“You do. You are.” I exhale, spent, savoring the shape of her clavicle with my lips. “You are my escape, Elinor. All you need to do is keep loving me. Despite my flaws. With you, I’m safe enough to tell the truth.”
She sits back. Dampness floods my thigh as I slide inelegantly from her, wincing at the kiss of air on my wet cock.
“And give you heirs,” she reminds me.
I honestly don’t care if she never does. She is enough. But she wants a family, and I am trying my damnedest to give her everything she desires. After carrying the load of her ungrateful stepfamily for so many years, it is my mission to provide her with luxuries she cannot even imagine, much less ask for. I’m about to tell her that heirs are optional when she presses a finger to my lips to quiet me.
“Speaking of which, we seem to have succeeded rather quickly on that score.”
My mouth falls open against her skin. A feeling I don’t know how to describe overwhelms me. Wonder. Tenderness. Abject terror. Pride.
“You’re not serious?”
Worry pleats her brow. “I know it’s early, and the timing is awkward with the country in turmoil. The pregnancy might not necessarily work out. But I thought you should be the first to know, Alistair. Is it all right?”
I clutch her with my arms tight around her back and tangled in her hair. “More than all right, my queen. I have loved you since the moment I saw you in rags. I cannot imagine anything better than making a life with you.”
Living.Not just existing, but fully alive to all the possibilities of the world. That is the gift Elinor has given me.
“You’ll be a wonderful father,” she murmurs. I chuckle.
“Something no one would have said about me a month ago.” I have changed. I am proud of the ways I have changed. Lies may still be my mother tongue, but she has taught me to speak a new language. However we are tested in the coming years, we will thrive. Together.
EPILOGUE
ELINOR, FIVE YEARS LATER
As prophesied,war does come for the Five Realms.
Through it all, I have borne three children, all boys, and my time approaches to deliver a fourth as Alistair rides home. He is the king and should be safe behind stone walls, yet he rides out time and again to lead his soldiers.
Which leaves me waiting, fearful and wondering whether he will live to meet his youngest child. I pace the tower parapet fretfully, watching the horizon for any sign of his return.
A maid in a gray gown comes rushing up the stairs. I cast a weary final glance at the empty road and smooth the green silk velvet over my burgeoning belly. All the luxurious gowns in the world cannot disguise my inelegant waddle of late pregnancy.
“Your Highness, the prince has fallen,” she says breathlessly. Inside my stomach, the baby kicks my kidneys. Four children might be enough.
“Which one?” I ask the harried nursemaid.
“Little Merek,” she answers. “Young Theo pushed him off the low wall in the garden.”
I sigh. Our middle boy is my most sensitive and also the most reckless. He adores his older brother, the four-year-old Crown Prince Theobard, and follows him everywhere. The youngest, Lionel, is barely walking. The three of them together are a handful for any one adult to manage. Fortunately, I have several women to help mind them.
“Is he injured?”
“A scraped knee. He is inconsolable.”
I waddle down from the tower steps to find Theo patting his crying brother’s shoulder. Merek bursts into fresh tears at the sight of me. It takes some doing to crouch down, but I manage to pick him up despite my belly. My back twinges with the exertion.
“There, little one. Does it sting?”
He nods, rubbing snot on the sleeve of my nice gown. Gently, I clean his face with a lace-edged handkerchief.
“Let’s take a look.” I balance him on my knees, his small back against my bump, while the nurse washes his bloody knee, applies an ointment, and then wraps a cloth around his chubby leg. Mollified, Merek sniffs twice, takes a shuddering breath, and lets out a sharp giggle.
“Baby kick!” he squeals, utterly delighted.
“Yes, darling, I felt it too. He or she will be here soon. Are you looking forward to having a little brother or sister?”
