He tipped his head to look at the ceiling, muttering, “Shee-it. Circe warned me this crap happened.”
“Pop –” I started but he tipped his head back to me.
“So why the fuck you come home?”
I blinked. “What?”
“You went to the doc, there was time. You coulda had that kid you’re carryin’ taken care of…” I knew my eyes flashed at the very mention of abortion when he pointed right at me. “That. That right there. You want this kid. That asshole didn’t force that child on you; you’re carrying it for him. You made that baby and you liked doin’ it. Am I wrong?”
Oh God. Seriously. With my Pop, I didn’t want to go there.
“Pop –”
“Answer me, am I wrong?”
“No,” I bit off.
“I fuckin’ knew it,” he clipped.
“Pop –”
He interrupted me again. “So why’d you come back?”
“It doesn’t matter why,” I returned swiftly.
“It sure as fuck does ‘cause you, Circe, girl, you… you are the product of your mother and me. I didn’t love that one before death and all this time after it for foolish reasons. I did it ‘cause you got a love like that it does… not… die. And I’m tellin’ you, darlin’, I took that bullet instead ‘a her, she would be lookin’ at you with that same dead in her eyes as I’m lookin’ at you with now. The same dead that’s in your eyes as you’re lookin’ at me. We Quinns, we don’t fall in love. We fall in love. And you, girl, you’re in love so what I wanna know is, why the fuck you used up all your magical power, pixie dust and shit and came home when you got his baby inside you and you couldn’t know that you’d ever get back?”
I couldn’t hold up against his words so I didn’t. I just told him because I might as well get it over with.
“He found out I wasn’t from his world.”
“So?”
“He thought I was… wrong. A changeling. He thought I bewitched him. They’re different, primitive. But even here… it’s only because you’re you and you’re my Pop and you love the way you love that you got it with Circe and what happened with me. Any other man, the Circe that came here would be screwed. Not you. She was lucky. I…” I sucked in breath and finished, “was not so lucky.”
“So he don’t listen?”
“He listened, he just didn’t believe me.”
“So you told him and then what?” Pop asked.
“I… well, I guess I spirited myself away.”
“Right then?” Pop pushed and I blinked again.
“No, um… maybe a few hours later.”
He shook his head. “Right, well, gotta say, girl, as much as I don’t wanna give that asshole nothin’, this I can see. This shit… it’s fuckin’ nuts. Took me a few days to sort my head out when Circe told me what was goin’ on. Thought you’d gone ‘round the bend. You think for a second to give that asshole a day or two to come to terms with this shit before you hightailed your… pregnant, I might add… ass outta there?”
I stared at him and I did this because no, no I had not.
He shook his head but his eyes never left me. “No, you didn’t. Not my Circe.” He looked to the ceiling and said, “Shee-it,” again before his gaze came back to me. “You’ll never change. Always leadin’ with your heart, lettin’ your emotions get the better of you and not thinkin’ with your head.”
I’d heard that before.
“Pop –”
He leaned forward again. “Girl, you listen to your father.”
Oh shit. He was worse than Diandra when he had something to say.
He kept at me. “I do not want to lose you. I’ll tell you that right now, you go again, it would break my heart. But you go, I would know you went and that grandbaby of mine would have his daddy and you… you would have him too. And I can see by that dead in your eyes that if you went back, you’d have what I had, what I’ve held precious all these years, what I had with your mother before she was lost to us. And I know this, darlin’, I had to go to a whole other fuckin’ world where primitive people lived and I had to piss in the trees and take a shit by a river, I do not fuckin’ care. Your mother was there, that is where I’d fuckin’ be.”
My eyes filled with tears and I whispered, “Pop.”
“And I’ll go on to tell you this, it would be a hard drive, the hardest in my life, but you want me to take you, I’ll drive you to that witch and I’ll hug you hard before you go but you’ll go knowin’ that even though I’ll miss you, I’ll be happy for you, knowin’ you had what I lost.”
I closed my eyes and looked away.
Then I said to the wall. “You don’t get it. He… it was… the whole thing was hard, being with him, adapting to that world, but I stuck by him.” I looked back at Pop. “I stuck by him with every trial thrown at me and when I say that, Pop, I mean I watched women plunging knives in their stomachs and men having their legs cut off and heads sliced clean from their bodies.” Pop’s eyes got big but I kept going. “And I took a man’s life… well, one and half men actually but… whatever. I stuck by it. I stuck by Lahn. Through everything that world and he threw at me. He had one trial, Pop, one and he didn’t have to witness anything that turned his stomach, he didn’t take his first life, he didn’t get betrayed by someone he cared about and nearly lose his life because of it. He just had to believe in me. Simple. Just believe in me. He didn’t. He killed what I felt for him. He killed it dead. I don’t have the power to go back and Circe doesn’t have the power to send me. And I’m not going to that witch, Pop. I’m never going back. I’ll miss it, I made friends, I had a pet tigress who could talk to me and I was a fucking queen for God’s sake. Life was strange and it was insane but it was also good. But I’m not going back. Ever. If what he killed in me never comes alive again, so be it. I’ll have what you had and I’ll make do. I’ll have his child and just like you, that’s going to be good enough for me.”
