Not only would my ever-serious Matt have been devastated, so would I. Ril was sense and sarcasm amid the chaos of our extended family.
I cut my mates a look, saw they were watching me, and I noticed their concern. That alone had me sighing. Matt hadn’t calmed down over the years, he was still as logical and rational as ever, but he’d been cheerful before I’d derailed things. That I’d taken that rare smile of his and turned it upside down pissed me off because I hated feeling guilty.
Blowing them a kiss to prove that I wasn’t that mad at them, I focused on Ril who did like to hog me.
We were in the massive dining hall of Landgow. It was like something from a castle, with its walls lined in armor, oil paintings of hunting dogs that were standing on poor stags they’d just slaughtered, and a hearth you could stand in—if the fire wasn’t burning full blast.
Well, if you weren’t me, that is.
I could have walked in there, warmed myself up, and leaped from the flames without a hair on my head harmed.
Another strange perk to being the Redeemer.
I couldn’t drown, could grow anything I put into soil and have it flowering in days, and the wind never messed with my curls.
At the head of the table that served eighty people—yes, eighty people—Noa would sit pride of place now his wife had perished last year and he could return home without casting even more shame on his line, with my grandmother at his side. But, beyond his throne-like chair, and yard after yard of silver cutlery and dishes, there were sofas and armchairs beside the fireplace. That was Ril’s spot, where he watched everything until the butler hit the gong and we all took a seat at the table as dinner was served.
“Why are you getting up anyway?” I queried. “The meal won’t be ready for a little while.”
He patted my hand as he tucked my arm in his. “I wanted to talk to you. In the garden.”
Frowning, I shrugged and said, “Of course.”
As we headed out of the hall together, Olivia caught my eye and she half danced over to us. “Everything okay, Mommy?”
“Sure is, baby.” I smiled down at her as I ran a hand over her mop of silken curls. She was the mirror image of me—before the Day of Redemption. All chocolate and espresso, unlike this pansy vanilla version that had overtaken me. I hated that I didn’t look Latina anymore, but my daughter was going to pass on the heritage and then some.
She beamed a smile at me, revealing two missing spaces where her milk teeth had fallen out a few weeks ago.
“She’s growing up,” I murmured sadly, watching as she skipped away to partake in the chaos. Sure, I loathed this, but she didn’t. That was pretty much the only thing that made it all bearable.
“They all do. But you’ll get to see her shine.” He patted my hand. “That’s some consolation.”
“Is it?” I wasn’t maternal, at all, and I fully admitted that she was a mistake, but Gaia help me, she was the apple of my eye. I’d fucking kill for her, and coming from me? That shit meant something.
Almost like he was reading my mind, Ril chuckled. “Woe betide the first boy to break her heart. Her daddies will only want to castrate him. You’ll want his blood.”
My jaw clenched. “My thoughts exactly.”
Another chuckle escaped my grandfather-in-law. “I do like a bloodthirsty woman.”
Snorting, I grumbled, “Matthew says I need to tone it down or she’ll be single until she’s our age.”
“Gah, the youth of today. What’s becoming of them? Now it’s all peace and love, when before—”
“It was war and hatred,” I said dryly, quirking a brow at him. “Don’t go all old school on me. You know as well as I do that things are better now. Especially for you. The vil der Soes aren’t outcasts anymore, are they?”
Patting my arm, he conceded with a huff. “I suppose things are better.”
My lips twitched at that ‘concession.’ Moaning old coot.
The older generations, as expected, were the least content with the status quo but it was tough shit. Things weren’t going to change because they were old dogs refusing to learn new tricks.
As we wandered out of the festively decorated hall, past a Christmas tree that was twenty feet tall and still didn’t touch the arched ceiling, which was lit up like it was the Eiffel Tower, and moseyed into the grand foyer, I asked, “Why did you want to go out to the yard again?”
“I want to get away from all the scents.”
My brow puckered at that. “Huh?”
“There are too many scents in there. It makes it hard to discern between one smell and another.”
“Is that supposed to make sense to me?”
His lips curved in a quiet smile. “Not now. But later? Maybe.”
