Lahn took me out of my thoughts when he informed me, “I know you don’t wish it but I will be in the bath with you and the healer.”
I sighed again.
I’d guessed that.
Lahn had, by the way, sometime in the last five months decided to believe me. He was looking forward to this kid again if him sleeping with his hand on my belly or coming up behind me whenever he came upon me standing, wrapping his arms around me and putting both hands on it were anything to go by.
The good news was, I was to have the healer with me. The bad news was, I was giving birth in the bathing pool. I was thinking this would be okay, normally, but the water came from a hot spring and I wasn’t big on my kid being boiled alive before it took its first breath.
But I said not a word.
And anyway, maybe I was being dramatic about the water. It wasn’t that hot. I bathed in it.
I didn’t reply to Lahn’s comment and it was his turn to sigh.
“Your friends, I am told, come daily to see you, Circe,” he told me quietly and my eyes slid away. “Linas, shalah,” he whispered and my eyes went back.
I’d been avoiding the girls. I hadn’t seen any of them since I returned. Not even Diandra. This was rude but I was in a state. I didn’t want to be here and I didn’t intend to stay here therefore I didn’t want to continue to build our friendships because I’d missed them enough the first time.
I was going to go home.
How I was going to do that, I didn’t know because now I really had no way of getting home unless I could get out from under Lahn’s thumb and somehow find another witch who didn’t mind being out of it for a day or two, losing all of her power for a decade and sending me home.
I did not think this kind of search would prove fruitful.
But I had hope. Every day, I hoped my father was working with that witch and Korwahn would melt and I’d be back home. Then I was finding a protection spell to root me there. I didn’t care if that meant I had to tattoo weird shit on every inch of my body. I was never leaving.
“They are missing you, my queen,” Lahn kept talking and I focused again on him. “They are concerned for you, the child you carry. They wish to see you.”
“I don’t wish to see them,” I said quietly.
His eyes got soft. “Circe –”
I shook my head. “I can’t build strong ties here. My father knows of a witch at home who can take me back. I’m sure she’s gearing up. I’ll be leaving soon.”
Wrong thing to say. His face got hard and his hand slid down my belly, up my side and then his arm tightened, locking my other side to his front as his face got close.
“You will not leave again,” he growled.
“I’m afraid you don’t have any choice in that, Lahn.”
“I know at this time this will upset you, kah Lahnahsahna, but I do. Did you not think when I crushed your spirit that, when I got you back, I would not know you would again try to leave? The spell cast to guide you to your true home also tethered you to this world, Circe, our world. You’re never going back.”
I stared at him.
He wasn’t serious.
Was he?
He kept talking. “It also anchors you to me so even if you were to try to escape me in this world, I would sense you and could seek you out. You couldn’t cloak yourself. You’d always somehow be visible to me.”
I kept staring at him.
Seriously, he could not freaking be serious!
“You didn’t,” I breathed.
“I did,” he returned.
“You didn’t,” I repeated on a breath and his face got closer.
“I… fucking… did,” he growled. “You promised never to leave me and you left me. I’ve seen to it that will not f**king happen again.”
I knew my lips had parted and I felt the sting of tears in my nose.
Then I whispered, “I can’t believe you did that.”
“You gave me you of your free will, you are mine. And I gave you me, I am yours. I will do anything to keep you, my queen, believe that.”
“That’s like… stalker psycho.” I was still whispering.
“I have no idea what that means and I do not care. It is the way it is. And Circe,” his face got closer, his hand sliding up my side, over my chest, up my neck to cup my jaw where his thumb swept my cheekbone as he finished softly, “I will resurrect your spirit inside you. I will stop at nothing to do it. It will shine for me again. You can believe that too.”
Before I could stop him, his thumb swept over my lips, locked around my jaw and he held my head steady as his dipped down and his lips touched mine.
My belly clenched.
Then he lifted his head and looked deep in my eyes before his thumb swept back over my lips, he lifted up and kissed my forehead then he rolled off the bed and stalked across the room.
I got up on my elbows to watch him open the door and saw Twinka was there holding some bath cloths.
“Her warrior wives visit, you do not send them away. You let them in. If they do not, you send one of her girls to go get them. This is a command from their king and if one of them disobeys, any of them, wife or slave, they answer to me. Am I understood?” Lahn asked firmly.
Twinka looked at me and smiled huge.
“Meena, kah Dax,” she muttered, as she would because she knew this would piss me off and/or upset me and she was all for anything that did that.
“Dohno,” Lahn muttered and then he was gone.
I collapsed back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.
Twinka hummed happily as she took the cloths to the bathroom-type room.
* * * * *
I sat on a lounge chair on the roof, stared into the distance at the sun sparking off the gold on the Avenue of the Gods and I pulled the intricately knit, loose-woven shawl closer around me while wondering if there was some troop of slaves who went out every day and polished that gold. It always sparkled even mostly surrounded by sand and dust.
So I figured there was.
Ghost, as always since I got home, was at my side, now lying on her front, jaws to paws.
I stroked her absently and unfortunately my thoughts drifted from statue slaves to other matters that I didn’t want to think about but couldn’t stop myself.
When I’d been gone, Lahn had had a busy five months. Although I hadn’t seen my posse, I could not avoid my girls and they had told me all they knew.
Firstly, Lahn, Suh Tunak and the Keenhak warriors had ridden on Maroo as planned. Maroo had had their grisly message that vengeance would be sought by the Dax so they had planned for the invasion but they had no clue they’d also be facing the additional challenge by neighboring Keenhak.