The Rising
Page 47
“Ah,” True murmured.
“And there is the added evidence that anytime she doesn’t think someone’s looking, she has her hand to her stomach. And anytime you’re with her and you think no one is looking, you have your hand to her stomach.”
It was then, True chuckled.
“I am happy for you, my friend,” Alfie said quietly.
“I am as well. But today, I am happier for you,” True replied.
He clamped his hand on his friend’s shoulder.
When he did, Alfie lifted his and patted True’s.
True walked, and Alfie wheeled, into the sanctuary.
He saw right away his wife, sitting in the front pew, did indeed give it all away for she sat with her hand as Alfie said.
Resting over their babe in her belly.
Her other hand, as it often did, was wrapped around the veneration to her mother that hung at her neck, close to her heart.
He liked that in the now, with his babe growing inside of her, her mother was that near to the both of them.
He smiled at her.
Farah beamed at him.
And then True stood by Alfie’s chair and watched Bronagh practically run down the aisle to her intended.
He then proudly stayed where he was and watched them get married.
“Alfie knows,” he murmured, watching his queen’s face and enjoying how it expressed how much she liked what he was doing with his fingers.
“Oh dear,” she muttered, pleasingly distractedly.
“Bronagh too,” he said.
“True?” she called.
“Mm?” he answered.
Her back arched, her topaz eyes focused on his, and she whispered, “Please stop talking.”
He smiled.
Then, in order to do that, he kissed her.
It would seem Sir Alfie and his lovely wife Bronagh were intent to take care of business early.
For their babe was born only two months after Queen Farah gave King True their first son.
King Aramus
King’s Bedchamber, Keel Castle, Nautilus
MAR-EL
“You do know that mermaids don’t lay eggs,” his queen demanded irately.
“You’ve been sick all day, every day, for a month,” he ground out.
“Auntie says this is because I need to get under the sea on a regular occasion.”
“Do you know this for certain?” he asked.
“I have four cousins. You have met them. I think she knows,” she answered.
Aramus simply scowled at her.
“I’ll be fine,” she assured. “We’ll stay at Jorie’s palace. He’s welcomed us to do so as he’s in Fire City to await the arrival of Silence and Mars’s baby.”
Aramus turned his gaze out the window, where he was standing during this (most recent, it must be said, his wife could fight her corner, brilliantly—it’d be bloody annoying, if he didn’t admire it so much) argument with his wife.
He saw nothing but sea.
Normally, this soothed him.
Now, it did not.
“Aramus, you can breathe under the water. We go swimming all the time. You—”
He turned to her and gritted out, “You’ve been sick…all day…every day…for a month.”
Her curls bounced as her head jolted.
She then unfolded her legs from beneath her, took her feet beside their bed, and moved to him.
She put one hand to his chest, the fingers of the other she curled around his neck, and she got up on her toes.
“Even non-Mer women retch and do it often during pregnancy,” she assured.
His brows rose. “All day, every day, for a month?”
“Yes. Or for three months. Sometimes the entire pregnancy.”
Fucking hell.
He did not know this.
He did not like this.
“But Auntie Ha-Zahlah feels The Deep will help,” she said softly. “So I would like to try, but not without you.”
“You go bloody nowhere without me,” he decreed.
Her face grew gentle, and she leaned closer. “Of course not. And if it doesn’t work, we will come back.”
He grunted.
“Aramus, I will be fine.”
“I am sure,” he retorted. “You are strong and smart and give up on nothing. But this will be our only child.”
She blinked, and when she was done, her crystal eyes were huge.
“Pardon?” she asked.
“I will not have you endure this another time. It doesn’t matter. I’ve already decided, boy or girl, first born will take over the kingdom…or queendom as it were.”
“As much as I very much like that, my darling, we are not only having one child.”
He curled his arms about her and looked out to the sea, murmuring, “We shall see.”
“Yes, we will,” she murmured back. “Now, let us see about rectifying the fact you haven’t made love to me in a month.”
His eyes fell to hers. “You’ve been ill.”
“I’m not ill right now.”
“And I’m not making you ill.”
She pressed to him and her siren’s voice became a siren’s song. “You won’t make me ill.”
His cock took notice.
It was his mind that refused. “Absolutely not.”
She stared up at him.
“We will abstain until I am certain you are well,” he announced.
“Have you gone mad?” she breathed.
“No,” he stated the obvious.
“Aramus.”
“Ha-Lah.”
“Aramus!”
“Ha-Lah.”
She frowned.
Then she grasped his head, pulled it down to her, and she kissed him.
She did things with her tongue and things with her hands that no man with an intent to abstain should have to endure.
Thus, he failed at enduring them.
Spectacularly.
Ha-Lah did not get ill during the festivities.
Though she stayed that way the first seven months of her pregnancy.
Two months later, she gave her king a boy.
The next two she gave him were girls.
Sisters of the Beast
THE ENCHANTMENTS
Black ringlets mixed with locks of honey and chestnut and ebony in the grass as the women lay on their backs forming a cross with their heads together, their eyes aimed through the leafy trees to the blue skies.
