Page 21 of Dark Destiny: The Turning Of The Loom

I would love to be an uncle, Voset thought, and there was laughter in it. Seven uncles.

It's going to be the safest child on Earth, Bardov thought. Nothing will touch it.

Yaaf sent them warmth before filling the cracks and sealing the leak.

He'd promised Sullha that nothing would spill over, and he'd failed. They knew he was thinking about a child. They didn't know why, though. So, it was okay. Or so he hoped.

When the door opened and Sullha walked in, Yaaf stood and crossed to her.

"Everything okay?"

"I'm not pregnant."

Was he imagining it, or was disappointment mixed in with the relief?

"How do you feel about that?" he asked hesitantly.

She shrugged. "I peed on a stick." She tugged on his hand and led him back to the couch. "If I were pregnant, it would have shown a blue plus sign. It didn't."

Merlin returned with Ronja, and they sat across from Sullha and Yaaf in the two armchairs.

"You are not carrying a child. You're in excellent health, and your left side is just trapped gas." He sat down. "When we are stressed, we clench parts that shouldn't be clenched, and things get trapped instead of being released. Which brings us back to where we started."

"I can't believe it's all stress," Sullha said.

"You've taken on far more than you should, and you did it right after going through what was probably the most terrifying event of your life. You escaped, risking not only your life but also your son's. Your body never had the chance to stand down. Now it no longer can without help."

"Can you help?" Yaaf asked.

"Of course, but first you need to understand why it is critical. Many of the couples who come to me for fertility treatments are suffering from the same thing. They are stressed, and their bodies think they are under attack, so they declare a state of emergency, which means no new projects. No pregnancy and no transition."

"I was under stress in the enclosure," Sullha said. "Every time they called my number to the breeding building, I was in a state of panic. And yet my body made Tomek."

Yaaf's hands clenched into fists.

The rage erupted hot and sudden, and he wanted to murder each of the men she had been delivered to, to obliterate the breeding building, and with it the entire island. The wall began to crack again, and the other seven reached him through those cracks, surrounding him until the rage subsided.

"That's probably why you have only one child," Merlin said. "Without the stress, you would have had a child every year, but your body wouldn't let it happen. It protected you."

Sullha stared at him.

"We drank the hibiscus tea," she said. "That was why we didn't get pregnant as often. We did it in secret. The guards didn't know that the tea had contraceptive properties."

Merlin shook his head. "It might have helped a little. Hibiscus has some effect in high enough doses, but it wasn't the main reason. You and the other women lived in constant fear. Your body has been a very good soldier, Sullha, but it doesn't know that the war is over."

Merlin turned to Ronja. "The calming elixir should do the trick, don't you think?"

She nodded. "I'll get it." She rose to her feet and returned a moment later with a small brown bottle. "The taste is awful, so take it with a spoonful of honey or a piece of chocolate." She handed the bottle to Sullha.

"One full droplet in the morning and one at night," Merlin said. "If you feel your anxiety rising during the day, especially the panic, you can take one more. It will relax you, and in the first few days you might be sleepier than usual because you are sleep deprived. Don't fight it. Then, once you are back on a healthy sleep schedule, you will just feel as if the volume has been turned down."

Sullha nodded, looking at the bottle and frowning.

Merlin turned to Yaaf. "When was the last time you took Sullha on a date?"

Yaaf looked at him. "What do you mean?"

Ronja pressed her lips together, then lifted a hand to her mouth.