Chapter Twenty #3
She’s nursing one of her babies at her breast while Thrace, sitting across from her, holds the other in his arms. My hand goes to my mouth. The room is small and completely enclosed, not a single window looking to the outside along any of the walls.
“Tiring, my love?” Kalixta asks. “I can take her if you need.”
“It’s nothing I can’t handle with you here,” Thrace says, swaying his body gently from side to side, but I see what she means. Dark circles rest beneath his eyes, his skin a touch sallow.
“I think me being here is causing you trouble,” Kalixta admonishes, her tone harsh, but her finger gently traces the curve of her baby boy’s cheek.
Thrace raises a brow, a smile bringing light to his eyes. “What I know is that I would be causing trouble if you weren’t.”
Kalixta leans back. “How long can you keep this up?”
“Eternity. For you—eternity.”
My heart twists. Kalixta works to keep her expression stern, but I can see as well as Thrace the pleased smile attempting to break across her lips.
He sweeps forward, his free hand sliding down the side of her face, his thumb caressing her mouth. “Don’t you dare keep that from me. I earned that one.”
Her mouth blooms into a grin, and he takes it with his lips. A deep longing pulls at my soul. Their exchange is like nothing I’ve ever seen and it at once breaks my heart and fills it.
When my niece, Anila, whines and squirms, Thrace sits back and bounces her.
Kalixta’s smile falls. “Zhoric is worsening.”
She says it like a statement, a gut punch that leaves me breathless.
“It’s what I thought, but…tonight he didn’t seem to fair as poorly.” Thrace looks over his shoulder, as if he can see through the wall to Zhoric’s rooms.
Kalixta switches the boy to her other breast. She looks down at him, murmuring, “Sorry Breamus, my love, your sister took her fill.” I press a hand to my chest, hearing my nephew’s name for the first time.
“We can call for a nursemaid,” Thrace offers, dipping his thumb into a container on the table beside him, then reaching forward to swipe a salve to her freed nipple before gliding the back of his index finger down the slope of her breast.
She sighs, giving him an appreciative smile, but shakes her head. “He’ll get enough. I’ll keep him here all night if I must.” Once she has the baby settled, she asks, “Do you think it’s because last time was so bad?”
Thrace closes the jar of salve with a free hand. “I don’t know. One thing I do know is he’s keeping something from me.”
“It always seems he’s keeping something from you,” Kalixta says, shifting from side to side until she’s comfortable.
Thrace smirks. “I know how he seems. This time though…it feels like the past. In the days when he wouldn’t tell me what she was doing to him. He was protecting me.”
My pulse jumps as I realize Thrace is talking about her. Zhoric’s Alixor.
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
“It’s not exactly the same though. He’s keeping something from me, yes, but there’s also a sort of…lightness to him.”
Kalixta hums. “Will you ask him?”
“I should be able to catch him tomorrow before he fully rouses.”
“You mean you’ll ambush him?” Kalixta asks with a half-smile.
“He’ll be delighted to see me.” Thrace grins.
“I wonder…could it be a lover?”
Thrace blows air from his mouth. “I’ve not seen him speak with anyone. Unless, of course, there’s some bond. You remember what it was like when I was able to come to you…”
Kalixta blushes at his words. “No. He can’t have bonded with anyone. He wouldn’t ever put someone in that sort of danger.”
“You’re right. Though this thing with Alixor and your sister has changed much around here. If Zhoric found a way to strengthen himself with a bond, he might just do it.”
I’m on the edge of panic taking over—celestial manifestation of my form or no, I can’t seem to be able to tell the difference right now. What danger does my sister speak of? Does it have something to do with what happened to Zhoric tonight? Or is there something else with the elites?
Kalixta’s posture straightens and she looks around. “Your wards are strong?”
“As strong as ever. Why?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know…I’m getting a feeling. Almost like someone is near and watching.”
I draw back, nostrils flaring as alarm spears me.
Kalixta is my sister, she could be a potential bond.
Does that mean she can see me? And if she could, what would she say?
What would she do? If I’m here in this form, they’ll put together that I’m the one Zhoric can bond with.
I can’t have them finding out and putting a stop to it.
Thrace stands and gently places the girl down in the bassinet off to the side, then he leans down. “I’ll check, but first, kiss me. For energy to strengthen my wards.”
She smiles and tips her chin up to capture his lips with hers. “Did it work?”
I sense a surge of power.
“I think we can do better than that.” He claims her lips again and deepens the kiss, taking her head in his hands to angle her how he likes. She hums, contented.
I step back until the sight of them is blocked by the wall once more.
The words exchanged between Thrace and Kalixta churn over and over in my mind like an oncoming storm.
Zhoric is behaving differently. Thrace thinks the king would bond with someone who could give him strength.
And whatever it is that happens to Zhoric on these nights is worsening.
At least, until I was by his side. The only one who can truly answer any of this is asleep on the floor in the other room.
Back in Zhoric’s chambers, I stand over his form, so still in sleep that if I didn’t know in my soul that he was alive, I’d think him dead.
“What are you doing to me?” I whisper, my eyes tracing the angles and planes of his face, his shoulders and back, landing on the gnarled scars across his heart.
Dawn is still a long way off and an exhaustion like I haven’t felt before in this form sweeps me. I pad away from him and land on his bed, letting the soft pillows envelop me and swallow me whole.