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For her presence in my life, there is much I would learn to put up with. In exchange for a good thing, change is not so bad, I suppose.
And perhaps it has been time for a little bit of civilizing.
It’s certainly amusing watching Death scramble around like a trained puppy putting down table settings, and arranging forks, knives, spoons, and neatly folded cloth napkins carefully at each one even though thus far, it’s only Hannah-consort and occasionally Romulus who even uses them.
More surprising, though, as Hannah-consort comes to sit beside me with a sweet, contented look on her face and the smile in her eyes that is for me alone—I find that I am…
Happy.
For the first time in my entire miserable fucking existence, I am happy.
I look at my brothers and their easy smiles, and I think they are, too. Like a sun that shines in winter after a bitter, endless night, Hannah-consort has brought us a new dawn.
For a moment, I am so choked, I can barely swallow the last of my deliciously spiced stew as I tip my bowl up and swallow the dregs. I snake my tongue out to lick the bowl, and I am eager for the taste to linger.
Which immediately strikes a foolish fear into my heart.
Because what if like the stew that is gone too soon, my Hannah-consort disappears as soon as the light of the happiness she has brought only begins to warm us?
Immediately, I glare toward Remus, who has spun to indolently enjoy the stew in Romulus’s place. Dammit.
I need the more sober twin.
Because we have been foolishly toiling with tables when we ought to have been spending every moment working on his scrying shielding.
I must know what threats might be approaching.
Protecting this new happiness I have found is all I care about. And I will make it so it is all my brothers care about, too, until we succeed in seeing what might be hiding out there in the darkness, waiting to pounce and steal what is most precious to us.
Chapter Forty-Six
HANNAH
I am shocked that Abaddon’s giving me a breather today. I woke up and blinked with a jolt of surprise to see Abaddon’s side of the bed—aka most of the bed—empty. I blink some more, for a moment startled to be alone with my thoughts for the first time in a week, apart from briefly when I was cooking yesterday.
It’s nice… I think. I frown. I sort of miss Abaddon’s bossiness that I follow him as he drags me around the castle, never taking his eyes off me.
Not to mention how good the sex is—okay well it’s great, beyond excellent, mind-and-body-shattering. Also to my great shock, I haven’t been sore at all. To my further surprise, sometimes it’s me tugging on his hand and giving him the look.
After my initial lackluster experiences with Drew, I never thought I’d be the one pushing for time in the bedroom. But I laugh out loud at even comparing Drew and Abaddon when it comes to sex. I mean Abaddon is— My mouth goes dry even thinking about him and the ways that man can manipulate my body. Even thinking about him and his hands and his tongue and his wings, dear God—
I place a hand on my heart to still it from its sudden quick clip just thinking about it all. I mean, sure, people talk about sex like this, but I never thought it would be anything little ol’ me would experience. But dear god.
It’s as if the universe has decided to make up for all the years my body was a cage by rewarding me with the most out-of-this-world sex it could think up for me. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining. I decided somewhere along the way, I guess, that I’m all in. Even if it hasn’t exactly been a conscious decision.
It’s sort of wild for once to let my body do the leading when it’s for something good. I sigh. For something wonderful, actually. Who knew bodies could do something other than betray you?
My stomach grumbles audibly, and I laugh down at it. Then sober when I realize there’s more than just a hungry belly in there. Well, apparently there are two hungry bellies—mine and…
I blink, still shocked every time I remember, holy shit, I’m pregnant. It hardly seems real. I’d think it was some elaborate prank the guys were playing on me… Except well, I’m starving every hour on the hour, it feels like. And while I haven’t had any of the classic pregnancy symptoms I’ve always heard about my whole life—like day-long nausea or having to pee all the time (yet anyway), I do feel changes in my body.
Yes, it was hard to tell them apart from all the other big changes from, ya know, getting healed after a lifetime of being a certain way. Abaddon said he would only heal my body to a point. But it feels like my back has straightened even further since I got pregnant. When I flat-out asked Abaddon last night if he’d done it because I was carrying his kid, he just looked at me funny, then his eyes got all wide. “It is the kit doing it! From inside you. He is powerful already!”
