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He smiled and turned away from the table. And I’d love to oblige you by sharing in explicit detail what I’d do with my fangs, but I’m with three mastyrs who will know exactly what I’m up to if I start in.
He was sure he could hear her chuckling. Vojalie wants to speak to us. Just you and me, for a moment. Can you come to us yet? We have coffee ready for everyone in the lounge.
He glanced back at the table, intending to ask the other men what they thought, but both Gerrod and Ethan had crossed their arms over their chests and now grinned at him. Ethan then pretended to crack a whip in Quinlan’s direction.
But he just didn’t give a good Goddamn. He shrugged. “Batya says they have coffee ready for us. What do you say to giving my earth-access bases a shot?”
Gerrod nodded. “I think we’re all agreed.” He rose as he spoke and the other two mastyrs joined him.
To Batya, he pathed, We’re on our way. Love you, Cha.
Ditto, Quin.
He closed the conversation down and moved up next to Seth as together they followed Gerrod and Ethan from the room.
“So what’s it like?” Seth asked quietly, holding Quinlan back with a slight pressure on his arm. “This whole blood rose thing.”
There were so many things Quinlan could have said, but finally he just shook his head. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. But if fate contrives to send such a woman your way, just embrace the moment, the passion of it, and let go.”
His frown deepened. “Let go?”
“Yeah. It’s a concept you’ll have to get used to.”
* * * * * * * * *
Batya wept. Vojalie, perhaps the most powerful fae in all the Nine Realms, had just given them the news.
“You’re sure?” Quinlan asked. He stood beside his library table, the one that had held the combined map of Grochaire and Walvashorr not even a week ago. “We’re going to have a daughter?”
Vojalie spread her hands wide. She was one of the most beautiful fae women Batya had ever known, one of the kindest souls, and right now had given them the best possible news.
But the woman’s gaze was fixed on Quinlan. “I have dreamed of your mother repeatedly in the past several weeks. I don’t have great rapport with the spirit world. I believe life is for the living. But in these dreams she spoke of Viola. Do you know whom she meant?”
Quinlan nodded. “My grandmother. She was killed by the Invictus a long time ago.”
Batya shifted slightly to see Quinlan’s expression better. He looked like he’d taken a blow to the chest, a sensation she felt within the bonded state of their mating vibrations.
She slipped her hand in his. He met her gaze, searching her eyes, then squeezed her hand in response. “What are you thinking?” she asked.
“That there’s something more here, something I’m trying hard to remember about Viola. Mother always thought she’d been targeted by the Invictus. She had so many stories of near-escapes.”
Batya put her hand on her lower abdomen. “I think I know. I think Margetta tried to end the line well before either you or your mother arrived. She didn’t want you born or maybe she didn’t want this child born.”
“That would only make sense if my mother had been targeted as well, but she wasn’t. She was—” He couldn’t finish the thought because another hard truth about life surfaced.
Quin, what is it? Tell me. Tell us.
He glanced from her to Vojalie. “Sometimes life is so hard it’s almost unbearable. But I’ve just realized that the only way I would ever have been born, and now this child with us, is if my father hadn’t been a brutal, controlling bastard.
“He kept my mother under lock and key. He’d bought illegal protective spells from a fae, who also put an enthrallment shield around our house. I’d always believed it was to keep her inside, but now I don’t know. What if he’d known on some realm-level that her life was in jeopardy?”
Vojalie shook her head. “Sometimes the great paradoxes of our lives are the hardest to bear. But you can still despise what he did to her.”
“I think my mother understood the gift he gave her, even while hurting her at the same time. She always forgave him and I don’t mean a kind of docile relenting, but she forgave him.”
“He kept her safe then.” Vojalie frowned slightly. “A great paradox, indeed, because look at the gift he created in you, that you would grow up to serve Grochaire as no other mastyr ever would have.
“You’ve done well, Quinlan, beyond what your terrible background should have allowed you to do, better even than you will ever believe you’ve done.”
“I agree,” Batya said, squeezing his hand firmly.
Quinlan turned to her. “This is a lot to take in, but from the time that we bonded, I’ve felt a sense of closure, of life righting itself in a strange, miraculous way. I have no doubt that because of Margetta and the Great Mastyr, the Nine Realms are in for it. But right now, in this moment, with a baby we’ve made together, I can be grateful that you’ve come to me, that your presence in my life has changed me, and that I can know love. Beyond that, we’ll take life as it comes.”
She knew how hard these words were for Quinlan to speak, so she spoke her own hard words. “I secluded myself because I saw too much of death. I never thought I could come back to Grochaire, to have a life here, but you made that possible.”
She would continue to run the free-clinic in Lebanon, especially now that Quinlan had a new plan to open up a Grochaire base in Tennessee. He’d already applied to the state government for permission and had meetings lined up with the Governor on the following week to hammer out regulations and protocols.
But her bond with Quinlan had brought her full circle as well so that she would create a new free clinic in the poorest section of Grochaire Realm. She’d wanted to for decades, but her fear of the Invictus had sent her fleeing her birth-realm instead.
Now that the enemy’s intentions were better understood, Quinlan and the mastyrs here tonight were building better defenses. Her realm-clinic, for one thing, would have two Guardsmen on duty all through the night, when the Invictus were most active. During the day, a squad of Guard-trained shifters would take over.
As Quinlan continued to hold her hand and gaze into her eyes, she turned her thoughts toward him and the new life within her.
“I think we should call her Viola.” The name just felt right.
Quinlan slid his arm around her waist and pulled her close. “I think my mother would have liked that.”
