AllFreeNovel
Share Us
But perhaps it was all I deserved. All I could hope for.
I stepped forward into the waiting embrace of my brother’s arms.
Death. Death was where I belonged.
In the end, I let love consume me.
CHAPTER 1 - MORGAN
I woke with a jolt, covered in a sheen of sweat.
The baby was crying.
“Just turn over and go back to sleep, my love,” a deep voice murmured in my ear. “I’ll go to her.”
A moment later, I heard the pad of heavy footsteps. Then the creak of a cradle and a familiar crooning lullaby. Within seconds, the crying had ceased. Even I felt easier in my heart, listening as Draven sang.
I turned over with a sigh, knowing the return of sleep would not be forthcoming. The sickly gray light of dawn peeked through the long curtains and reminded me of my dream. I shivered.
I snuck a peek across the room to where Draven was rocking Medra in his arms. He had eyes only for her when he held her. I smiled to myself. Should I have been jealous?
She wasn’t even our baby.
And yet somehow, she was now.
She was family. Our family.
“She’ll want milk, Draven,” I reminded him. I knew he knew this. I also knew he hated to give her up to anyone else.
He glanced at the little bottle of expressed milk that sat on the windowsill. It was empty now. Medra had finished it off earlier in the night.
She could have spent all night with her wet nurses. She had two of them, after all, the hungry little thing.
But Draven preferred to keep her close to us as much as possible.
Truth be told, I think he believed she was only safe when she was near us. And after all we had been through, all we had seen, I couldn’t blame him for his fear.
Though it did mean less alone time for the two of us. More waking at night to the plaintive cries of an infant.
But Medra was motherless. Parentless. I would not resent her for her demands. Nor be anything but grateful that my mate had accepted a child not of his blood so easily or wanted to keep her close and protected.
“We won’t always be able to keep her this close,” I said out loud.
He glanced at me and frowned.
“I’m sorry. I know...” I shook my head. “No. I don’t know. I’m just... sorry.”
I was. Sorry. Sorry Draven had lost his own daughter. Sorry we couldn’t keep Medra this close to us always.
But with what we had to do still lying ahead, I knew it was impossible. There was no way I was bringing a child into Rheged. And I knew Draven wouldn’t want that either, no matter how much he already adored Medra.
Loved Medra. He loved her. I knew this.
And as for me? If I were being honest with myself, the truth was that I had kept my distance from Medra to an extent, afraid to get attached as quickly as I might have in the past.
Orcades’s death was fresh in my mind. My sister. Medra’s mother. If she had lived, what else might have been?
No matter what mistakes she had made, in the end, I had found myself loving her.
