Page 54 of Hunted By Bruk

"I would have waited forever."

"I know." She smiled. "That's why I stayed."

Three weeks later, the offspring came.

Three of them, just as she'd calculated. Two males and a female, small by my standards but healthy, strong, their tiny bodies already showing the calcified plating they'd inherited from me.

She held them against her chest, exhausted and triumphant, while I knelt beside the birthing platform and stared at the miracles we'd created together.

"They're perfect," she said.

"They're ours."

The nursery, the one I'd built twelve cycles ago, the one that had sat empty for so long, was finally full. Three platforms occupied. Three offspring making small sounds as they learned to breathe air. Three futures that hadn't existed a year ago.

I thought about the forty-three females who'd come before her. The ones who'd run and hidden and screamed. The ones who'd left through the portal without looking back.

None of them would have designed death traps while pregnant. None of them would have critiqued my ventilation system. None of them would have looked at my empty nursery and seen hope instead of desperation.

She'd seen all of it. And she'd stayed anyway.

"I need to expand the Keep," I said. "More chambers. Space for them to grow."

"I'll help you design it." She looked up at me, our offspring cradled against her. "We'll build it together."

I leaned down and kissed her forehead. Kissed each of our offspring in turn. Looked around the nursery that was finally serving its purpose.

She'd stayed. She'd chosen to stay.

I would spend the rest of my life being worthy of that choice.