Each had a wee babe snuggled asleep on their chests.
“He’s ridiculous,” Ellie was saying.
Silence giggled.
“You are not unaware he spoils his girls,” Ha-Lah noted.
“Yes, well,” she gently patted the rounded bottom of the wee one on her chest, “this one only has to chirrup and he’s there, cooing at her and demanding an entire citadel meet her every whim, be it containing a draught or bringing a toy or changing a nappy.”
“King Cassius Laird of Airen doesn’t change nappies?” Farah asked.
“Hell no,” Ellie answered. “Though he does stand over the nursemaid, or, say, me, scowling as he inspects we’re doing it right.”
There were chuckles all around.
“Does King True Axelsson of Wodell do it?” Silence inquired.
“We get into our chambers and the world melts away,” Farah said serenely. “So yes, when it is us, our family alone together, and there is no one else to do it, for he allows no one there, my husband has no issue.”
“Mars doesn’t either,” Silence said.
“Aramus has gained the skill of a noble Mer and becomes invisible when this one,” she gave her son’s round tush a tender shake, “starts to get smelly.”
Low feminine laughter drifted into the skies.
Then they fell silent.
Silence broke it.
She did this with a whispered, “We did it.”
“We did it,” Farah whispered in return.
“We’re here, t
ogether,” Ellie said quietly.
“We’re always together,” Ha-Lah declared.
“Yes,” three other women agreed.
Brothers of the Beast
THE ENCHANTMENTS
They stood in the trees, tall, regal, shoulder to shoulder, and studied the women that lay on their backs in the grass, babes at their chests, eyes to the sky.
“Do we leave them be?” True queried.
“Fuck no, don’t you hear my wee darling?” Cassius asked.
None of the men heard a thing.
“She fusses,” Cass muttered. “She needs her father.”
And then he strode into the glade.
Mars looked to Aramus then to True.
True looked to Mars then to Aramus.
Aramus grinned at the both of them.
“Cass!” they heard Ellie hiss. “We’re having Sisters of the Beast time.”
“Well, now it’s Sisters and Brothers of the Beast time,” Cassius retorted.
The remaining men looked into the glade.
Cass had wrested his sleeping daughter from her mother and was dropping to his arse, then falling back to rest his head on his wife’s belly, his still surprisingly sleeping daughter wrapped in his arms.
Ha-Lah was the first to look their way as the rest started striding to them.
“We’re being invaded,” she warned.
“I don’t mind,” Silence said.
Mars grinned at his queen.
“I don’t either,” Farah added.
True winked at his wife.
Ha-Lah said nothing, but she smiled at her husband, who smiled in return.
The men claimed their children, and all settled in the grass, Aramus doing it much the same as Cass, though he had one arm around his son, the fingers of his other hand tangled in his Ha-Lah’s curls.
And Mars arranged his Silence so her head rested on his stomach.
But when he did this, no one was surprised when a wee monkey came out from the curtain of her hair and snuggled into her papa’s chest next to her beloved tot.
And True fell to his back with Farah curling down his side with her head resting on his shoulder.
After they had settled, they were quiet, eyes to the sky, and naught to be heard but the sound of the wind rustling the leaves.
And as all were peering at the heavens, no one saw two sets of eyes shade with a starry night. And two sets become a verdant green. And two, blue waves crashing. The last two, blithely dancing flames.
They lay, husbands and wives, sisters and brothers, in peace.
And no one paid any mind to the two unicorns and their wee babe pulling at the green blades not too far from their sides.
Faunus of the Trusted
Manor House of a Trusted, Fire City
FIRENZE
Faunus woke, and she was pressed down his side, her legs tangled in his, and behind her, his legs were tangled in both of theirs.
His eyes opened and he turned his head and tucked his chin in his throat.
This was because her hand was coasting down his stomach.
When she sensed him awake, she gave him a cheeky grin and wrapped her fingers around his morning erection.
He growled and reached to her, taking her hips in his hands and hauling her atop him.
Since she already had hold, she bent over him, planting a hand in his chest, and guiding his cock to her with her other.
Moira bore down and at the glorious feel of his woman’s sleek, Faunus surged up.
They woke Saturn with their movements, and he moved as well.
He pressed a sleepy kiss to Moira’s thigh as she rode Faunus and then he reached around her, gave Faunus’s balls a squeeze, let go when he earned a pleasured grunt, and then he pushed up and touched his lips to Faunus’s.
He then shifted back, got up on his elbow and watched.
Eventually, Faunus took the thick silk of her hair at the back of her neck in his fist and knifed up, taking control of the ride with his arm about her hips, doing this until he heard her gasp and whisper his name when she finished.
Then he allowed himself to finish.
Saturn gave them time for it to leave them both before he pulled Moira off Faunus’s cock, rolled to his back and positioned her sitting over his face.
Her head fell back, and Saturn’s name rushed from her lips.
