Maeve
I’ve heard some of my family say, albeit under their breath, that the old Maeve is back. The temperamental one. The rash and hard-headed on. The one with little patience and a tongue sharp enough to cut glass.
Sometimes I wonder if that’s all people think I am.
Maybe it’s for the best, I guess. Maybe I now understand why Blake hides his true self behind his powers. I… I had someone to be soft with once. It feels like a lifetime ago.
“You’re not even close,” Ginny, my midwife, says with a sigh. “Have you taken the herbs?”
“Religiously,” I grumble, and Jane, at my side, nods as Ginny smooths the fabric of a bright yellow nightgown–the only thing that fits me at all these days, back over the enormous rise of my belly.
“There are other things we can do, but she’s quite cozy in there as it stands,” Ginny says with a frustrated sigh. “You’re only a day past your due date, and I don’t give much stock to those anyway, but the clock is ticking now. You should walk as much as you can. Take the stairs often.”
“I’m sure one of the guards is strong enough to pick me up and shake me around like a rag doll to get her out.”
Jane bites back a small laugh. Ginny frowns at me, but I shrug. She removes her gloves and tosses them in a waste basket then joins Jane in the arduous task of helping me upright and off the exam table. I grimace against the pressure between my legs. Every movement of my body is difficult these days. I’m constantly winded and feel like I’m too full to eat even though I can barely stomach a bite of food these days.
“Otherwise, you’re in good shape, and she’s perfectly healthy.”
“Great,” I whisper, nodding, but flinch when my sweet angel of a daughter drives her foot into my ribs and kicks me several times. “What else can I do to get her out?”
“Well, there is one thing,” Ginny says with a shrug but her cheeks go slightly pink. “Some… relations may help start labor.”
I arch a brow, loving the way her cheeks begin to fade into a deep crimson. “Relations?”
“Sex,” she says pointedly.
“Well,” I sigh, “I guess she’ll be staying put for a while longer.”
“Just keep track of any contractions that are painful or an increase in the practice contractions I told you about.”
“I will,” I nod, allowing Jane to help me into the satin robe that matches my gown. I retwist my hair into a claw clip before slipping my feet into the fluffy slippers I’ve taken to wearing most days, seeing as everything else hurts.
I’m starting to wonder if Brie had it easy having Kieran so early but banish that thought as quickly as it comes.
Arm in arm with Jane, she weaves us through the clinic and through a servants hallway leading into the castle proper.
“Should I call your mom and have her come?”
“Not yet. I have more days to suffer, I think.”
“Your grandmother called this morning for you. She sent a package and a bouquet of flowers to try to cheer you up. It’s in your office.”
“I’ll call her later, after I've settled in for the night. I have to talk to Blake first, before he leaves for… wherever he’s going. I can’t remember.”
My brain feels trapped in a perpetual fog these days. I can’t think of anything but the baby. I’ve rearranged my closet at least a dozen times over the past week without any idea as to why. Anything to keep my mind off him, I suppose, as the day our daughter is born nears.
I don’t even have a name picked out. I have no idea what to call her. What if she hates her name?
“Maeve?”
“Yeah?” I say, blinking down at Jane.
“I asked if you wanted to retire to your suite after meeting with Blake. I can have a bath ready for you.”
“I won’t be able to get in and out of the tub without assistance at this point, and I don’t want to further scandalize the maids,” I huff. “Don’t worry about me. I plan on going to bed directly after I meet with Blake, so just… well, I’ll see you tomorrow morning, then.” We come to stop on the fifth floor where Blake keeps his suite and office. He’s been hanging around often these days, especially after the Solstice debacle wedged a knife between me and my grandfather.
Brie visited after Solstice with my parents, Logan, and Kieran. Now, everyone is back in their own little worlds patiently awaiting the newest arrival to the family while I keep everyone at a safe distance.
It’s just easier to be cold, I guess. Just like they think I am.
I watch Jane walk away until she disappears around a corner, then I slip into Blake’s office without knocking.
He looks up from the briefcase he’s hurriedly packing, rolling his eyes. “Do you ever knock?”
“Is there someone hiding under your desk half clothed that I should know about?”
He shoots me a glare. “For your information, I’m late for a meeting with the Mystics that’s bound to go all night.” He checks his watch then glances at the first inklings of sunset beginning to paint the mountains a deep fuchsia. “Doing your job, technically.”
“They could come here and stand around my bed,” I say with a shrug, leaning my weight against one of his massive black armchairs that cost a ridiculous sum to purchase and ship to Moonrise from Tarsian.
