26. Lexa
Chapter 26
Lexa
S ava smiled at me with evil intent when I glared at him.
“Someday that’ll be us, Blue,” Arim’s rumbled.
That someday might very well be today.
Butterflies filled my stomach at thoughts of mothering. What did I know about parenting? Much of what Muri had taught me lay buried under the pain of her death, and learning about the right way to guide a child meant soul searching through the hurt that came with Muri’s memory.
Then too, any child of mine was bound to be confused. A Dark Lord mother and a Light Bringer father? And not just any Light Bringer, but the Guardian of Storm. We’d have to get rid of his Killer of Shadow moniker, especially if the babe was a Darkling —
What the hell am I thinking?
I must have broadcast my panic because Arim tightened his hold on me.
“Blue?”
Luckily, Darius interrupted. He walked arm in arm with Samantha, next to Marcus and Tessa, as they rounded on Arim. The others joined us, and I felt like a bug under a microscope. Everyone crowding, staring… Memories rose, the feeling of being judged and found unworthy present as I recalled another instance when Light Bringers had surrounded me.
“What the hell?” Cadmus stared from me to Arim and laughed. Aerolus joined in, shocking everyone. Cadmus snorted. “All that shit you gave us about marrying creatures of Dark, I think you said, and you go and fall for a Dark Lord ?”
The others began smiling, though Darius and Marcus looked less amused and more suspicious.
I shook my head. “It’s not —” what you think refused to come because Arim interrupted.
“You will treat my chosen with respect. Because if you don’t, I’ll let her do whatever she wants to with you.”
Ellie elbowed Cadmus in the gut, and he bent over, gasping. “I, for one, am glad to have Lexa with us. It was only a matter of time.”
Alandra nodded, her cheeks rosy, full of happiness. “Me too. Balances out all the Light in this place.”
“Don’t look at us,” Tessa said, sharing a glance with Samantha. “We’re just poor xiantopes , women with no power but the stuff our husbands let us use.” She batted her lashes at Marcus. “And ‘let us use’ is quoting the esteemed Church. You’ll have to blame all the Light on our idiot husbands.”
“Tessa,” Marcus said with a sigh, sounding pained. His arms tightened around her as he brought her in for a sound kiss.
“I don’t know. I kind of like the idea of Darius changing diapers.” Samantha laughed at the pained look on her husband’s face, but her expression sobered as she caught site of Ravyn again. “It’s terrible to be happy when Ravyn’s not here with us.”
“She is,” Aerolus whispered, looking over our shoulders.
As one, we all turned to see Queen Ravyn glowing with the afterlife. She smiled and waved, then winked out of sight.
“I thought she couldn’t do that.” I wondered who kept making up these rules for the dead. What happened to Don’t tell Arim I was here?
The narrowed glance Arim shot me had me tense. His hand stilled on my belly, the heat of his Light filling my stomach with a drowsy, pleasant warmth. “We need to talk.”
“Yes, we do,” Sava emphasized, staring hard at me.
I swallowed, not ready to tell Arim what I suspected. “Right. We need to focus here. I’m not exactly your —”
“— wife, not yet,” Arim ended, addressing his family and me with a definite bite in his tone. “We’ll fix that soon enough. In the meantime, we have a whole new set of circumstances to handle. Sava and I will deal with Sin Garu. The rest of you must protect yourselves and Tanselm. We can’t afford to lose any more Storm Lords. No arguments,” Arim directed at Darius.
To my surprise, Darius agreed.
“What about the Church?” Jonas asked, his aura Dark with anger. “No one’s addressed that yet. I told you Remir said the Church —”
“Remir?” I welcomed any information I could find about the Djinn.
Jonas clenched his jaw. “Dead, torn apart by demons. But before he died, he mentioned the Church when he warned me about Ravyn’s pending death.”
I found myself pitying the departed Djinn and frowned, not liking this sudden welling of emotion for everyone and everything. Bad enough, I loved Arim. Did I have to start feeling gladness and sorrow for everyone I knew as well?
A glance at Arim showed his gaze centered on Jonas. He demanded that Jonas recount what had happened to Remir and swore when Jonas finished. “By the Light, I hope what I’m suspecting is wrong. We can’t afford to trust anyone but ourselves anymore. Jonas, you’re in charge of the Sarqua Djinn. Alandra, the Aellei are yours. Both of you focus on your people and ferret out any possible traitors. Pray to the Dark you find them before I do.”
His eyes blazed, power welling in the inky orbs, and I couldn’t focus on anything but his magic. Damn, my lover was hot when riled.
His nephews nodded with satisfaction. I could see their relief that their uncle had returned to normal…or so it appeared. I still wasn’t sure what had happened when I’d brought Arim back from the brink of death, or how Sava seemed to know what to do to save him.