Faunus slid down the bed, did his own roll, coming to his stomach between Saturn’s legs.
Saturn ate Faunus’s seed from Moira.
Faunus swallowed Saturn’s direct.
It was night and the lovers were where they were often when the sky was dark, and the stars were out.
Tangled up together on their daybed by the fountain.
They were sipping wine and eating almonds dusted with Airen’s golden salt, talking, lazily stroking, and letting go of the day so they could go to their bed and sleep peacefully in the night.
They all still wore their double wedding chains.
Faunus had Moira’s leading from his right ear to his nose and lip.
Saturn’s from his left.
Moira took Saturn’s to her right, Faunus’s to the left.
And Saturn took Faunus’s to his right, Moira’s to his left.
But all of the stones on Moira’s were green.
“I have something you should know,” Moira said from her place sandwiched between the men who were lounged into a corner of the daybed.
“Yes?” Faunus asked.
“Mm?” Saturn murmured into his wineglass.
“I’m pregnant.”
Both men grew very still.
Moira carried on.
“And if it’s a boy, we’re naming him Teddy. And if it’s a girl, we’re naming her Teddy.”
Suddenly, the air all around them smelled of honeysuckle.
Faunus’s arms went about his wife, but his eyes lifted to the heavens.
“Are we all agreed?” Moira asked.
“Yes,” Saturn said, and at his words, Faunus’s gaze moved to him to catch him giving his husband a happy look before shoving his face in Moira’s neck, his arms that were about her as well, tightening.
She tipped her head back to Faunus.
Faunus looked into his beloved stellina’s beautiful face.
He smiled gently at her.
And he whispered, “Yes.”
She returned his smile.
They all pressed together.
Saturn pulled his face out of his wife’s neck.
Still tangled together in love and loyalty and hope for the future, they settled in.
And gazed at the beauty of the stars.
The End
And perhaps we’ll rejoin the adventure…
In The Mystics.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
KRISTEN ASHLEY IS the New York Times bestselling author of over sixty romance novels including the Rock Chick, Colorado Mountain, Dream Man, Chaos, Unfinished Heroes, The ’Burg, Magdalene, Fantasyland, The Three, Ghost and Reincarnation, Moonlight and Motor Oil and Honey series along with several standalone novels. She’s a hybrid author, publishing titles both independently and traditionally, her books have been translated in fourteen languages and she’s sold over three million books.
Kristen’s novel, Law Man, won the RT Book Reviews Reviewer’s Choice Award for best Romantic Suspense. Her independently published title Hold On was nominated for RT Book Reviews best Independent Contemporary Romance and her traditionally published title Breathe was nominated for best Contemporary Romance. Kristen’s titles Motorcycle Man, The Will, Ride Steady (which won the Reader’s Choice award from Romance Reviews) and The Hookup all made the final rounds for Goodreads Choice Awards in the Romance category.
Kristen, born in Gary and raised in Brownsburg, Indiana, was a fourth-generation graduate of Purdue University. Since, she has lived in Denver, the West Country of England, and now she resides in Phoenix. She worked as a charity executive for eighteen years prior to beginning her independent pu
blishing career. She currently writes full-time.
Although romance is her genre, the prevailing themes running through all of Kristen’s novels are friendship, family and a strong sisterhood. To this end, and as a way to thank her readers for their support, Kristen has created the Rock Chick Nation, a series of programs that are designed to give back to her readers and promote a strong female community.
The mission of the Rock Chick Nation is to live your best life, be true to your true self, recognize your beauty and take your sister’s back whether they’re friends and family or if they’re thousands of miles away and you don’t know who they are. The programs of the RC Nation include: Rock Chick Rendezvous, weekends Kristen organizes full of parties and get-togethers to bring the sisterhood together; Rock Chick Recharges, evenings Kristen arranges for women who have been nominated to receive a special night; and Rock Chick Rewards, an ongoing program that raises funds for nonprofit women’s organizations Kristen’s readers nominate. Kristen’s Rock Chick Rewards have donated nearly $130,000 to charity and this number continues to rise.
You can read more about Kristen, her titles and the Rock Chick Nation at www.KristenAshley.net.
BOOKS BY
KRISTEN ASHLEY
Rock Chick Series:
Rock Chick
Rock Chick Rescue
Rock Chick Redemption
Rock Chick Renegade
Rock Chick Revenge
Rock Chick Reckoning
Rock Chick Regret
Rock Chick Revolution
Rock Chick Reawakening
Rock Chick Reborn
ALSO AVAILABLE ON AUDIO
Rock Chick
Rock Chick Rescue
Rock Chick Redemption
Rock Chick Renegade
Rock Chick Revenge
Rock Chick Reckoning
Rock Chick Regret
Rock Chick Revolution
Rock Chick Reawakening
Rock Chick Reborn
The ‘Burg Series:
For You
At Peace
Golden Trail
Games of the Heart
The Promise
Hold On
ALSO AVAILABLE ON AUDIO
For You