“I’ll be back later tonight. You can’t hold off the meeting with the Alpha of Ransom Creek any longer, Maeve, I have him on my schedule for the morning.”
“He’s the most inconsiderate bastard I’ve ever met. Make him wait.”
Blake smiles, which is entirely uncharacteristic of him, and throws me off guard. He shuts his briefcase with a snap and leaves without another word.
Honestly, I think I was right about how Eastonia was the best place for him. He’s… brighter now. Less intolerable. He smiles sometimes, even.
He’ll never admit I was right.
I sigh, looking around the office that he says is strictly off limits. I’m shocked he didn’t drag me out of here on his way out the door, but he’s distracted, it seems. More so by the day.
I round his desk and sit down, testing the limits of his fancy office chair. It’s better than mine, that bastard. I reach for the phone to call down to Jane to ask if she can send an army of maids up here to switch the chairs before he comes back, but something catches my eye.
Blake has been splitting his time between his duties here and in Crescent Falls, which includes his work as an architect at his father’s old engineering firm. He’s brilliant, honestly. I look at blueprints scattered over his otherwise neat table, every line perfectly straight and hand drawn, but it’s the stack of graph paper that makes my chest tighten.
My mind whirls, trying to unlock some long forgotten memory I can’t place. I smooth my hand over the first page, over incredibly neat handwriting that tickles something deep in my mind. It’s perfect, unnervingly so, like it was printed from a computer instead of scribbled by his hand.
“What a weirdo,” I mumble then rise with effort, dragging the chair behind me into the hallway.
There’s no one around, of course. I wheel the chair to the elevator and press a button on the intercom directly beside the controls, saying into it, “This is Queen Maeve. I’m stealing Blake’s office chair and putting it on the elevator. Can someone fetch it, put it in my office, and swap my chair for his?”
A soft laugh echoes through the static before someone, possibly one of the male servants who do the heavy lifting around this massive palace, replies, “Sure thing, Your Majesty.”
Smiling to myself, I hike to the sixth floor but stop in the center of the stairwell.
I have a sudden flash of memory from when Soren lifted me into his arms the night I killed Duke. I pressed my cheek to his chest and breathed in his scent while he cradled me in his arms. I turn around, looking down the stairs, backtracking a few steps. I swear I caught his scent–that crisp, forest scent after a heavy rain.
The baby rolls and kicks.
I shake my head, closing my eyes for a moment as my belly tightens into a painless contraction, then continue on my way.
This happens from time to time. I think I see him in a crowd. I think I hear his voice. But then I wake up, and my bed is cold, and his scent isn’t there. It’s not even on his jacket that still hangs in my closet, which now smells like me and the salt of my tears instead.
The one thing that hasn’t faded yet is my grief. To be honest, it’s been easy to bury, but when I’m alone and it’s quiet, I think of him against my will, making up little daydreams about what could have been, about what could be if he ever came back.
I dream about him being here to meet his daughter when she comes into the world. I imagine her looking like him, having the same expressions he does, even though I know seeing that in her will be my undoing.
I’ve just been… coasting.
I’ll coast forever. I’ll survive, but I’ve come to the conclusion I won’t fully live.
So be it.
I walk the long hallway to the main entrance of my suite, huffing and puffing after climbing the stairs, which made the baby more active than usual. I reach the door and find it unlocked, shaking my head over being so careless, but my attention span is probably three seconds at the most these days.
I shut the door behind me, leaning my weight against it for a moment while I try to catch my breath. The strain in my lower back is getting to the point I can barely handle walking from my office on the second floor to the royal suite on the sixth, but it’s good for me to keep moving during these final days of the pregnancy, or so my midwife says, even though all I want–all I can think about–is lying down.
The baby shoves her foot into my ribs again. I wince, chuckling as I smooth a hand over the slope of my belly, the satin fabric of my tent of a nightgown already incredibly tight and snug on my skin.
But then I… look up from where my fingers rest, feeling a strange sensation sweep through my body, my senses, that tells me with certainty that I’m not alone.
“Jane?” I ask, my voice traveling down the length of the snug hallway, through the archways and open doors leading to the various rooms of my suite.
It’s not Jane. It’s not. I can–I know who it is–
My feet start moving before my mind, and heart, have a chance to catch up, to stop me from hurting my own Goddess damned feelings and getting my hopes up, again, for the thousandth time, but… I turn into the main room–that wide, open, beautifully decorated living area with cream colored couches and ceiling height windows overlooking the sparkling turquoise lake, high above the golden city.
The shadow leaning against the back of one of the couches slowly turns to look at me as the air leaves my lungs in a silent, but strangled, gasp.
“Soren?”