Lexa
Spring
Kaleb’s hand is a solid, warm presence on my lower back as we move through Aunt Sarah’s rose garden. Most of the flowers are in bloom, which is the doing of her powers, or someone’s powers, seeing as the air still feels crisp, and the grass is a sharp, neon green–fresh and slightly crunchy. The deep emerald green satin of my gown stretches to its limits over the swell of my belly. My skin aches and itches, and it’s taking all of my strength not to scratch. I fill my lungs, letting a breath out slow. We move through the haze of spring greens surrounded by the soft scent of roses, but Kaleb’s fingers curl into a fist against my lower spine, pressing just enough to relieve some of the pressure there.
“I’m going to find you somewhere to sit down,” he whispers through the hum of conversation taking place all around us.
“I’m okay, really,” I insist, glancing around at familiar, and not so familiar, faces. There’re a lot of people here. More strangers than I’ve seen since the Trials. My body locks up on instinct, still fighting feelings and fear I brought home with me without meaning to.
I haven’t been able to set foot in a sparring ring in months. All winter, I haven’t touched a weapon or shifted since coming home.
Kaleb knows. He hasn’t said anything and hasn’t pushed me to get back into training. I have a good excuse–I’m heavily pregnant, due in just two months. No one has questioned me about just lying around, letting my muscles rot.
But Kaleb gets it. He has the same feelings of unrest and uncertainty that I have but is busy settling the packs from the Glade into their new homes in the Deadlands. Logan has been helping, of course. Silverhide has been bursting at the seams all winter, but now new settlements, new villages, have cropped up along the road to Endova–new towns where everyone is free to just be wolves.
No fae kings steal their powers. No chains keep them bound. No Cullings. No mass funeral pyres.
Memories sweep me into a near stupor, and when I open my eyes again, I’m nestled on a couch in a cozy, warm, dimly lit sitting room on the first floor of Sydney and Sarah’s castle. Kaleb has his hand on my shoulder while he talks quietly to Logan, both of them facing a window overlooking the stunning back garden, but my eyes find Brie’s.
She looks radiant in a dress of plum purple, her hair tied back and cheeks flushed pink, but it’s the new baby in her arms that really steals my attention.
Griffon is almost three months old, still a deep, healthy pink. He rests in her arms, sleepily nursing. Brie gives me a sleepy smile before turning her eyes to Logan, who matches that smile with a knowing, loving grin. He’s just as happy as her–and equally as exhausted.
My hands rest on the swell of my stomach, over the baby within–a boy, we think. It’s just a feeling–a knowing. We’re having a son.
And he’s who we did this for. Who I did this for.
“Jerrod is adamant about it,” Logan says, and I blink, having missed most, if not all, of the conversation taking place around me.
“If he’s serious, I don’t see why not. It would be at least a hundred people–mostly men.”
“Exactly. It’s what he needs. More hunters, more skilled laborers. There’re more women than young men of a mating age in Endova, and Jerrod and his elders are hoping new pack members will even things out. The Harvest Festival last year was the most successful yet in terms of mates finding each other, and he’s hoping this year will surpass that.”
“The tribes are alive again,” Kaleb says under his breath and squeezes my shoulder. My fingers rest over his, but I remain silent, too overcome to speak.
I feel Logan inspecting my expression. I don’t want to tell him I wanted this–having him home. Watching him set up a life in the Deadlands. He wanted to find Emberfyll so badly. It was his life’s mission–what he spent years searching for then building, and now it’s just gone. A base of operations for summits held between the Allied Kingdoms and the new kingdoms in the making in Pantharas. New kingdoms like the one Silas is carving out of the rubble of the capital as the king he was supposed to be.
The truth is clear, however. A truth Logan sees, I think. He has to. He knows his true origins now, the history of his people–people like my mate.
We’re one people. One family. Now… free.
I look at Griffon’s ears, the faint point, not nearly as pronounced as Kaleb’s, and feel a smile twitching at the corners of my mouth. Kaleb squeezes my shoulder again as the door to the sitting room opens, and Grandma Maddy steps inside the room, her hands full of Blake and Marianna’s twins–boys, born a month ago. Callum and Caspian. Boys everywhere. Poor Fallon and Skye.
“The ceremony is about to start. Are you all ready?”
Brie nods, and Logan quickly comes to fetch Griffon. Kaleb helps me out of the cushions my body would have liked to remain within, but duty calls–this time a wedding, which is actually a rather rare occurrence for my family.
“Where’re Skye and Kieran?” I ask Brie as we shuffle through the castle toward the garden, cutting through a group of guests already drinking champagne in the back sitting room overlooking a wide veranda.
“Kieran’s with Grandma Ella, I believe. Well, I hope he is because that’s who I left him with earlier. Oh, there’s Maeve!” Brie reaches a hand over the crowd and waves to Maeve, who whirls, looking relieved to see us.
“How many people did Sarah and Sydney invite?” Maeve asks us with a frown, adjusting a wiggly one-year-old Fallon on her hip. Her daughter grips Maeve’s hair like she’s holding reins and beams at me, showing off three teeth and those big, sea glass eyes that shimmer from within, the promise of power very few can even fathom. She even has a little necklace now, too, just like Maeve used to wear. It was made by family friends of Ryatt, apparently, with a small moonstone in the center glowing a pale crimson in the sunlight–the majority of her young powers trapped within. She hasn’t grown out of her golden blonde curls yet and looks shockingly like her father, who is standing under the cover of a trio of mock orange trees, their pearly white flowers in full bloom. White petals dust the ground around us. We funnel into chairs, along with at least another hundred people, which I doubt know Marianna and Blake personally, but this is a royal wedding, after all, even if this ceremony is considered intimate.
