Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
HAZEL
I was falling madly in love with a kind and beautiful serpent-man.
Each morning, I woke ready for Terolon’s kisses. During the day, I felt a chill if I wasn’t in his coils. Each night, we talked long after the stars appeared. Every conversation felt easy and comfortable as if we’d known each other for many years rather than only a few weeks.
And in the dark we shared more kisses and explored each other, though his touches remained respectful and my hands never traveled further afield than his chest. I found myself both grateful for his good manners and miffed that he steadfastly refused to take any liberties despite his very obvious desire to do so.
In the days and weeks following his grand declaration of devotion and our first kiss in the garden, I’d waited and watched, eagle-eyed with every instinct on alert, for any sign that Terolon wasn’t the male he seemed to be.
For all his pretty words, and for all I wished them to be true, life had taught me hard lessons that made trust seem impossible.
But with each passing day, and with every kind and generous thing he did for me, he proved himself a male of his word.
At no time did I feel any suspicion about his motives or that he’d been untruthful.
Terolon of Izaelon truly believed I was his athava and his shelshi. I accepted that in my heart now, a lunar after first waking in his coils.
And falling for him felt so easy…save two things.
Despite his openness about life in Izaelon, Terolon clearly didn’t want to tell me why he’d left his home and traveled so far away to a land with cold winters, where his kind were looked upon with suspicion at best and open hostility at worst.
He had wealth—that much was certain, because anything we needed, he quickly procured via Aluc, Stosior the wizard’s kind apprentice who left our packages at the garden doorway.
But I didn’t know where Terolon’s money came from, and his reluctance to explain himself troubled me.
I didn’t get the sense the explanation was a wicked one, but given he seemed honest about everything else, his visible discomfort anytime he seemed to think I might ask kept me from truly opening my heart to him.
And second, I didn’t know what was hidden beneath the hard bulge I often felt below his scales where a man’s member should be, nor how a coupling between us might work. Or even if it were possible.
If it were possible, could lying with Terolon produce children? The drawings I’d seen had portrayed serpentae begetting monstrous offspring on human women. I was now certain these stories and depictions were utter nonsense, but there might be a grain of truth at the center of the lies.
Sometimes I lay in the garden, either in Terolon’s coils or on the grass, and secretly imagined what our child—what the serpentae called a basiling—might look like.
Could I hold a tiny version of Terolon to my breast or cradle him in my arms and look at him with all the love a mother should feel for her child?
I found I could envision the scene quite easily, more easily than I had ever pictured myself as a mother. In fact, it made me smile and feel something warm and hopeful in my heart.
The questions of if and how, of course, remained.
Since my grandmother had taught me to be prudent, I’d already gathered the herbs from the forest I needed to brew the tea that ensured any seeds Terolon might plant wouldn’t take root in my womb until the time was right—if it would ever be.
I’d dedicated a section of my herb garden to them, along with other medicinal plants.
If Terolon knew the purpose of those herbs, he didn’t speak on it.
“Why are you smiling, my shelshi?” Terolon asked late one afternoon, his voice soft.
I lay in his coils as he ran his claws through my hair, gently working out tangles and cleaning away bits of leaves and twigs. He loved to tend to my hair after a day of gardening, either with his claws or my comb or brush, and his gentle touch had lulled me into a nap more than once.
I opened my eyes. He was upright on his coils and leaning over me to block the sun’s glare, and his expression was so tender and full of love that it made me ache.
And it was that ache combined with the yearning and hunger that had grown steadily for weeks and the sense of the waning days of autumn that made me decide to say what was in my heart.
I reached up in a silent invitation. He sank down, adjusting his coils so he could press his sun-warmed cheek against my hand and gaze into my eyes.
“I love you,” I said, the words falling easily from my lips.
He stared at me in stunned silence until I couldn’t help but smile at how nonplussed he appeared.
“Hazel,” he rasped finally, his amber eyes growing bright. “Athava. My sweetness. My mate. I love you with all that I am.”
I drew him down for a long, gentle kiss and rested my other hand on his chest. His hearts raced under my palm.
