Lords of the Sea (34 page)

“We won’t be out for a while, mom,” Cassie warned her, closing the door and locking it again. She leaned back against the door when she’d locked it, smiling up into Raen’s bemused face. Pushing away from the door after a moment, she grasped his robe and dragged it upwards. “Now, where were we?”

The bedsprings creaked, punctuating the rhythm, and the headboard, Cassie discovered, was loose, slamming against the wall in counterpoint. It was all very distracting and extremely annoying, but she managed to focus on the one thing that really mattered.

“I do not like this bed,” Raen announced as they lay curled together afterward.

Cassie uttered an embarrassed chuckle. “Don’t worry about it. Dad’s almost as deaf as a post and usually keeps his hearing aid turned off, and mom isn’t far behind him.”

Raen stroked her arm. “When is our child to come?”

She tipped her head up to look at him. “February.”

He frowned, and she could see he was mentally reviewing the calendar, or maybe just trying to figure out
their
calendar? “About four more months,” she amended, “more or less.”

He nodded, releasing a pent up breath that sounded irritated. “I should not be angry that it took so long, when I know how difficult the council can be—and the negotiations for peace took many weeks—but I can not help that I am. I have been …

worried that you would decide to set me aside for taking so long to redeem my promise.”

Cassie traced a pattern on his chest with her fingertip. “I told you I’d wait, however long it took.”

“But you did not believe that I would come,” he said gently.

Sighing, she dropped her head to his shoulder. “How did you find me, anyway?”

He lifted her hand and kissed her palm before shifting his grip to the bracelet around her wrist. “The device contained here.”

Cassie frowned. “You put a
tracking
device on me?” she asked, trying not to feel outraged. “I thought the bracelet was to bind us.”

He grinned. “It is … and more surely if it helps me to find you.”

She sat up abruptly and stared down at him.

He lifted his dark brows at her.

A dozen questions flickered through her mind, but she dismissed them after a moment. “So much for romance,” she muttered, disgruntled.

“You do not think this is romantic?” he asked curiously.

She thought it over and finally shrugged. “Actually, I guess it is.”

He felt silent for several moments. “We are to rendezvous with the others tomorrow at dawn,” he said tentatively.

Cassie tensed. She’d been dreading the moment when they got around to discussing what they would do next. “I love you. I don’t want you ever to think I don’t, 207

but I’ve been thinking a lot about what the council said since I realized I was pregnant,”

she said. “I don’t want my baby to grow up where he’d be looked down on, maybe tormented by the other children because he’s mine. It wouldn’t be right to do that to any child. I don’t want him to grow up without friends, feeling like an outsider.”

His arms tightened around her. “I would not want that for our child, or for you.

He will not be without friends, or be treated any differently than any other Atlantean, and nor will you. I will not tolerate it. I do not believe that will be the case, or I would not have come with the intention of taking you back, but if it should transpire that you are right, we will not stay.”

She looked up at him worriedly, comforted by his assurance that he meant to be with her where ever they lived. “Promise?”

He smiled faintly. “I give you my word.”

She wasn’t certain she believed him—in fact, she was certain she
didn’t
believe the Atlanteans were going to unbend at all, but she desperately wanted to be with Raen.

“Who will we be meeting?” she asked after a moment.

“Adan has come for Linda and Aureleous for Shelly. Javik, Haya, Kelsa, Hara, and Milena have come to seek their males. The native males are amazingly fertile--for which I will be eternally grateful—and also for the three of my female sentinels who refused to abort their young. Despite all of Councilor det Ophelia’s arguments—My grandsire’s efforts--the council would likely not have reconsidered accepting you, Lady Linda, and Lady Shelly as Atlanteans except that they discovered they would have three off spring of humans regardless.”

“Well,” Cassie muttered irritably. “It’s nice to know I’ll be welcomed with open arms.”

“You will be—mine. The councilors are elders. They do not accept change easily.” He nudged her chin up so that she met his gaze. “In time, you will win their hearts, just as you captured mine.”

The End.