25. LAYLA
Twenty Five
LAYLA
I’m eight months pregnant and I have officially lost my mind.
It started yesterday. I woke up and suddenly needed to rearrange our entire chambers. The bed had to move. The curtains had to be replaced. The rug was “wrong”, I don’t know how a rug can be wrong, but it was. I cried for twenty minutes because Soren’s pillow didn’t match mine.
Soren found me sobbing in the middle of a pile of blankets, holding two pillows and looking like the world was ending.
“Layla?” He crouched next to me, his face a mix of panic and confusion. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt? Is the baby…”
“Your pillow is BLUE,” I wailed. “And mine is CREAM. And they don’t MATCH. And everything is WRONG.”
He stared at me. Then he looked at the pillows. Then he looked back at me.
“I’ll get you matching pillows,” he said carefully. “Whatever color you want. Ten pillows. A hundred pillows. I’ll empty every store in the kingdom.”
“I don’t want a hundred pillows! I want THESE pillows to MATCH!”
“Then I’ll dye them. Both cream. Both blue. Both purple with sparkles. Whatever you want.”
I hiccupped, my tears slowing. “Purple with sparkles?”
“If that’s what you need, yes.”
He sat down on the floor with me, the king of Vinterfjord, sitting cross-legged in a pile of blankets, and held me while I cried about pillows.
Then he helped me rearrange the furniture.
Then he hung new curtains. Then he went to the market himself and bought twelve matching pillows in the exact shade of gold I wanted.
Monique, who arrived yesterday for the birth, watched the whole thing with her jaw on the floor.
“He went to the MARKET?” she hissed when Soren left. “The KING went to the MARKET to buy PILLOWS?”
“He’s supportive,” I sniffled.
“He’s WHIPPED.”
“He’s both.”
Now, two days later, our chambers look like a cloud. A very expensive, very royal cloud. There are pillows everywhere, gold, cream, soft, firm, body pillows, throw pillows. There are candles and flowers and soft music playing from some device Soren had imported from the south.
And in the center of it all, I’m sitting on the biggest pile of softness, eight months pregnant and happier than I’ve ever been.
Soren enters, carrying a tray of sliced fruit and chocolate. He sees me and his face goes soft.
“There she is,” he murmurs, setting the tray down and crawling next to me. “My beautiful, pregnant, slightly insane queen.”
“I’m not insane. I’m resting.”
“You’re resting magnificently.” He presses a kiss to my temple. “This is the most comfortable-looking pile of softness I’ve ever seen.”
“You should join me.”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
He settles behind me, his massive body cradling mine, his hand resting on my belly. I lean back against his chest and sigh.
“I love you,” I say softly.
“I love you too, wife. Even when you’re crying about pillows.”
“Especially then?”
“Especially then.” He kisses my hair. “I love all of you. The fierce warrior. The passionate lover. The pregnant woman who needs matching pillows. All of it. Every piece.”
I turn my head and kiss him, slow and deep. His hand slides from my belly to my breast, his thumb brushing my nipple through my nightgown. I moan, pushing into his touch.
“Soren…”
“Let me,” he murmurs. “Let me take care of you.”
He makes love to me slowly, carefully, surrounded by pillows and soft bedding and candlelight. It’s gentle and sweet and so full of love I think my heart might burst.
After, he holds me, his hand on my belly, feeling our daughter kick.
“She likes it,” he whispers.
“Of course she does.” I smile, burying my face in his neck. “She has good taste. Like her mama.”
“And her daddy.”
“And her daddy.”
We fall asleep in the softness, wrapped in each other, surrounded by gold pillows and love.
Perfect.