* * *
TWO DAYS LATER
“That’s impossible.”
Ril had told me that his nose was better than a bloodhound’s, but Sol help me, my mates could scent my arousal from forty feet away, but they couldn’t tell if I was pregnant?
“I’m afraid it isn’t,” the cheerful-as-fuck doctor said, beaming a bright grin at me like I was supposed to be happy about this. Sol, all I wanted to do was throat-punch her until that grin died a death.
“I had my tubes tied,” I ground out, wishing my old doctor hadn’t died because he’d know to be freaked out! I deserved a medical freak-out.
“No,” my new doctor, who looked about ten, spluttered, “that isn’t possible. Your blood work shows—” She cleared her throat when I glowered at her. “Your hCG levels show you’re at least eighteen weeks pregnant.” More blinking, and this time, she turned white when I carried on glaring at her. “We can have a sonogram to make sure everything is okay in there?”
“Let’s,” I hissed, and when I looked at the screen twenty minutes later after three nurses had almost fallen over themselves rolling the cart in, I could only gape at the heartbeat that was pounding merrily away in my chest.
I didn’t want more kids. I didn’t. I didn’t like them. They smelled and they got in the way of all the sex I wanted, and they needed to be looked after all the time. Olivia was different. She was cool. She liked reading, never got dirty, and ate fucking spinach and broccoli without complaint.
What if this one didn’t do any of that?
And how in Sol’s name did tubes untie themselves?
Feeling faintly sick, I felt even sicker when, after prodding my belly for a few seconds more, the doctor beamed yet another smile at me and murmured, “Look, she’s a girl.”
For a second, I thought I was losing it. One girl per generation. That was the rule of the first families, right? That was why my mother had borne a battalion of boys in her hunt for a daughter with more magic than me.
A chuckle sounded in the surgery. Echoing around the walls in a way I recognized. I’d heard her several times throughout my life, my tatarabuela did like to check up on me from time to time. Usually at momentous occasions like when we’d struck the first Accord between the witch and Fae communities, a charter that set down fair rates for the trade of magic as a commodity, or when we’d celebrated the tenth anniversary of the Day of Redemption, or, even, when the Assembly had finally given in and had allowed me to take one of their ‘seats.’ I’d heard her voice in my head, just as I heard it now, and when her words hit home as she whispered in my mind, I closed my eyes, because fuck…
“I told you you’d bring change.”
THE END
Afterword
So… take a breath.
How are we feeling? :D
I really hope you loved The Eight Wings Collection, and please, PRETTY PLEASE WITH KNOBS ON, come into my Diva reader group and tell me what you’re happy about/mad at/want to whip me over and generally tell me what you’re feeling! :D
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lly does make a difference, not just to me, but for fellow readers like yourselves.
As always,
Yours,
Serena
xoxo
Also by Serena Akeroyd
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But, if you’d like to hang out with me and get to know me better, then I’d love to see you in my Diva reader’s group where you can find out all the gossip on new releases as and when they happen. You can join here: www.facebook.com/groups/SerenaAkeroydsDivas. Or, you can always PM or email me. I love to hear from you guys: [email protected].
Until I see you there or you write me an email or PM, here are more of my books for you to read…
The Kingdom of Veronia Collection
SATAN’S SINNERS’ MC
Nyx
Link
Dragon Bound
Coven
Leman
Hell’s Rebels MC
Their Sinner
Their Saint
The Sex Tape (Co-written with Helen Scott)
The Professor
The Caelum Academy
Seven Wishes
Eight Souls
Nine Lives
Naughty Nookie
Sinfully Theirs
Sinfully Mastered
The Gods Are Back In Town
Hotter than Hades
The Sun Revolves Around Apollo
The Five Points’ Collection
The Air He Breathes
FourWinds
Queen of the Vamps
QUINTESSENCE
Hers To Keep
Theirs To Cherish
Forever Theirs
Secrets & Lies
The Salsang Chronicles (written with Helen Scott)
Stained Egos
Stained Hearts
Stained Minds
Stained Bonds
Stained Souls
The Ascended: The Eight Wings Collection Page 65
