He wraps his husband, his omega, into his embrace; he purrs full-throated, now, though he cries, too. He aches terribly at Burr's pain, but he is confident now that this pain is survivable, and this eases his fear.

A wounded and inflamed part of him, buried deep, insists: see, he belongs with me, he wants me, he's mine and preens with a kind of sick pride over it, that he would win even in this most intimate of battlegrounds. But that is only a very small part of him, shrunken and banished under the attentions of his mate, his children, by the happiness they have enjoyed. Once, he was all wounds. Now, those have healed to scars, and even his scars have grown soft with time.

He settles into a half-doze, attentive for Burr's state, for Ned's return, for movement outside their little refuge.