AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She was the most precious thing I’d ever experienced. I couldn’t stop stroking her cheek whenev
er she nursed...or slept...or cooed out her contentment with the world. She was what I considered to be the miracle.
I almost wept that first day when my milk didn’t immediately come, and then it felt as if it took forever to get her to latch onto the nipple. But the healers kept at me, instructing me how to hold her, how to entice her to drink, how to keep her sucking.
At first, I felt like a failure. I was so sure every other mother who’d done this had taken to it naturally and I was the only one who couldn’t do it properly. But then Matticus, the older, wiser healer, started in with stories about other new mothers and how they had struggled too, and I began to feel better, not so alone in my tribulations.
My healing came swiftly. Even if Matticus and Pringle weren’t around, constantly telling me how unusual my condition was, I would’ve been able to notice it for myself.
Within a day, I was up and walking, able to fetch the baby and use the chamber pot on my own, with the cut running through my abdomen completely sealed back together, the scar scarcely visible. I felt fine, health-wise, aside from the lack of sleep I got after getting up to check on Anniston every time she made a peep in the night.
The healers insisted I remain completely bedridden the first week, though. And they recommended I stay within my room the second. They strictly believed I shouldn’t push it because I’d been dead for a solid two minutes before I’d come back to life. But I tried not to focus on how quickly my body was knitting itself back together. It reminded me too much of other issues going on that had nothing to do with Anniston or becoming a new mother, issues I still had trouble believing, even if my new super-healing powers supported such claims.
I just couldn’t wrap my mind around the idea of the High Cliff prince having any kind of special regard for me, or bond with me, or thoughts about me. He’d never even spoken to me. How could he possibly believe we were one true loves? What was worse, everyone—and I mean absolutely everyone—questioned me about him.
Everyone but the prince himself, that is. He didn’t once come to my room to check on me, though I knew he wasn’t allowed anywhere near my bedchamber. Soren, bearing a black eye—which he adamantly refused to tell me how he’d gotten—insisted every time he saw me that I shouldn’t worry about “that High Cliff bastard” because he wouldn’t let the man bother me ever again.
Soren seemed much more concerned about keeping the prince away from me than he was over the fact that he’d just had another child. Then again, he rarely saw his first three children. They didn’t even live at the castle. He had them stay with his late wife’s mother down in Mandalay. I’d only met them two or three times myself, and they hadn’t seemed to have much more regard for him than he did for them. When I had offered to raise them if he wanted to keep them in the castle, he’d merely looked at me as if I’d lost my mind before asking why I thought he’d want such a thing.
So I guess I shouldn’t have expected him to ooh and aww over Anniston either. But he hadn’t even asked about her, or even about me, the first time he visited after her birth.
His first words had been, “Did you know? Did he ever seek you out privately? Did he ever try to touch you?”
It had taken me a minute to even realize what he was talking about, and when I did, it probably took me a good hour to convince him I’d had no contact with Prince Urban whatsoever in my entire life. I even told him about the one time the prince had set a footstool near me to rest my feet on because it was honestly the closest I could remember the man getting to me, and even then, the prince hadn’t spoken a word to me or looked at me. Heck, I could probably count on one hand how many times we’d even shared eye contact across a room.
It confused me why everyone was so concerned about any inappropriate actions the prince might’ve taken. I couldn’t think of anyone who’d honestly been more distant with me. He was the epitome of proper and appropriate. Which was the biggest reason I had to think all this malarkey they were trying to get me to believe was utter hogwash.
If I were anyone’s one true love, the last person I thought I would belong to would be him. But everyone spoke to me about the moment he’d kissed me to bring me back to life as if it were some great awful scandal.
If that was indeed what he’d done, then honestly, I couldn’t be more grateful to the man. I was glad to be alive. Glad to have Anniston and glad she had me since I knew she couldn’t rely on her father for parental love. All in all, the prince’s one true love feelings toward me were nothing but beneficial from my standpoint.
Admittedly, I wasn’t sure yet what to think of the man himself. Whenever I tried, it was more than I could handle. He was merely the handsome enigma of a warrior who’d come to the castle with Allera. Thinking about us as soul mates, especially after I’d had a couple stray lustful thoughts about him was just so...strange. It made me uncomfortably embarrassed and warm. I hated it when people asked me about him, because it only stirred up those peculiar, restless feelings. Besides, why ask me? I wasn’t any kind of authority on the man. Didn’t they realize I knew nothing, that he was an absolute stranger in my eyes?
“I said no! I don’t want her speaking to my wife.”
My husband’s voice stirred me from my thoughts as I watched Anniston sleep in my arms and tried to wrap my brain around everything everyone had been telling me.
I lifted my face to find Soren at the doorway, where he’d strangely stood guard since I’d given birth, or maybe I should say…since that High Cliff bastard had dared to touch what was his. At first, the only other person I saw was Brentley, which made me frown. Brentley had stopped by almost every day to visit and check on me, and Soren hadn’t said a word in protest. But then I realized someone was with the prince. I caught sight of a dainty elbow, a light blue skirt, and long dark hair coiled into perfect ringlets.
Sucking in a surprised breath, I called, “Is that Allera?”
She hadn’t visited me since Anniston had been born, either. And now I knew why. Soren had forbidden even her from seeing me.
Unacceptable! That husband of mine was beginning to vex me with his recent behavior.
“Relax, Soren,” Brentley’s voice hissed from the doorway. “She’s with me. And she’s Vienne’s friend. What the hell do you think she’s going to do, anyway?”
“She’s going to try to pass along a message from that filthy bastard brother of hers, that’s what she’s going to do. You know it as well as I do. Or you would realize it if you weren’t so blinded by her legs, and breasts, and—”
“Soren,” I said, lifting my voice sternly, frowning over his vile suggestions. “I want to see Allera.”
He shook his head, scowling at me. “That’s not wise, my love. She’s—”
“My friend,” I bit out from between clenched teeth. I hated that he’d started calling me my love. I hated that he was trying to keep callers away from me. I hated the things he’d just said about Allera. I just wished he’d go away and leave me alone already. “Just as Brentley said, let her in.”
At first, I thought he was going to deny me my wishes. His eyes narrowed and I could read a million rebukes on his face. But after a moment, he gave a bitter nod.
“Five minutes,” he growled to the High Cliff princess. “Not a second longer. And I’ll be standing here the entire time, watching you.”
