A Shiver of Light

He drew his gaze up to look into my eyes. The glow in his eyes was just a faint shine now, like a fire banked for the night, hot just near the center of the wood.

“Whether your br**sts stay this magnificent size, or become the beautiful, pale mounds that they were, they, and you, will still be as desirable.”

I hadn’t realized until that moment just how much the body changes were still bothering me. You want to be able to breast-feed, especially when you have a baby like Bryluen who might not be able to take formula. I’d expressed milk for her before I came on this little booty call. The others could have formula in a pinch, but Bree couldn’t. It wasn’t all natural, and only that was safe for her.

“Such a serious face, Meredith; what are you thinking about that steals the light from your eyes?”

I sighed. “The babies, Bryluen in particular.” I looked up at him, touching his arms where they were tented on each side of my body, while the rest of him sat sideways on the bed, most of his long legs still off the side of it.

“I’m sorry, Sholto, you deserve better than a distracted me. Would it be odd to say, this is the longest I’ve been away from the triplets, and I’m both excited for the time away and weirdly missing them. That doesn’t make any sense at all, does it?”

He smiled, and it was gentle. I wondered if I was the only one who got to see that particular smile. “It means you will be a good mother, are a good mother. You are, what’s the phrase, wired right for motherhood.” He suddenly looked very serious, almost sad.

I stroked my hands up and down his bare arms; he’d taken off his near-medieval-looking tunic but was still wearing a very modern black undershirt. It was one of those designed more for working out than just wearing, but the stretchable material fitted his muscular upper body like a glove, tucked into the top of black breeches that matched the tunic that was now on the floor.

“Now why is your face all serious?” I asked.

He looked at me, smiling, but it was tinged with something not happy. “To another female in my bed I might lie, but that is not our rule.”

“No,” I said, “honesty between us, always.”

“As my queen commands,” he said, smiling more now.

I smiled back. “As my king requests,” I said.

We smiled at each other with that special happy softness that couples have when they use one of their endearments that they use with no one else.

“Then I will speak honestly to my queen. I had feared that perhaps you would not be wired to be a mother.”

I studied his face, trying to read more of his thoughts. “Why would you think that?”

“Your own mother is not the most maternal of women. Your aunt was devoted to her son, but cruel and horrible to almost everyone else. Your uncle, the king, is little better. Your grandfather is Uar the Cruel.” He shrugged, and raised a hand so he could take my hand in his.

“You were worried that my family is mostly crazy, so would I be crazier than I seem, too?”

He began to rub his thumb over my knuckles. “Have I said too much honesty to you, my queen?”

I smiled up at him and squeezed his hand. “No, I was thinking the very same thing earlier this week, but not about me, about the babies.”

I sat up and shared my fears with him. It might have been more logical to share them with Doyle, or Frost, or one of the fathers who actually lived with me, but sometimes it’s not about logic in relationships, it’s about the people, and in that moment Sholto gave me an opening to talk that no other man in my life had managed. I’d noticed that it worked that way a lot; the man you thought would be perfect for this or that wasn’t always the one who worked best for it.

He wrapped his arms around me, pressed me to the slickness of the modern undershirt, my hands trailing a little lower as I hugged him back, so I felt the nearly velvet texture of his leather trousers, still tucked into the knee-high boots. I pressed the side of my face against the firm strength of his chest. I could hear his heartbeat against my cheek. It was a good, steady sound, the kind of sound you could plan your life around if you were looking for a center to your world. Sometimes I felt I had too many centers to my world, and the triplets had just amplified the sense of too many people pulling me in too many directions.

His voice vibrated up through his chest against my face as we held each other. “Your idea of raising them with more non-sidhe and humans is sound, and they will already be visiting my court. That will certainly expose them to a wider world of faerie than the high courts can offer.”

I leaned back enough to see his face, sorry that I couldn’t keep the beat of his heart in my ear, but my desire to see his face was greater.

“In a few days, or weeks, we’ll know which of the babies is yours; don’t you mean that child will visit your court?”

He looked down at me, his face arrogant and almost heartrendingly handsome. It was the face he wore when he was hiding his emotions. Why did he feel that he needed to hide from me about this?

“Do you want only my genetic child to visit the sluagh?”

“No, I want them all to understand just how diverse their world is, but I hadn’t talked to you about it, and I didn’t want to assume.”

Some tension went out of his arms, his shoulders, and that release traveled through my arms, where I held him. His face went from arrogant and model perfect to smiling broadly at me. He looked so joyous that it made me smile back.

“Only one babe may be mine genetically, but they are all a part of you, Meredith, and I love you.” He touched my lips with a fingertip, as if I’d made some motion to speak. “I know you are not in love with me, nor I with you, not yet, but I do love you more than any woman before you.”