Pop stared at me and I held his eyes.
Then he came to the realization he’d come to often in my life and that was the fact that when I made up my mind about something, when my heart led me down the path I was determined to take, he wasn’t going to be able to sway me.
I knew this when he asked, “You were a queen?”
I closed my eyes, sucked in breath then opened them. “Yes, the true, golden warrior queen of the Korwahk nation.”
He blinked then muttered, “Holy fuck.”
“Damn straight,” I muttered back and, fuck me, I did it proudly.
He kept staring at me. Then he asked, “Girl, how do you kill half a man? They got half men there?”
I relaxed. Then I grinned.
Then I said, “Pick me up for Circe’s party, I’ll tell you stories on the way there.”
He shook his head as he stood, muttering, “Not sure I wanna know.”
This was probably wise.
His eyes came to me.
“But I’m gonna listen,” he said softly.
Yep, that was Pop. He’d always listen.
“Then I’ll tell you,” I said softly back.
He nodded. Then, “His name was Lahn?”
I clenched my teeth to battle the pain. When I had it in check, I nodded. “Dax Lahn, king of Korwahk and the mightiest warrior of the Korwahk Horde.”
Pop’s lips twitched. Then he noted, “Girl, you aimed high. Proud ‘a you, catchin’ the eye of a king.”
I rolled my eyes.
Pop moved to the door and I opened the drawer with my purse in it. As I was standing, I noticed he hadn’t moved through and I stopped and looked at him.
“You sure, darlin’?” he whispered.
I nodded. I was sure. Very sure. It hurt, every day, all day.
But I was sure.
He nodded back. “Pick you up in an hour,” he muttered and moved away.
I waddled out behind him.
Truth be told, I wasn’t that fat. I was doing yoga and taking walks every day and eating right
because I might have a six foot seven (in future) warrior growing inside me and he needed the proper nutrients.
Just as a golden girl would need.
So I took care of myself.
I hadn’t learned the sex, I refused to know, hadn’t even glanced at the ultrasound and flatly refused to hear any news except to learn if the baby was growing healthy or not (he or she was).
I wasn’t admitting to myself why but I knew I did it because if I was still in Korwahk, Lahn and I wouldn’t know until the golden moment.
So here, I didn’t want to know either.
I moved to the door, turned out the lights in my office and met my father at the front door he was holding open for me.
Then I went home to put on my new pregnancy dress and say good-bye to the other me as she started her life in her new world.
* * * * *
I looked out the window at the rain as my best friend Marlene deep breathed in front of me.
“No kidding?” she asked.
My eyes went to her and I shook my head.
I’d just told her what I’d told Pop about loving Lahn and why I left anyway. This included the stories I’d shared with him on the ride there (and through his first three beers at the party) stories of Ghost, Diandra, Narinda, Zahnin and Sabine, challenges for the Dax and bloody fights in a tent.
Amongst other things.
She was freaking out and binge drinking.
I was deciding that my tactic of talking about it didn’t make me feel any better and also deciding I was her ride home (as well as Pop’s, I’d already confiscated his keys, they were in my purse).
“Wow,” Marlene breathed. “So… he was hot?”
I looked out the window. “Very hot.”
“And he was good in –” she started.
I cut her off not looking at her. “Very.”
“Girl,” she drawled out so the one word syllable had seven.
I sighed.
Her hand touched my arm and I felt her get close so I looked to her to see her face had grown soft.
God, I loved Marlene.
“Honey, are you sure you don’t want to go to that witch?” she asked quietly.
Except, right then, I didn’t love her so much.
“I told you, no.”
“Circe, really, I don’t know. You have a baby on the way.”
“I know and it’s still no.”
Her eyebrows went up. “But maybe he’s back there pining for you, kicking himself that he screwed things up, wanting you home. Maybe he’s worried about you, where you are, where his baby is, wondering if you’re both all right. Did you think of that?”
No, I hadn’t. Though Lahn pining for me was a joke. He was probably raping and pillaging and cutting people up with his sword.
And he had the Xacto to turn to.
“I don’t care,” I replied. “But, no, in truth, I haven’t thought of that but Lahn is not the kind of man who pines. He can get what he needs from a variety of women and he can have another wife in a less than a year and a half. And most of the women he could chose from would be panting to have him. He’ll be just fine.”
“Cir –”
I pulled my arm from her hold but grabbed her hand and squeezed. “Really, honestly, honey, like I said… no. He’ll be fine, I’ll be fine and my baby will be fine. No witch. No going back. And I want another baby shower after I have this kid and at that one…” I grinned, “you serve alcohol.”
She stared at me. Then she grinned back.
Marlene was over the moon she was giving me my shower. She’d been planning it since she found out I was keeping the baby which was the day she first saw me back and learned I was pregnant. Half of Seattle was attending. She’d asked my friends, her friends, her friend’s friends and had probably put an announcement in the paper with an open invitation (just as long as they brought gifts). When I’d registered at the baby store, she’d jerked the scanner thing out of my hand, made my selections and I could swear I saw drool on her lip once, she was so rabid. She was baby bonkers. She couldn’t wait for me to have this kid.
