The Golden Dynasty (Fantasyland #2)(119)

“I know, Lahn. Rivers of blood. I know. It freaks me out and scares me and I don’t want you or anyone to be hurt but I know. This is what you must do. So you will do it but now can I ask a favor and can you be quiet for just long enough so that I can give you a welcome home kiss to add to your, ‘thank God my golden queen is all right’ kiss? Then you can rant all you want about vengeance.”

He stared down at me. Then he said against my fingers, “Remove your fingers, Circe, you can hardly kiss me with your hand over my mouth.”

I smiled up at him as my body relaxed in his arms and I moved my hand. Then I went up on tiptoe, he bent his neck and I gave my husband a welcome home kiss that was, I was guessing, pretty damned good. I guessed this because he lifted me up in the middle of it, my legs wrapped around his h*ps and he strode to the bed and I went down, him on top of me.

Ghost growled with irritation and jumped off her perch.

Eventually, Lahn’s mouth left mine and he buried his face in my neck as my limbs tightened around him.

There he was. So big. So strong. My husband. There with me. In our bed.

Then it hit me and I couldn’t hold it back so my breath hitched.

His head came up and his eyes found mine. When they did, his warmed.

“Baby,” he whispered and my breath hitched again.

“I killed one and a half men today,” I whispered back, a tear sliding out of the side of my eye.

His head twitched and he asked, “A half?”

“Bain cut his head off but I’d already sliced through his innards, a wound he survived right then but he wouldn’t survive it for long.”

I watched Lahn’s jaw get hard and I didn’t know if it was to bite back laughter or a roar of fury.

Then he informed me quietly (and scarily), “I am glad you did for if you had not, they would have killed you. The plot was to capture you, take you outside the Daxshee but murder you close and leave your body for us to find. Instead, they encountered a warrior queen, her extraordinary pet and guards with good instincts. As things did not go as they had planned, they would have needed to execute their plan as best they could and instead would have killed you in our cham.”

I knew this to be true. The first man had grabbed me and done it unarmed, probably underestimating me. The last had not done the same and came at me with a knife.

That scared the shit out of me but I sucked it up as best I could and nodded.

Then another tear slid out of my left eye followed by one from my right and I felt my nostrils quiver.

“She betrayed me,” I whispered and Lahn’s face went soft, his hand lifted to cup the side of my head, his thumb moving through the wetness at my temple. “Why would she do that?”

“I do not know,” Lahn answered in his own whisper.

I sucked in a breath that broke twice on the way in. “And since she did, why would she put out my dagger… warn me?”

“I do not know that either, my golden doe.”

I didn’t either.

I thought of Teetru’s face looking at mine after I gave her the bangle.

“She was my girl,” I said so softly it was barely audible, my breath hitched and my vision melted as my body started shaking with sobs.

“My Circe,” Lahn murmured, rolling off me but pulling me tight and cradling me close as I cried into his chest.

Lahn didn’t get the chance to rant about vengeance. It could be said that I had a tough day so I pretty much passed out right in the middle of bawling. I didn’t know what he did.

But later, I woke to feel his weight and heat, the sheet up to our waists and Ghost asleep at the foot of the bed.

For that moment, I was safe, my husband was home and all was well.

So I drifted back to my dreams.

*Translation: Bitch

Chapter Twenty-Six

Korwahn

Six weeks later…

It was official.

I was most definitely pregnant.

I spit into the chamber pot then sucked in breath hoping more would not come up my throat and out my mouth.

Seriously, I hated puking. And doing it in a chamber pot made a not very fun activity a lot less fun.

When the nausea subsided and it seemed I had the all-clear, I moved to the basin, poured some water from a jug on a cloth, wiped my mouth, rinsed the cloth, wiped my face and rinsed it again. Then I rinsed my mouth with water and grabbed the thin, split branch that Jacanda had given me to brush my teeth and tongue. I used that, rinsed again, grabbed the cloth and folded it as I wandered out of the bathroom type um… room.

Lahn was in bed, on his side, silk sheet up to his waist, elbow in the pillow, eyes on me.

My really not so little anymore tigress was lounging on a big, fluffy, hide-covered pad in the corner, her pink tongue licking a bone.

My stomach roiled as the nausea returned and my eyes moved back to Lahn.

Even nauseous, it wasn’t lost on me my husband was hot.

It was just that with morning sickness, I was in no mood to do anything about it.

I went to the bed, pulled back the sheet, lifted a leg and collapsed on my back, head to the pillows. I pulled the sheet up and slapped the folded, cool cloth over my eyes.

I felt Lahn’s heat against my side then I felt his large hand on my belly.

“Perhaps I was wrong,” he murmured. “If you carry a golden daughter in your womb, she would not be so rough on you.” I felt him get closer and knew I was right when his soft voice came at my ear and his hand pressed gently at my belly before he whispered, “I believe we made a warrior, my doe.”