To heal a Rogue

FIA

The crying started before the knock did, small and hiccuping through the door. I was already sitting up by the time the soft rap finally came against the wood.

I heard someone shushing her on the other side, their voice low and gentle. "It’s fine. Don’t wake them up."

I reached the door before they could finish and opened it to find Muna standing there in her nightgown, cheeks blotchy from crying. An Omega hovered behind her, wearing the particular expression of someone who had already apologized several times in her head before I even appeared.

"I’m so sorry for disturbing you, Luna," she said, bowing quickly. "The young mistress was inconsolable."

"I know," I said. "You can go tend to Wyatt now. I’ve got her."

I scooped Muna into my arms, and her little arms immediately locked around my neck as I carried her back into the room.

"What happened, baby?" I asked, settling her against my hip.

"Bad dream," she mumbled, her voice still thick with tears.

"Is it the one with the painting again?" I asked. "The one where you fall into it?"

She nodded against my shoulder.

I pressed a kiss into her hair. "It’s just a dream, baby. But you can stay here tonight if you want."

Behind me, Cian shifted against the headboard, sitting up with a groggy grunt. His voice was rough with sleep when he spoke.

"I don’t know about that. Wyatt’s going to notice his sister isn’t coming back and come running. He can’t stand being left alone in a room, not since he found out his sister gets special treatment."

True to his word, another small knock sounded on the door before I had even finished settling Muna beneath the blankets.

I sighed, then walked over and opened it.

Wyatt stood on the other side, his hair sticking up in every direction, the same Omega behind him wearing an expression that practically begged forgiveness before I had said a word.

"I thought you told me you weren’t afraid of the dark, Wyatt," I said, bending down until we were eye to eye, one eyebrow raised.

"I’m not," he insisted, his little face twisting with indignation. "I was just worried about Muna."

Of course he was.

I stepped aside and let him in.

Wyatt immediately made a beeline for his father, climbing into Cian’s lap without ceremony. Cian caught him easily and settled him against his chest, one arm curling around his small body like it was the most natural thing in the world.

For us, it had become exactly that.

I returned to the bed and laid Muna properly in the middle, smoothing her hair away from her damp cheeks. I stroked it slowly, watching her eyelids grow heavier with every pass of my hand.

When her breathing finally evened out, the last little hitch of her sobs fading into sleep, I let myself reach for the gift I rarely used on my own children.

I wanted to take a peek into her future, as I had done sparingly before. But nothing came.

It had been that way from the very first time I tried, back when she was still an infant, small enough to fit comfortably in one arm. Even with Wyatt, all I had ever managed to catch were fragments, brief and disjointed images that never quite assembled into anything coherent.

But with Muna, there was nothing at all.

Only a wall where a window should have been.

That was what worried me most.

The dream she kept having was always the same, night after night. She was falling into some painting, though she could never describe the painting properly when she woke. She was only one, so perhaps that was all it was, a nightmare born from a child’s imagination. Or perhaps it was something else entirely.

A warning trying to reach her.

A glimpse of something she wasn’t old enough to understand.

Or maybe she had inherited the same gift I carried, and it simply hadn’t found its proper shape yet.

I couldn’t tell which possibility unsettled me more.

Cian must have noticed the change in my expression because his hand found mine beneath the blanket, his fingers curling gently around it.

"It’s fine," he said quietly. "I don’t think anything is wrong with her."

"Maybe not right now," I murmured. "But it doesn’t help that I can’t see anything for her. Not even a glimpse."

"Please," Cian said, his thumb brushing over the back of my hand. "Focus on the present. I don’t love that you can call on that particular gift at will these days. It only gives you another reason to worry about things that haven’t happened yet, and might never happen at all."

"My mother’s worry kept me safe," I said.

My gaze dropped to Muna.

"It gave me the chance to actually be happy eventually. I want the same thing for our children. So not seeing anything for Muna, not even a flicker, worries me more than you know."

"It’s fine," he repeated, softer this time. "Get your mind off it for tonight, at least."

I looked down at Muna.

She was fully asleep now, her small face relaxed and peaceful, so far removed from the terror she’d described that it was almost easy to believe the dream had been nothing more than a child’s nightmare.

Almost.

Beside her, Wyatt had drifted off against his father’s chest, one small fist still loosely gripping the fabric of Cian’s shirt.

I forced myself to look away.

If I couldn’t see the future, there was no point torturing myself over what I couldn’t know.

To distract myself, I reached for my phone on the nightstand and found a message waiting from Lysander.

"Oh..." I murmured, mostly to fill the quiet. "He’s texted."

"Who?" Cian asked, continuing to stroke Wyatt’s hair.

"Lysander."

He made no attempt to hide his reaction to that.

"You two still keep in touch?" Cian asked, though it wasn’t really a question.

"He’s our children’s godfather," I said. "Of course we do."

"I never actually agreed to that title, if I recall correctly."

"You didn’t have to. It’s nice having the royal family in our corner," I said, unable to keep the smile from my face.

"I don’t know about that."

"What did he say?" Cian asked, nodding toward the phone still glowing in my hand.

"He needs my help," I said, reading the message again. "With the newly discovered healer."

Cian straightened properly now, careful not to jostle Wyatt where he slept against his chest.

"I don’t like that."

"Why?" I asked. "Jealous?"

"I might be," he admitted. "But that has very little to do with why I don’t like it."

I laughed quietly at his honesty, keeping my voice low enough not to disturb either child.

"Fair enough. What’s your actual reason, then?"

"The secret’s out now," he said. "I used to think you were some rare, once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. But it seems healers from the age of legend are slowly finding their way back into this world. Maybe the goddess’s heart is softening toward us again. Who knows? But goddess only knows what our own kind will do to get their hands on someone like that. It could end up far worse than what happened before, historically speaking."

"I’ll be fine," I said. "I promise. I’m more than capable of handling myself, and Skollrend isn’t exactly a pack anyone wants to test. The royal family will be there as opposition as well."

I crossed the room and leaned down to press a kiss to his forehead.

"It’s nice having someone out there who’s just like me. I don’t think this girl understands much about what she actually is yet. I can help her with that."

"I still don’t like it," he admitted. "But I understand."

He tilted his head up and kissed me properly, brief but warm.

"On the bright side," he murmured against my lips, "it’ll give you something else to think about besides Muna’s future."

I laughed softly at that, though the worry hadn’t actually left me. It had only retreated to the quiet corner of my mind where it always seemed to live these days, waiting patiently for another reason to remind me it was still there.

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