No. He entrenches in the fortress of his mind.

The siege was not lifted. It had only begun.

It did not end there. The stallion pressed him again before nightfall, and again at dawn. Each time the weight, the bite, the fire. Each time his body lifted its tail in treason, opened, clutched. Each time he shook after, hollowed, mocked. The stallion shadowed him, claimed him, filled him.

Estrus held him like chains. Days of it. No rest, no reprieve, only the same betrayal. His mind raged, but the flesh yielded again and again.

When at last the heat ebbed, he stood gaunt, trembling, hide slick with sweat. Not free, not unchanged. Something had been set in motion, deep and silent.

The weeks turned. The fire did not return. No heat, no restless ache, no tail lifting in treason. At first he thought it victory — that discipline had mastered flesh at last. He almost dared to believe it.

But the stallion’s shadow told him otherwise. The beast no longer courted, no longer tested. He guarded. Kept close, steady, as if some treasure had been laid in him and made him more valuable, more fragile.

Then came the heaviness. The drag in his stride, the hunger sharper, the weariness deeper. His flanks began to swell, his breath came harder. By the seventh month, he felt the stir within — faint at first, then sharp, a kick that stole his breath and mocked his denial.

No wound marked him. Yet he was changed. Not broken, but altered, remade. His body bore what his mind would never have chosen: life where once he had carried only arms. Life where he had brought ****.

He'd become what no knight he'd heard of had ever been: a mother to be.

And he endured that too.