Fallon stretches out of Maeve’s arms with an annoyed screech, reaching for Brie, but Brie has Griffon back, and when Logan offers to take Fallon instead, she nearly bites through his hand.
“Oh, Fallon,” Maeve shushes, bouncing her vigorously. “This will be quick, and then you can take a nap with your dad. How does that sound?”
Fallon turns her curious eyes to mine, then leans back to look at Kaleb, who’s seated beside me, watching the crowd like we’re all in danger, and he’s the only thing between us and a threat. That trait hasn’t left him yet. I extend a hand, and Fallon accepts my advances.
I don’t have much of a lap left, but it doesn’t matter. She stares up at Kaleb like she’s never seen anything quite like him before, and he eventually glances down at her, too. She grins at him and giggles, clapping her hands and squirming when he gives the smallest smile I think I’ve ever seen. Then, she settles, her attention stolen by the music beginning to play–violin music. It’s prerecorded, and I know without a shadow of a doubt, it’s Marianna playing.
The crowd hushes when Skye and Kieran stumble down the aisle together. Kieran insisted he also get to throw roses. He tosses up handfuls of petals while Skye is more meticulous about it, planning her throws by color and texture, which gives the aisle a slightly uneven look, but Brie chuckles, and Logan shakes his head with a smile as their son approaches Soren, who gives them a goofy look and motions for them to sit in the front row with their representative grandparents.
“Why did we get seated in the fourth row?” Maeve grumbles, teasing, “Don’t they know how important we are?”
“It’s because they knew you were going to talk,” Brie hisses, and Maeve rolls her eyes to her mate and smiles at him while he gives her a cat-like glare.
“What is Soren doing up there anyway?” I ask as Fallon buries her face in my chest then lifts it to giggle at Kaleb, who’s watching her with interest. I’m not sure if he’s ever been this close to a baby before, let alone interacted with one. He always kept the infants and kids in the Glade at arm’s length. I don’t blame him. There wasn’t a future for them before everything happened, and now?
I wonder what he sees when he looks at Fallon. I think it’s hope.
“He’s marrying them,” Brie says with a soft sigh. “I’m still unconvinced he’s qualified.”
“Technically, they’re already married, so it doesn’t matter,” Maeve hisses, suddenly defensive. “Sarah and Maddy threw a hissy fit when they married at the temple and didn’t tell anyone until we all gathered in Maatua for Solstice.”
“I don’t blame them,” I laugh, dropping my view to a low whisper when several heads turn in our direction with glares. Blake stalks out from the right of the altar, incredibly uncomfortable. “They wanted to be married before the twins came, and Blake is not a public show of affection kind of person. He looks like he wants to crawl out of his skin right now!”
Maeve, Brie, and I turn to watch Blake pivot at the front of the aisle, his eyes narrowed to slits, just wide enough to discreetly scan the crowd before Soren leans to whisper something in his ear.
“I think it’s crazy they wanted to move up the wedding. Marianna had the boys a month ago.”
“She’s totally fine. Cole delivered them, and Misty used her powers to heal her right up.” Maeve waves a hand in dismissal. “They’re in the middle of moving into the gargantuan house in Moonrise. That’s why they moved it up. I wouldn’t be surprised if they locked themselves in it for the rest of the summer.”
“You sound like you’re upset they’re moving out.” Brie arches a brow.
“I’m thrilled for them. Can’t you tell?” Maeve tries to smile, but her left eye twitches.
Brie nudges my shoulder as Marianna finally makes her grand appearance looking… beautiful. “She’ll never admit that she loves Blake and wishes he wasn’t leaving the palace.”
Some of the tension in my chest lifts as I watch everyone turn to watch Marianna walk down the aisle. She’s dressed in pale silverish violet instead of white, which is striking against her tan skin and dark hair. I’m barely listening when Soren jokes through the informal ceremony, telling the crowd all about their ill-fated love story and how Blake is damn lucky Marianna is as calm and patient as she is because she needs to be, especially being in the center of a family of mystics.
The crowd titters and laughs, but our row remains silent, all of us lost in thought. Soren says, “I know a bit about marrying into this family. You all see them as kings and queens, as powerful beings of shadow and mist… as gods and goddesses. Maybe that’s true. Maybe that is what they are, but… I think of my beautiful mate, the mother of my daughter, and know that she is just a woman. Someone capable of the deepest kind of love and sometimes grief. Someone who can make fire expand from her fingertips and also has a favorite order at every restaurant in Moonrise.”
Maeve blushes, but her smile isn’t something she can hide.
He goes on to talk about his friendship with Blake and getting to know Skye and Marianna, and praises Marianna for her ability to be exactly what Blake needed all this time. He talks about how his relationship with Blake changed for the better when Marianna was back in the picture.
The crowd has grown silent as they listen, getting insight into a very intimate side of the royal family. The side the general public doesn’t ever get to witness.
The side no one thinks about during war times, when everything's going wrong.
We’re just… normal people deep down.
Kaleb’s hand is firm and warm against my thigh when the ceremony ends. A chorus of applause ripples through the back garden before guests begin to funnel into the castle, to the ballroom, where the reception has been laid out. The last couple to get married here was Liam and Charlette, and it was a party to last the ages, but they will be king and queen one day, likely far in the future. I have a feeling Sarah and Sydney will rule for a very long time.
We don’t last in the ballroom long. I pull Kaleb through the castle and up the stairs, looking for a moment of quiet, and we find ourselves in the library while music from the ballroom sends a steady vibration through the floorboards.
“How was it? Your first non-tribal wedding?”
“There were no fur or tattoos. I found it slightly confusing,” he jokes, pulling me close. The tattoo on his finger catches the golden light streaming down from the rafters. Two crescent moons with a spear between them.
His lips press to mine, and the world fades away.
I love when this happens.