When he raised his head, his expression had become one of wonder. “Goddesses be blessed,” he said reverently. “I am surely their most favored son today.”
I stroked his face, running my fingertips over textures and shapes that had become as familiar to me as my own features. “What does a female of your people call her mate?”
“Shelshi is acceptable for all,” he said roughly. “It is not a gendered word. But also shelshan can be used playfully, as it means my great mate—great as in size, not greatness of worth,” he added quickly when my lips quirked.
I ran the pad of my thumb over his lips. “Shelshan,” I murmured.
He closed his eyes and made a guttural sound.
A shudder ran down the length of his body, making his muscles shift and roll in a way I’d never felt before.
And the intriguing hard bulge below his human waistline suddenly had a dark line down its center, as if the scales would part along that seam for something to emerge.
Well, that answered one of my questions…at least somewhat. I quivered, feeling drops of wetness travel along my sex as I imagined what might be hidden beneath his beautiful scales.
But before I explored those mysteries further, I had to ask my shelshan to put his full trust in me as I’d done with him.
“Terolon,” I said, my hands cupping his face. “Look at me.”
His eyes opened and his tongue flicked the air. He shuddered again. “Shelshi,” he groaned. “Your scent…”
“I know.” I caressed his face. “I want you. You know I do. But first, I need to know something.”
His expression now grave, he lowered his upper body, slid his arms under me to cradle me against his chest, and touched his forehead to mine. His bulge pressed very noticeably against my leg, but I refused to let it distract me.
“You need to know why I left my home and came here to your kingdom,” he said softly. “Why I have no clan.”
“Yes.” I caressed his face, hoping he could feel my reassurance as clearly as I felt his love and care for me. “You cannot abide my pain. And I cannot abide yours. Tell me, my mate.”
He shivered in my grasp. “How I’ve dreamed of hearing you call me yours.”
Gently, he settled us more comfortably until we lay face to face on his coils with his arms around me. I rested one hand on his chest over his hearts and the other on the back of his neck so I could stroke him there with the side of my thumb.
“I was the eldest child of the king and queen, co-regents of Izaelon,” he said, the words pouring out in a rush as if this was the most difficult secret he had to share and he wanted it over with quickly.
Stunned, I gaped at him, my caresses losing their rhythm before I regained my composure. “You’re a prince?”
“I was, long ago.” He managed a fleeting smile. “The first-born of five siblings, designated from birth as heir to the throne, with all the privileges and wealth that came with such a station.”
I detected no hint of happiness in his eyes or expression. “I’ve never met any royalty,” I said. “But it’s easy to imagine such a life as lonely and miserable despite the wealth.”
“You imagine correctly.” He did smile then, just a little, but it was a bitter expression.
“Our parents loved us in their way, but it was nothing like the love I saw among those who worked in the castle. My friends were carefully selected from the offspring of nobles at court. Some were true friends, but most were there because their parents wanted a closer connection to the king and queen. And my relationships with my siblings were strained at best, especially with my oldest sister, Afelia, who was next in line for the throne. She wanted very much to rule when my parents’ reign ended, and I think she somehow knew that deep in my hearts I didn’t. ”
He kissed my forehead. “I might have fulfilled my duty to my parents and the kingdom and taken the throne if that had been all there was to the matter.” He chuckled, and so did I at the thought of ruling a kingdom as anything simple.
“But in Izaelon, there must be a king and queen, or a pair of kings or queens, who rule together. And so when I reached maturity, my parents declared they had selected my queen.”
That was the way of royal houses and nobles in this kingdom and many others as well, though the thought turned my stomach.
I couldn’t fathom being forced to marry and lie with a stranger, much less bear their children as a matter of politics and duty.
To me, no amount of wealth would make it worthwhile, but choice rarely played a part in such transactions—most especially for women.
At least in this kingdom, most commoners married by choice and for love.
“My parents were fond of each other,” Terolon said, turning my attention back to his story.
“Perhaps there was love there too, in some fashion. And I’d thought throughout my childhood and maturing years I could be content with something similar.
Since I saw no alternative, I suppose I was trying to find a way to face my future with something other than dread. ”