Okay, I was back to loving Marlene.
Therefore, I let her hand go, pulled her in my arms and hugged her.
“Love you, baby,” I whispered in her ear, she gave me a squeeze and whispered the same words back.
I pulled away and turned my head when I heard my father shout, “Time for fuckin’ cake!” and I saw him walk out of Ernie’s kitchen (Ernie was one of Pop’s best friends, Pop and his boys ate lunch at Ernie’s greasy spoon practically every day if their move was even a little close to it and therefore Circe’s party was at Ernie’s).
He had a big, rectangular cake in his hands, the kind with white frosting, thick frosting swirls around the edges and massive frosting flowers, these yellow. His face was brightly illuminated by the candles burning on the cake and his eyes were brightly lit at the thought he’d soon be eating birthday cake.
Seriously, my Pop was birthday cake mad. He’d serve birthday cake with candles if a new day dawned if he could.
He walked toward Circe and he was, for some reason, starting a chorus of “For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow”.
I looked to Circe who was beaming.
She was happy, no doubt about it. She was safe in this world, my friends and family had accepted her (and our story, weirdly) without qualm (well, by the time I got there they had).
She was no longer the toy of a tyrant or the plaything of a ship full of pirates.
She was free.
This was good.
Very good.
Two good things came out of this. Circe was smiling, her eyes alight and I had a life I knew I’d hold precious currently kicking in my belly.
I smiled.
“Circe?” Marlene called and I turned to look at her.
She looked alarmed.
“Circe!” she shrieked and I opened my mouth to speak but I couldn’t get words to come out and everything, Marlene, the restaurant behind her, the booths, everything was… it was…
It was melting!
Oh fuck!
My head snapped to my father.
“Pop!” I screamed but nothing came out even as I saw the wavy vision of him drop the cake to the ground and start running my way.
He didn’t make it.
All had gone black.
Then it went bright with sparkling shots of pure gold.
Then I was standing in the middle of a cham, a fire burning behind me and a woman with wild, ratty-assed hair wearing a rough sarong tied around her neck fell in a dead faint to the stone at my feet.
I saw movement in the shadows.
It came toward me.
I looked up as it formed into a man’s body and when I did I looked into Lahn’s dark eyes.
“No,” I whispered as he kept coming at me.
I lifted a shaky hand, palm up toward him as my eyes drifted down to the woman at my feet. She was out like a light.
She’d depleted her magic bringing me back.
My eyes went back to Lahn to see he was upon me, the hard muscle of his chest at my palm. I took a step back, he moved fast as lightning and I was lifted in his arms.
I arched my back and screamed, “No!”
“Rayloo, kah rahna fauna,” he whispered, his arms going tight and strong as iron.
I closed my eyes hard and my body went slack in his arms.
“No,” I whispered.
Then we were out of the cham, my ass was on a horse and I felt Lahn immediately swing up behind me.
I opened my eyes to see the Avenue of the Gods in front of me and feel Lahkan under me.
Lahn’s arm got tight around my protruding ribs, he bent me low to Lahkan’s back, he buried his heels in his steed and we shot down the avenue toward Korwahn.
Fuck.
Chapter Thirty-One
The Search
Six weeks later…
Tigresses purred.
I knew this because my now full grown
one was lying on her side in bed with me, I had my big belly pressed against her back, my hand was sifting through her soft, thick fur and she was purring.
She was glad her Loolah was home. I knew this not only because of the purring but because she told me.
Suddenly her head came up sharply and she moved quickly to her belly, looking down her body to the door, the purr gone, a low growl in her throat.
I closed my eyes.
Lahn was there.
“Off, beast,” he ordered, she growled a bit more and he clipped, “Off.”
She let out another growl, turned her head to look at me, I smiled at her, she blinked her blue eyes and only then did she get up and prowl gracefully off the bed.
I closed my eyes and waited for it.
I didn’t wait long. I never did.
Lahn joined me in bed then he pulled me to his side, shoving his arm under me and holding me close as he reclined on the pillows.
I had no choice but to rest my head on his shoulder so I did. I kept my eyes closed. Then I opened them because his fingers were drawing random patterns on my hip over the silk of my nightgown and that felt better with my eyes closed.
The problem was, I could see his chest when my eyes were open.
So I was screwed either way.
“Kah Lahnahsahna, nahna rahna linas, shalah,” he murmured, My tigress, your golden eyes, please.
I sighed softly, pushed up to my elbow and looked at him.
God, he was gorgeous and I freaking hated that.
He stared in my eyes and said not a word. Then his gaze moved over my face. Then he stared in my eyes again.
Same drill. Every morning. Every single morning every freaking day for six weeks.
“She keeps it locked from me,” he muttered and I blinked.
Hmm. That was new.
And that’s also when I understood. I finally understood what he was doing.
He was looking for my spirit.
Well, that was gone. He’d broken it.
I looked away.
His hand came up and curled around my jaw, gently moving my face so I was looking back at him.
“I lost your eyes for five months, my doe, and I missed them. Even having them back without your spirit shining in them, I don’t like them turned away.”
Yep, same drill. He was being sweet.