AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Oh, very much.” I tugged his hand. “It’s just a dance, Ari. We’re not going to accidentally become mated to each other.”
“You never know, after what happened last time.”
“Come,” I said and pulled him along with me.
“Go, Ari, go!” Kai yelled. “Let’s see you shake that booty!”
I moved with him next to the fire, following the beat of the drum with my feet as I twirled around him. He held my hands and always kept himself between me and the flames. His eyes were fixed on mine.
Ari was stiff and a little awkward, but he wasn’t as poor a dancer as he’d claimed. It seemed like everyone on T’Wanu had dance living in their bones. Maybe it was the sea—that constant pulse of the surf did make a powerful rhythm.
I felt the weight of my bump as I twirled. It was like I was dancing with Ari and our baby, like we were holding her between us. She was part of me, changing the way I moved. Did Ari feel the same? Did he feel as close as I did?
A smile flashed across his lips, caught by the flickering flames.
I wrapped my hands around him and held on. I wasn’t concerned about the dance anymore. The beat was lost somewhere. I just wanted him to feel what I felt. I really hoped that he did.
We stopped, and Ari put his arms around me and hugged me tightly. The other dancers continued to twirl and stomp around us, just a blurred whirl of shadows and light.
I knew it was much too early to know if this would work out, and it was stupid for me to think that I knew what I wanted at this stage when I still could barely even see through his hardened walls. Maybe it was this pregnancy messing with my brain, or maybe it was this whole situation with moving into a house together that was mixing up my judgment, but something had changed. The indifference I’d felt before had become hope. Every time he let his guard down, I felt myself wanting more. Those glimpses of him—the true him—were even more intoxicating than when he put his hands on my aching arousal.
But no matter how I felt, I would never allow myself to be tied to an alpha who held things back.
“Istil,” Ari said. “Did you feel that?”
“The baby is moving,” I realized.
Ari pressed his hand to my stomach and grinned. “I think they’re kicking. I can feel them kicking.”
She continued to move as Ari held me, the swell of my bump pushed tight against his body. He laughed.
“Incredible,” he said. “It’s as if she’s dancing, too. Dancing with us.”
I looked up at Ari’s face, surprised and delighted that we had shared the same thought.
* * *
Ari and I lit the paper lanterns inside the house, and their warm glow flickered off the shiny wood floor. It was after sundown. Visir, Kai and Makoa had just left with the cart for the main house, and Ari had put an early end to the unplanned party before it got out of hand. In no time, they’d collected everything, put out the fire, and took the whole thing to a different house. The distant drums and laughter as the aunts and uncles continued without us were a comfort to me. I’d forgotten how much I loved the feeling of a village, and it made me miss the forests and caves of Silver Mountain. Hard to believe that it would almost be half a year since I followed Enry and Shen across the ocean, and even harder to believe how my life had changed.
One of the aunties had left a welcome gift—a fragrant oil she said would help give strength to the baby. I sat on the stoop and rubbed the warming oil on my belly and watched the stars come to life in the night sky.
“I’m exhausted,” Ari said, sitting beside me. “You want me to help you with that?”
“I think I can rub my own stomach,” I said.
“Of course, but can you do it like a trained healer?”
I looked at him and expected him to laugh, but he was completely straight-faced.
“I sometimes have no clue whether you’re being serious or not,” I said.
“Completely serious.” He held out his open palm, and I snorted and slapped the little bottle into it.
“The last time I allowed you to do this, you got me pregnant.”
“I’ll be careful,” he said, dabbing the oil onto his palm. “Lie down.”
I stretched out on the cool hardwood and stared up at the thatched ceiling. The bundles were tied together by intricately braided cords, tied to beams made from whole tree trunks. I hadn’t noticed the T’Wanu wave patterns etched into the sanded wood grain, and the leaping dolphin I knew was the symbol of Ari’s clan.
