Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 88265 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88265 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
After a moment’s deliberation, I add more healing salts to the water and leave her in peace. I don’t go far—just to the bedroom, where I dress in the formal attire official business meetings require. My father is tasked with enforcing our laws and the necessary judgments and punishments that go with that responsibility. My mother is in charge of diplomatic relations. Kian oversees Lona’s trade, and Vitai is tasked with health and sanitary regulations. Gaia is saddled with our charities. My duties include overseeing all of theirs and making sure the system runs smoothly. The other royals are allocated obligations within those areas and report back to my immediate family. When my father is inundated with disputes to settle, I lighten his burden by taking over some of the cases. It’s a never-ending job that keeps me busy from sunrise to sunset, leaving little time for anything else.
But my father has taken on a great deal of the work himself lately, thereby giving me time to seal the bond with my mate. It’s one of the only two occasions in a royal’s life that he’s granted that much spare time. The other is when his mate is pregnant. We take our responsibility in supporting and protecting our women seriously, especially when they’re growing a baby inside them and are therefore more vulnerable.
There are a lot of assignments waiting for me, enough to keep me busy for many moon cycles to come, yet that’s not what I’m focused on. My thoughts remain with the woman in the other room, a woman who belongs to me yet has a hard time accepting that fact.
When I’ve pulled on my boots, I hover for a moment, torn between going to her and giving her the space she demanded. The decision is made for me when the wall at the entrance lights up, announcing a visitor.
I know who it is by the distinct pulsing rhythm of the light even before I walk to the archway.
Behind me, the almost-silent footsteps of bare feet fall on the floor. Only my enhanced hearing allows me to discern the sound.
I look over my shoulder to find Elsie standing in the archway of the bedroom with a bath sheet wrapped around her naked body. She tries to hide her feelings from me by keeping her expression neutral, but her hurt reaches me through the vague connection of our incomplete bond.
She’s upset—not as much with me as with herself.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I say gruffly. “You couldn’t have stopped what happened even if you’d wanted to.”
She studies me from underneath those long, russet lashes. “Could you?”
My jaw locks around the denial. I’ve always owned my actions. That’s not going to change now. I don’t regret coming inside her, and I won’t blame it on the mating heat.
She sucks her bottom lip into her mouth, working it between her teeth for a while before pushing out a heavy question. “What if…?”
My reply is decisive. “Then we’ll handle it.”
She nods but not in an affirmative way. She looks so frail and delicate standing there half-naked, drowning in a bath sheet, that a chilling fear eats into my gut. Now that it’s a real possibility, the idea of Elsie in childbirth terrifies me. After what she’s been through on Earth, coming so close to dying over and over again, I’m worried she may not be strong enough, that her body may relapse under the strain of growing a baby inside her.
I’ll have to keep Vitai on standby for the full moon cycles of her gestation period. And I’ll find out what happened to make her so sick in that other world, so I can make sure it never happens again.
I’ll keep Elsie and any child she may conceive safe if it’s the last thing I do.
In my peripheral vision, the pulsing of the light becomes insistent. Turning away from Elsie more to prevent her from reading my concern than to address the matter that demands my attention, I lift the seal I’ve put in place and let the archway appear.
My mother stands at the threshold, supported by my father on one side and Vitai on the other. Her guards form a close-knit half-circle at her back. She looks a little better, but she’s still pale.
Seeing her with those thoughts still churning in my head brings back all the old anger and accusations. My mother lied to me. She told me my mate was dead, and I believed her. That fact alone has always made her the main suspect in the wrong that was committed when Elsie was banished to Earth. However, now that the Phaelix’s slave trading has been blown wide open, I have to admit that my mother isn’t the only one capable of sending someone to that other world. Although… the slave trading started a lot later than Elsie’s disappearance, which logically still leaves my mother as the most probable guilty party.