Chapter 65
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
I should have known better than to trust the reprieve from my father’s volatile moods.
Though Rowan and I had been fulfilling our duties during the day, I had thus far managed to avoid bringing her to dinner at court, largely because I wanted to keep her from his line of sight.
Since my duties kept me from court often enough, and since no one was under any illusions about all the reasons newlyweds might choose to spend more time in their own quarters, my absence hadn’t yet been questioned.
Until tonight, when one of the new recruits delivered a small envelope with shaking hands.
That would have been enough to tell me it was from the duke, since no one else would have sent word quite so imperiously, nor could anyone else outside of myself have caused so much terror with such a simple task. Sure enough, his aggressive script punctuated the mostly blank page.
I will see you both at dinner tonight.
That boded well. I braced myself to prepare Rowan, pushing open the door to our suites. She was in bed, already grimacing while she lazily trailed her hand along Boris’s tail.
Had she received a summons as well?
But she narrowed her eyes when she took in my features, suspicion lacing her voice when she spoke. “What?”
She must not have heard about dinner.
“Our presence is required at an estate dinner tonight,” I informed her, removing my jacket and hanging it neatly on the hook.
“Required by your father?” she clarified, though it wasn’t really a question. We both knew there was only one person in this entire estate who could require things of me.
I nodded and she let out a disgruntled sigh.
“Wonderful.” She punctuated the word with another grimace. “How did you get away with missing so many estate dinners and council meetings and, well, everything when I was here before?”
By using the excuse I had only wanted to be true.
“I told everyone I was...preoccupied with my captive,” I told her, waiting with a smirk for her inevitable indignation.
I didn’t have to wait long.
She parted her lips in offense, pushing up onto her elbows. “You aalio .”
I shrugged, not bothering to feign remorse for what had kept her out of Ava’s hands, as well as my father’s. “I did what I had to do to keep you safe, Lemmikki. It was the most believable lie.”
She settled back into her pillow, sighing again, but this one was more resigned. “Well, at least now I know where the rumors came from,”
“Yes, because no one would have said a word about you sleeping in my rooms and sharing a room at the inns with me otherwise,” I shot back. I chose not to mention the other rumors regarding the heir of Elk Clan, more for my benefit than hers, though, as the mere thought of the cause of those rumors did nothing but cause a rage to burn through me.
She blinked like she had no argument for that but also didn’t want to acknowledge it.
Then a nefarious grin tilted her lips and she looked up at me with deceptively innocent eyes. “Well, I suppose I can’t be too upset since it wouldn’t have been a lie if I had been given a say.”
My desire for her seemed to reside permanently within me, endless tendrils that unfurled at the smallest provocation from her.
Or the smallest admission, like now.
I crossed the distance to the bed, lowering beside her to press my lips against hers. Instead of arching against me, though, I could have sworn I felt her pout.
“Lemmikki?” I questioned, pulling back enough to see the downturned lips that were, indeed, marring her expression.
Her gaze settled somewhere near my ear, not quite meeting my eyes.
“We...can’t,” she mumbled.
My brow furrowed, and I tilted my head at her use of the word can’t . “Why not?”
“Because…” Her cheeks colored, but she met my eyes at last. “I actually do have pressing feminine needs at the moment.”
Ah. Well, that explained…a lot. Not that I had a wealth of experience with the feminine needs of women, but I understood the concept well enough.
I pressed my lips against her forehead instead, settling next to her.
“I see. Well, at least we know the herbs are working.” Though I wouldn’t have been precisely bothered if they hadn’t been, I was content to spend more time with her as we had been.
She moved closer against me, sucking air between her teeth at the motion. Since I had watched her walk around without wincing only hours after being stabbed, I couldn’t help but react to her discomfort now.
“Are you in pain, Lemmikki?” I asked.
“Nothing I can’t handle,” she grunted unconvincingly.
I placed my hand over her stomach, putting the slightest bit of pressure in an effort to relieve her discomfort. She sighed, her features smoothing a bit. It was a strange new level of intimacy, entirely different from the closeness we had experienced the past few weeks.
Not unwelcome, but not entirely comfortable either, like a pair of boots the first time you put them on.
She shifted a bit, and I wondered if she was feeling the same newness when she glanced at me with apprehension, but her mind had taken her somewhere else, apparently.
“You realize that...if we decide to stop using the herbs, or they don’t work… Any children of ours will have my blood.”
I paused, not sure how to respond to her, because surely, she knew I did realize that. Was she worried about her cursed hair?
“I am aware that’s how these things work,” I assured her.
She blinked in annoyance. “My fae blood, I mean.”
Comprehension dawned on me. Yes, I had considered that as well, but I was curious why she was more concerned now. She went on to explain before I could ask.
“And we don’t know how that manifests. Avani, when she was younger…it was difficult to hide the way the animals would all kind of flock to her. On the other hand, the twins had no trouble hiding their communication…but there would be some level of danger.”
Filing away the knowledge of the younger twins’ abilities, I focused instead on her accurate prediction of danger. Danger that would only be heightened by the scrutiny of our position under the best of circumstances, let alone if we were facing a war. I dragged my thumb back and forth along her smooth, taut skin, imagining for a moment how different it might feel brimming with life.
Being a parent was a subject I had always been staunchly neutral on, if not slightly averse to. Until I met her.
Now it filled me with an unanticipated sort of hope, a life where I could carve out a small space of peace and normality with the only person who had ever given me either of those things.
She wasn’t wrong about the danger, but just as I would destroy anyone who threatened her safety, I would likewise slowly eviscerate the first person to look askance at her child. Our child. To say nothing of the savagery I had witnessed from her.
“Well,” I reasoned aloud, “we’ve never shied away from a challenge before. As long as we wait until things are in order here, I’m sure it’s nothing we can’t handle.”
And even if, for some reason, we didn’t wait, our children would be safe. We would both make sure of it.
She melted into me, the tension leaving her body ostensibly enough to bely how important my response had been. She had rarely weighed in on the concept of motherhood, but I could see that it mattered to her now, that she wanted our family to grow as much as I was beginning to realize I did.
I took a breath, forcing myself to give her one last reassurance.
“I won’t pretend to know anything about having a real family, Lemmikki, but never doubt that I want that with you, in whatever capacity you are willing. If you wanted our family to stay a family of two, that would be all right.” If not more disappointing than I might have previously understood. “But if you want to be like your parents and have a whole brood, we can do that, too.”
She laughed, squeezing her hand over mine. “Let’s just start with one, once things calm down. Or two,” she added thoughtfully. “Since twins run in the family.”
Der’mo . Two children at once with her mischievous smirk and endless penchant for recklessness? “Storms help us all if we have two of you.”
“Oh, but two of you would be a picnic?” She jabbed her elbow into my abdomen, which I only raised an eyebrow at.
Then she leaned back against the pillow, her expression shadowing behind her eyes.
I didn’t have to ask why. It was easy to imagine what kind of future we might have when we were tucked away in the relative safety of our suites. But we both knew that wasn’t our lives. At least, not right now.
Not with my father and Iiro endlessly poised to destroy everything that mattered to me.