Maeve
Gray morning sunlight spreads across the carpet as I pace the corridor outside of the library where a screaming match is taking place between Blake and Ryatt. Soren and my dad’s voices occasionally lift over the snarls and growls but otherwise blend with the chaos.
They came back last night, and it’s been a mess, to say the least. I came out of Blake’s private suite to the sound of my mother’s frantic voice echoing through the halls where we collided in an embrace, and the first thing I asked was if Soren was still alive.
And, he is. Thank the Goddess, and it sounds like he’s holding his own.
I should be in the room. I know that, but this pain… I can’t work past it anymore. My entire body is in turmoil as the contractions I’ve been having off and on over the past two days grow closer and closer together but then slip away entirely, leaving me breathless and frustrated.
Now, I’m stressed out, and all I want is a moment alone with Soren to make sure he’s okay and no one in my family maimed him beyond repair.
Cole slips out of the library, his face drawn in shadow, and sees me standing in wait nearby. He closes the door against the voices inside and sighs, running his fingers through his dark blond hair as he walks in my direction. “Maeve, you should be upstairs–”
“I have nothing to do,” I rush out, balling my hands into fists. “Mom left hours ago to go get Brie. She won’t be back for a while, probably not until tomorrow or the next day, given that jumping with Brie and Kieran means having to stop in the Deadlands for them to rest and to dose more herbs.” I swallow back my nerves and scrub my hand over my face, my fingers trembling. I feel swollen and heavy. Jane came in to brush my hair away from my face and braided it tightly down my back. I’m wearing another nightgown that brushes my knees and a robe that sweeps across the floor, and I’m barefoot because my slippers don’t even fit anymore. Cole’s gaze takes me in, chews me up, and spits me out.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I whisper, shaking my head. “I know what I look like–”
“You look incredibly uncomfortable. You should go rest,” he says bluntly, taking a heavy breath. “Has your water broken yet?”
“Look, I get that you’ve delivered half of the babies in this family, but I am fine, okay? I’m just huge, uncomfortable, and really going through it right now, all right?”
“All right,” he echoes, raising his hands in surrender. “I’m going to be with Misty making arraignments for our kids when they get here, if you need me.”
Soren’s voice tears through the barrier of the heavy, ancient wooden door into the library, and my body moves on impulse, shoving past Cole and into the sanctum where my male family members have been fighting over the best course of action like they have any say in what we’re doing.
What I’m doing.
“You don’t know the Roguelands like I do,” Soren bellows, pointing an accusatory finger at Blake, who’s standing with his arms crossed over his chest a safe distance away from everyone else. Soren doesn’t even glance in my direction when I lean my weight against the library door to close it, the click of the latch echoing seven stories high to the domed ceiling. “You go there with an army, and the only thing you can expect is to piss off every Alpha who claims territory there and send the people you're seeking deeper into hiding! That forest will eat you alive, Blake. I swear to the Goddess, going in with an army is going to get everyone killed and put us ten steps behind Hannibal and the Viper.”
Blake rolls his eyes, but my grandpa, who I haven’t seen in over a month, braces his hands on one of the many tables scattered across the lowest level of the massive library. “He’s right, Blake. The Roguelands is a different animal entirely.”
Soren blinks then looks secretly smug at the fact that my grandpa agreed with him, but Blake is furious.
“Are you seriously considering–”
“I am seriously considering bringing your father and grandfather here to deal with you,” Grandpa snaps back, eyeing Blake with so much vitriol I can taste it. “You’ve made a huge mess that I have to clean up. Do you realize that? Your cousin has been slaving away running this kingdom and brought you here to help, and you did this? Undermined her authority? Undermined your father’s authority in your own kingdom?”
Blake looks at me, narrowing his eyes.
Grandpa Ryatt, who hasn’t noticed my presence, continues, but softer, “You can’t continue like this, Blake. Your powers are too immense, and you’re too young to be using them this way. You have no real world experience–”
“I will determine when and how to use my gifts–”
Another shouting match rattles the hundreds of thousands of books all around us, but I catch my father’s gaze, and he shakes his head at me, then tilts his head toward me, mouthing, “Just go.”
I shake my head. “Will all of you shut the fuck up?”
Blake glowers, but Grandpa Ryatt slowly turns his head to face me.
“I think you all may have forgotten who is now in charge here,” I spit, my hands on my hips. “I've had enough of your screaming tantrums this morning. I have a vicious headache. I’m a thousand pounds and fucking tired. I’m sick and tired of the noise. Enough. I will determine what happens next. Blake,” I turn to my cousin. “You will bring every single person, including their families, that you hid away back to Moonrise. They will be housed here for the near future until we can find a way to bring them back to their packs without a media shitstorm to clean up afterward.”
“That’s impossible,” Blake says coolly. “And I’m not doing it until the Hannibal issue is solved–”
“You are not being honest with us,” Grandpa Ryatt snaps, teeth bared. “What have you seen?”
