Helen had to call in multiple healers to help Charlotte in the hours after the birth.
Three days of healing had cobbled her back together, and now, standing in the water up to her knees, Charlotte looked pale, but also like she had long forgotten the labor that had nearly broke her. She glowed, cradling the baby with the promise of unconditional love.
The boy was already strong, gripping tightly onto Skye’s pinky as Charlotte held him. Charlotte pulled her eyes away from the baby, and getting nods from the other three, she unwrapped him from the blanket, laid it on her shoulder, and slowly bent, sinking him below the surface of the water. It took one long second, and then a bright flash of light exploded and held, blinding all eyes.
The light disappeared as instantly as it appeared, and Charlotte lifted him out of the water.
He came out angry, wailing at the outrage of being submerged in freezing mountain water. Charlotte re-wrapped him in the blanket, and the screams lessened into perturbed warbles.
Triaten beamed, pride unmistakable, as he moved through the water, stopping behind Charlotte and wrapping both of them in his arms.
His cheek next to Charlotte’s, he looked down at his baby boy, mesmerized by brown-black eyes that were identical to his own. “And now, my dear Alexander Horace, we wait.”
~~~
“I feel like we should have told them,” Skye said, leaning over to scratch Rafe’s ears as he walked into the house.
“They’ll find out soon enough,” Aiden said, walking past them and setting his keys on the wood table. “Let this just be ours for another day or two.”
Rafe trotted into the living room and picked up the bone he’d been working over. Time to bury it. Skye held the door open for Rafe to go out, then turned to kick her heels off.
“I’m guessing you’re not hungry after Stewart’s spread today?” Aiden asked, popping open the refrigerator.
“And you would guess wrong. I would love a brownie, or truffles, or something sweet. Do we have any of that?”
“No clue. But you like to sneak all sorts of crazy things into this fridge. I’m going to have to talk to Stewart about encouraging that. I rue the day he started importing those fancy cocoa beans of his.”
“Well, you’re still under the gun to find me one of those ‘crazy’ things while I get out of this dress.”
Skye walked down the hallway, then skidded to a stop at the entrance to the study. She stood in the hallway, mouth agape. Her voice came out in a whisper. “What…How?”
Aiden appeared next to her.
She looked up at him. “How?”
He shrugged. “It was convenient. We were out of the house for most of the day.”
Skye’s eyes swung back to the study. She stood staring, not moving.
“You can go in, you know,” Aiden said.
Skye took a shaky step into the study. The softest green surrounded her. Gone was the heavy mahogany desk. Gone was the chair. Gone were the tomes of warfare. And the dark bookshelves that lined a wall had been painted white. The ceiling was now a mural of misty clouds, centered by a light fixture of the most beautiful glass mosaic, swathes of colors swirled in gentle waves.
“The light?” Skye asked, her head craned to the ceiling.
“Leftover from Shiv’s mosaic at the ranch. I thought you would want a piece of her here.”
Tears started to slip down Skye’s cheeks. She tore her eyes from the ceiling to look gratefully at her husband. “It’s beautiful, wonderful.”
Her eyes shifted to where she had immediately wanted to go, but held back, almost afraid to go near it. Afraid that it wasn’t real.
The wall of pictures. Aiden’s wall of pictures. Of atrocities. Of sins past.
With a deep breath, Skye slid her bare feet across the floor to stand in front of the wall. The pictures were gone, every last one. The expanse was now bare, newly painted in the green. A white crib was centered in front of the wall. A little side table with a lamp shaped like a giraffe on it, an enormously fluffy dog bed, and a cushy rocking chair filled in the rest of the space.
Skye stepped closer, her hands resting on the edge of the crib as she stared at the empty wall. Minutes passed as tears continued to slide down her face.
She turned to face Aiden, still at the doorway. “Are you sure? You know you didn’t have to get rid of them for me.”
Aiden stepped into the study-turned-nursery and put one hand on Skye’s shoulder, and another on her belly. “It was this, or add-on to the house. This is the best option, don’t you think?”
“But are you sure? All of that was who you are. I don’t want that taken away from you.”
Aiden’s hand went to cup the side of her face. “All of that was who I was. Was. This is my life now. This is who I am. My truth is right in front of me,” his hand tightened on her belly, “along with my future. I have no need to look back.”
“Really? Truly?”
Aiden nodded. “Yes. Wait, except for this one picture. Hold on.”
Aiden dashed out of the room, and Skye’s eyes fell downward, discouraged. Of course there was something he had to hold onto, how could there not be.
She forced a smile on her face, but couldn’t quite look up at him when he came back into the room.
“Here, this one.”
Not gaining a look, Aiden moved the picture so it was under her gaze.
Centered in a gold gilded frame with wide white matting, was the crumpled picture taken of Skye when she first arrived at the ranch. Aiden had tacked the photo back on this wall long ago, high above the others, and Skye had never questioned it.
Now, the glass of the frame flattened the picture, but did nothing to hide the creases and scars that the paper had undergone.
It was fitting.
Tears filled Skye’s eyes once more, and they dropped onto the glass.
Aiden immediately pulled the frame away. “Oh. I’m sorry. We don’t need to keep it, Skye. I thought—”
She reached out and grabbed his wrist, stopping him from taking the picture away. “Yes, we do need to keep it. It’s perfect. Thank you.”
Aiden smiled. “Good. This entire house could go up in flames, and I would walk through them to get this one possession.”
He walked over to the inside wall with a waiting nail, and hung the picture. Stepping back to Skye, he wrapped his arm around her, looking at the photo. “That is the only thing I’ve ever owned that I truly cared about, because it represents you. That moment in time I knew my life was never going to be the same.”
He pulled her tighter into him. “You walked out of the ranch, and you stood at that railing, deciding if you were going to leave or stay. Barefoot, staring at the sky, hoping for deliverance. I was watching you, willing you to stay on your own accord, because honestly, I never would have let you leave. I fought it. I wanted to ignore it. But I already knew you had my soul in your hands. I already knew I would go to the ends of the earth for you.”
Skye nudged her head into his chest, circling her arms around his body. She kept her eyes on the picture.
“Look at you,” Aiden said, his voice rough. “Look at that innocence, and look at who you became. Fate was busy that day. And fate always gets its way. So you ask me if I’m sure about giving up the past. I am. Turns out, life—and time—always moves on, my love. And sometimes, it ends up right where you never even dreamed it could be.”
Skye closed her eyes.
When she opened them, Aiden was standing in front of her again, holding the frame and picture under her face. She looked up at him.
“Really?” he asked with a smirk.
She returned the smile, not bothering to hide the devil behind her lashes. What were a few minutes of repeated time? Green eyes shining, she stared at him, her love paramount. “Tell me again.”
~ Author’s Note ~
Thank you so much for taking this latest trip up the mountain with me!
I imagine I’ll get some questions about what is next, a
nd I am fully convinced it is time for these four to take some hard-earned rest. Good thing Shiv has some things to figure out. Damen too. (Feel free to weigh-in on my site!)
Be sure to sign up for news of my next releases at www.KJJackson.com (email addresses are precious, so out of respect, you’ll only hear from me when I actually have real news).
In the meantime, if you liked reading the three Flame Moon novels, please leave a brief review—I truly appreciate the reader’s words and thank you so much! Reviews are the best way to help others like you find something they will like too.
As always, I love to connect with my readers, you can reach me at:
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Thank you for allowing my stories into your life and time!
~ K.J. Jackson
Flux Flame (A Flame Moon Novel Page 29
