stubborn as the day is long, I tell you. You give them an inch, they try to take a mile.”
I grinned. Yes, I liked Orion very much.
Chapter 32
Sierra
“Now, I assume,” Orion said, “you know nothing about the alpha omega dynamic. Before you ask your questions, let’s sit at the table over there. I have a hot pot of tea calling our names.” He helped me get down, and we walked over to the table by the window. Once we were seated, he poured the steaming tea into two cups, handing me one, before taking a sip of his own.
“I must say, dear, it is a delight, a pure delight to have you here at the Mor! I have only met two omegas in my lifetime. The first one was when I was a lad. My father, who was also a healer, had brought me along one day to call on an old woman whose daughter, Rose, was with child. Rose looked about your age, much too young to be the old woman’s daughter. But her true age was seventy-five” He stared out the window, lost in memory. He shook his head “She was indeed. My young eyes couldn’t believe it, and from that point on, I made it my mission to know more about the anomaly of the omega.”
He looked at me apologetically.
I smiled and shook my head, reassuring him I took no offense. “And the second?” The tea was soothing, sweet, and delicate. I wondered what plant the tea derived from.
“The second was, ironically, an older woman. Not nearly as frail or as wrinkled as Rose’s mother, but she was overtwo-hundred years old. Our queen’s mother. Well, and mother to your betrothed and the captain, of course.”
