There once was a time in which Vanya would have laughed you out of house and home for implying that she would ever allow herself to be pregnant, much less by a homeless rogue of a stallion that hadn't so much as stopped by afterward to say thank you. Her liaison with Devil's Retribution had been brief and ultimately not that satisfying, for the relief it offered for the craving in her loins had been short-lived. Still, she had considered herself invincible afterward, when her heat continued for another few days, right up until it had begun to fade and the reality of her situation had settled on her shoulders like a yoke. No amount of kicking and screaming, regretful praying, or pleading to the gods had saved her, and she had tried all.

In truth, she'd even tried starving herself for days until the reality of the risk to her own looks had become apparent and she'd stopped. By then, even though it had been far too early for even the slightest bulge to show, she'd panicked and fled to the Commons. The rest, as they said, was history.

And if she were perfectly honest, she wasn't sad that it was Rougaru who had found her in the Commons, although she regretted the vulnerable state she had been in. As much as she'd rebelled against his touch and filled his life with as much annoyance as a lone herd mare possibly could, she still found him attractive. His bearing, his voice, his touch. Everything about him excited her in a way that she couldn't quite explain, but had never stopped feeling. The thought of his eyes on her still made her heart race and she doubted that she would ever grow tired of taunting him with the lines of her body. That being said, she had no intention of caving to him this season. For Vanya, birth had been singlehandedly the worst experience she had ever been through in her life, but the whole sum of pregnancy was a close second.

Despite all of this, she was fiercely proud of her son. He was perfection, if only because he was her own. Every inch that he grew, she saw more of herself in him, and reveled in the fact that her only child would turn out to be utterly perfect. Never again would she bargain away so much of herself with no reward.

She is so confident in her assumption of his offer that she is flippant with it, offering a hungry hum in her throat as his teeth brush against the mark he'd once laid on her hide to claim her. She reaches in return for the strong pillar of his foreleg, nibbling against the taut muscles there until he finishes painting a mental image of just how much he wanted her to be beneath him. It is unlike her to remain quiet, but she knows what is coming, or so she thinks, and does not offer more than a wicked glance as though to point out that no matter his desire, he had not taken her beneath him since that first day, when she'd all but forced him to do so.

Still, as he mentions it is an honor to carry his child she laughs, the sound a tinkling peal in the tense space between them. As much as she craved the thought of him atop her, and the pleasures they might take in repeated forays in search of a child that they would both be able to claim, she did not want it badly enough to risk her freedom. Vanya did not simply want to be free. She may claim as much, volubly taunting her silver-haired claimer, but it was not a simple unclasping of her leash that she desired as much as it was a craving for the kind of adoration he showered upon the likes of Zjeena and Monster. She wanted him to burn with fury at the very thought of her being gone, to threaten to raze the very islands they stood upon in search of her if she was taken. To hold no other above her.

As much as she adored his passing attention, it was never enough.

To be free of him would leave her only at square one, once more in search of someone to admire her. And while this would give her a chance to find someone to adore her, it was only a chance. She would rather take the sparing affection from Rougaru than risk becoming a number in someone else's herd. Vanya could still use his protection to hunt down a stallion that would fight for her.

But he does not offer this. Instead, he drills to the heart of her and threatens to steal away the one thing that is purely hers in this world. Bowed as her head is, her face remains hidden, but she doubts that he will miss the way she freezes in shock as she considers it. Her body vibrates in fury before she wrangles both emotions down where they may not be seen and claws her mask back into place.

The painted vixen dances away from him then, whirling so that her tail may whip across his forehand as she saunters a few steps away, forcing the same peal of laughter into the air that had come so naturally only a moment ago. "Have you gone senile, my King?"

She grins, the space having given her enough time to smooth the expression on her face, but not even the grin on her lips is enough to hide the rage that flashes in her eyes, darkening them to nearly black. Vanya doubts he even knows how very well he has called her bluff, but it infuriates her all the same. "You propose to free me from your claim and the bonds of motherhood by taking on the one thing that has kept me here?"

Vanya tosses her head and saunters in a slow circle, wanting nothing so much as to rip a hole in his hide for suggesting as much. She isn't immediately sure why it bothers her so, for there was once a time when she would have sold her soul for the ability to do just that, and yet now the thought fills her with a sick sort of dread that she cannot understand. "What is it you want with Drogon?" She eyes him narrowly, letting the movement of her feet keep her focused. "You have heirs already, and claim what you may, but he is mine and not yours."

Her voice drops to a growl near the end, although whether it is purely from rage or a mixture of the sexual tension her anger feeds into the situation and his audacity was unclear. "Remember, my love? Or have you forgotten that you were too little, too late to make him yours?"

She smirks then, pausing in her slow walk so that she is once again face to face with the handsome king of Paradise. "If it was a fight you wanted, you should have picked a better bargaining chip. I can be gone tonight, if you like." The proud bow of her neck raises as she tries to call his bluff, hear fluted ears pinned into the wispy tendrils of her mane.