“If you need me, call out.” Arim tapped his head. “Darius and Aerolus, I’m open to you. But if you can no longer feel me, it’s because I’ve cut myself off.”
“Why?” Marcus asked.
“Because he’ll be hip-deep in battling a Dark Lord,” Aerolus answered. What normally passed for a smile flitted over his lips. “Not the one by his side, but the other one we don’t favor so much.”
“You’re not really going up against him by yourselves?” Darius asked.
I had wondered how long it would take the most stubborn of the princes to come to his senses and object. Not that I didn’t agree. If Arim thought he was going to confront Sin Garu with only Sava by his side, he was looking to get his ass handed to him — by me .
“You stupid —”
Arim placed a hand over my mouth and ignored the ice frosting his fingers. “Later. We’ll talk about it and other things later. Give me a minute, Blue.” He left my side to confer with his nephews.
Which left Jonas and Sava ample time to corner me while the affai shared their joy with one another.
“Are you going to tell him?” Sava asked.
“Tell who what?” Jonas stared between us, talking in the same hushed tone.
I snarled as much as I could while whispering, “Sava, shut up. I’ll deal with this in my own way.”
“She needs to tell Arim she’s carrying his children,” he explained to Jonas.
Children? Wait. What?
“ Holy shit .” Jonas looked flummoxed, and I hurriedly shushed him. “So what are you having? Little shadows? Will half the kids be Storm Lords and the other half Dark Lords? That’ll be fun.” He pretended to hang from a noose. “How many are you expecting?”
“ Shut. Up .” I ran my hands through my hair in agitation. I so did not need this right now. “Ravyn was muttering a lot of nonsense. I think the Next addled her brain.”
Sava kept grinning.
“I don’t remember Ravyn saying anything.” Jonas stared from Sava to me and back again, awaiting an explanation.
Sava happily answered, “While the rest of you were frozen by our touchy little Dark Lord, Ravyn showed up to congratulate the affai on their pending bundles of joy. She included Lexa as well.” He turned to me. “I distinctly recall she looked at you and mentioned ‘children.’”
“But that doesn’t mean I’m pregnant now.” I immediately lowered my voice when Arim’s head jerked up, and his startled gaze met mine. I hunched down so Sava blocked his view. “She likely meant an early congrats for the children I’ll have later. As in, one at a time a few years down the road…if we survive this war, that is.”
“Hmm, maybe.” Sava didn’t look convinced. “Still, you should level with Arim. If it were my aeva , I wouldn’t want her anywhere near Sin Garu with a babe in her belly.”
“True.” Jonas crossed his arms over his chest. “Think of the child.” He glanced at Sava, then grinned back at me. “Sorry, children .”
“You two are a royal pain in the ass, you know that?” I snapped. “And not one crack about you being a king, Sava.” The Aellei opened his mouth and closed it without a word, his lips curled. “I don’t feel a life inside me, and I’m powerful enough to know the truth. Bottom line is that if Arim goes up against Sin Garu alone, in the state he’s in, he’ll die.”
“State?” Jonas glanced at Arim, who kept looking over at our little group while he spoke in a low voice to his nephews.
“He’s not at full strength,” Sava explained. “I brought him back from a fate worse than death. The demons have a hold on Tanselm. They’d love nothing more than to take Arim as well. The Light in his soul is especially attractive to demons, and our irritable sorcerer is far from being at full strength. His energy wavers, weakened from his sorrow for Ravyn, as well as his uncertainty about Lexa.”
“What?” Since when was Arim “uncertain” about his feelings for me? What did Sava know that I didn’t?
“You’ve never told him how you feel about him, have you?”
I squirmed, not wanting this conversation, and especially not with Jonas holding onto every word. “This isn’t the time or place, Sava.”
Regretfully, my time with Arim seemed to have made me less of a threat. Sava and Jonas showed no sign of disinterest in the conversation.
“My Dark Mistress, even for you, that’s cold.” Jonas shook his head in disapproval. “You’re having his babies, and you haven’t even told him you love him? What are you waiting for?”
“Yes, Dark Mistress. What are you waiting for?” Arim asked in a deceptively quiet voice, standing right behind me.
“Jonas,” I hissed, promising myself I’d make him pay for his loud mouth.
“I’ve got to go. Djinn to command. You know how it is.” Jonas winked and vanished.
Sava sighed. “I’ll be in the commons with a trencher of much needed food and wine, coming up with a plan. Find me when you’re done arguing, or whatever it is you two do together so much lately.” He glanced purposefully between us, muttered something about hardheaded magic-users and sex, and vanished as well.