“It doesn’t matter what he’s seen,” I interject, pacing toward the group. “If Hannibal is planning something, we need to be prepared for war. War on Moonrise. Potentially war on Eastonia.” I look at my grandfather, waiting for him to brush me off, but he just stares at me, waiting for me to continue, so I do. “I’m shutting down the borders immediately. Sydney will deploy his army to the border between here and Crescent Falls to ensure whatever happens in Eastonia doesn’t spill into his kingdom. Travel between the kingdoms of Eastonia will be severely limited until the threat has passed, and I want every single Alpha in Tarsian, the Deadlands, and the Roguelands prepared to deploy their personal warriors to my cause in the event Hannibal has an army.” I glance at Blake as I move back across the room. “Moonrise will be under full shields from this moment forward.”
“You cannot use your shields to that extent hours before having a baby,” Dad says, his voice uncharacteristically tangled by grief.
It takes me aback, but only for a moment, because I look at Soren next, and that cocky fucking smile is stretching across his lips as he watches me… take control. He arches a brow, giving me a little nod in a silent command to keep going.
“I serve Eastonia above all else,” I gut out, and my powers stretch, simmering as I ignite the shields around Moonrise. Invisible to the naked eye, but I feel the pull of the magic as it leaves my body and fashions a dome around the sacred city and its more rural towns. “It’s already done.”
“Maeve,” Dad warns, but I shake my head.
“Veiled Valley is already secure, and it will stay that way, but I need the entire force of the Ghosts prepared to move out at any given second,” I tell my dad. “And–”
“There will be war,” Blake says, and the room goes still. I slowly turn to look at him, my spine lengthening vertebrae by vertebrae when I notice the shattered expression flashing behind his eyes. “A war that will… test our limits. I can’t see an outcome for either side.”
“What have you seen?” Grandpa repeats under his breath like he didn’t mean to say it out loud.
“When?” I ask Blake, turning to face him fully. “Where?”
“Soon, but we have… months, if not a year or two, to prepare. Something happens in the meantime, but I can’t see it clearly.” His eyes shine like starlight as his powers shimmer behind them. “They’ll come from the coast of Tarsian and the Deadlands.”
“They?”
Blake shakes his head. “They’ll invade.”
“Who?” Grandpa growls.
I glance at Soren, who’s rapt, watching Blake with a hawk's eye as my cousin raises his hands to his face, pressing his temples like it hurts, badly.
“Hannibal’s… people… I can’t–I can’t see that far. Something’s in my way.”
“Enough,” I tell him as his magic begins to fill the space between us, riling my own. I turn to face my mate. “It won’t get that far. We will stop Hannibal here. There will be no war. Not while I’m queen.” A rope of pain curls around my lower stomach. I clutch the top of a chair, sighing through the tightening sensation threatening to pull me to my knees, and say, “For now, everyone in the family gathers in either Moonrise, Veiled Valley, or the capital in Crescent Falls. Blake, alert your parents–” I grit my teeth as the pain reaches a peak, and then Soren is beside me, leaning down to whisper in my ear.
“I can’t stand here and watch you do this. Come with me, please.”
I nod as tears of pain well in my eyes. The men behind me are silent. I’ve given my orders. They know what to do and how to do it.
Within minutes, thanks to the elevator, I’m back in my suite watching Soren run me a bath. He looks just as worn and exhausted as I feel. I want to ask how it went when he met my parent., It was against his will, but it still happened. I gather Mom was excited for us. Dad will barely look in my direction.
But instead, too stressed and unfocused to fight it, I lean my cheek to his chest as he gently pulls the robe from my body, his hands warm and solid on the bare skin of my arms as the silken fabric falls in a puddle on the floor beneath us. He unties the laces of the nightgown, loosening it enough to pull it over my shoulders. His hands brush down my naked body, calming, reassuring, and I don’t blush or shy away from him seeing me this time.
His mouth brushes against my temple as we stand there in the bathroom, alone, at peace, while the world begins to burn all around us.
The bath works wonders for my aching, too heavy, body. Soren doesn’t leave his perch against the counter and is there to help me out and to wrap me in a towel that barely covers me. I grip his arm as he leads me into the bedroom, now sparkling with midday light, but rain pelts the windows, signaling an early start to spring.
But when he helps me into bed, I stop him with a hand on his chest.
“I missed you,” I whisper, the only words I can think to say.
He nods, swallowing back a reply, but then… kisses me. It’s tender and light, and after a moment he pulls away, resting his forehead against mine.
I rise on my toes and kiss him back, letting the kiss take on a life of its own. I feel him coming to life around me, his touch harder, more demanding, and I melt into him, forgetting the strain in my body and the unraveling world outside the confines of my room–our room now.
Because this is our home.
And he’s mine.
And nothing is going to change that. I won’t let it.
Soren stops the kiss to look at me with a silent question drifting behind his eyes.
“I want you,” I whisper, nodding, smoothing my hands down his chest. “Right now. Please.”
He nods, breathless, and backs me against the bed.