by Unknown
“No you didn't,” Samantha scoffed. “You had a damn fine getting laid. We women do the hard work.”
“Yeah,” Lorna added. “You don't get to be fawned over, King Arach, you've had nothing but entertainment and rewards while your wife has to bear the burden of a faerie child inside her body. It's in there moving about and kicking her organs while trying to inflict its little baby temper on the world with bursts of magic she can't control!” Lorna's chest heaved as she finally finished and looked around her in shock. “Oh, I do apologize. I don't know what came over me.”
“Don't you dare apologize,” Fionnaghal huffed. “You're right, Lady Lorna! We do all the hard work and they strut about like they've created life all on their own.”
“I think I'll take my leave now,” Arach eyed the ladies like he would a pit of water snakes. Not exactly afraid but very aware of where they all were.
“I think that would be best,” I chuckled.
“We'll be just down the hall if you need us,” Arach kissed my cheek.
“Yeah don't knock yourself out with the back patting,” Sarasvati smirked and I laughed as Arach fled.
“Well done, ladies,” I announced. “I've been on the verge of saying all of that myself but it's so much better with back-up.”
“Anytime, V,” Samantha came forward and fist bumped me.
“Is pregnancy so very bad then?” Sephy asked in her innocent way and half the women in the room nodded grimly. “I don't think I want children,” Persephone finally declared and the room burst into laughter.
“Just a tip, Sephy,” I said when the laughter died down. “If you ever do have a child, think very carefully on the name. You don't want to mess up a child's name just because you, oh, I don't know, want to name them after someone without giving them the same exact name.”
“What?” Persephone gaped at me.
“You know, don't pull a Twilight and combine people's names or anything like that,” Sarasvati added. “Who wants to be called Renesmee? That's just bizarre.”
“Exactly, Sarasvati” I put emphasis on her unusual name and we all started giggling.
“Hey, my name's beautiful and cultural. Renesmee is ridiculous,” Sara rolled her eyes. “If you're going to make up a name, make sure it's pretty.”
“Or at the very least, powerful,” Samantha said and we all looked over to her. “What? Everyone knows there's power in a name.”
I smiled and rubbed a hand over my little king, “Yes, there absolutely is.”
Chapter Fifty-One
The baby shower went on long into the night, so long that the men came to investigate and were finally allowed to stay. Mainly because they were smart enough to come with platters of food.
It was oddly normal for a baby shower in Faerie. There were all the usual games, including a rather disgusting one involving baby diapers and melted candy bars. There were lovely bites of food to be eaten and thoughtful, as well as useful, gifts to be unwrapped. My mom gave me a set of bottles and a breast pump, which I had stared at in horror.
“You're a busy lady,” she said. “You're going to need to fill bottles for when you can't feed the baby yourself.”
“Oh, motherhood is so gross,” I whined and those women who were already mothers took great delight in telling me just how gross it could be.
As the evening wound down, I found myself sitting in the window seat with my mom, staring out at the fey evening sky. She was staying the night with us, so I was going to put off my return to the God Realm until after she left. I watched her, her dark eyes taking in all the amazing sights that Faerie had to offer with a calm delight that she'd shown through most of my bizarre revelations. She was a strong woman, stronger than I by far, and I was lucky that Odin had chosen so well.
“Thanks, Mom,” I whispered. “Thank you for coming today.”
“Are you kidding?” She laughed. “I'm kinda disappointed that you haven't brought me here sooner. This is way more impressive than Asgard.”
“Isn't it though?” I laughed. “Tomorrow I'll take you around to the different kingdoms if you'd like.”
“Don't you need to get back to Trevor?” She asked.
“Trevor will be fine for another day,” I assured her. “Your first visit to Faerie shouldn't be rushed.”
“Then I would love to see the other kingdoms,” she nodded.
“Maybe not Earth though,” I said after I thought about it. “The Earth Queen and I don't get along.”
“Vervain,” she chided.
“It's not my fault,” I whined. Funny how no matter how old you get, your mother can always reduce you to a six-year-old in the space of a few moments.
“What have I always told you about dealing with difficult people?” She lifted a dark brow.
“That there's a lot of assholes in the world but you can't go around calling them all that?” I said without missing a beat and she burst into laughter.
“I still can't believe you called him that,” she shook her head.
She had once been called in to my elementary school for a special meeting between her, the principal, the vice principal, and an offended teacher whom little seven-year-old Vervain had called an asshole. Mom had calmly sat through the long meeting, nodding and making the appropriate responses while I had stewed in my seat, thinking I was a goner. We had walked to the car in silence but when the car doors shut, she turned to me and said just what I'd quoted.
It was one of my favorite memories of my mother. Next to the time we'd eaten an entire jar of maraschino cherries together while she giggled and declared that she was a grown-up now and could do that.
“Well, he was an asshole,” I shrugged. “And so is this queen.”
“Never underestimate the power of an asshole, sweetheart. It's one of the strongest muscles in the body,” my mother said solemnly.
“Oh my damn, that's hilarious,” I laughed. “I'm totally quoting you.”
“You'd actually be quoting Jack Black,” she admitted.
“Holy hand grenades, did you just out quote me?” I gaped at her.
“I'm your mother,” she gave a smug smile, “of course I did.”
Epilogue
So far, so good. The plan of sticking to a two week schedule was working nicely and my pregnancy was actually getting easier. Triple trinity beings don't have to deal with things like swollen ankles and aching backs, as human women do. So even though my bulging belly gets in the way, I'm happy that it's the only thing I can't magically deal with. I've even got a handle on my fire issues. It seems like the element is calming down and settling into my son, making fiery outbursts obsolete.
I'm insanely happy. Ridiculously so. Even Blue being incommunicado doesn't disturb me. I have faith that he will take care of things with Salma. I mean Eztli. So I'm free to focus my attention on Rian's impending birth. I've started adding my own touches to the nursery in Aithinne and I've been creating baby clothes with my transmutation magic. Along with all the gifts that have been pouring in from the other kingdoms, Rian now has a full wardrobe. It feels good to do all this nesting. Normal even.
Almost as if in response to my bliss, my world has become serene. No gods threaten me, no one tries to abduct me, and no evil plots against humanity have been uncovered. My men are happy as well, busy planning our wedding, and life is so sweet.
Knock on petrified wood.
Keep reading for a sneak peek in the next book in The Godhunter Series:
Eye of Re
Chapter One
Ah, the joys of pregnancy. Well, the joys of supernatural pregnancy. I smiled as I rubbed a hand over my belly and my son, Rian, shifted against my touch. We had become psychically connected and I could sense his every emotion. For the moment, he was only a mass of feelings, a burgeoning life forming around a god soul and a faerie essence. He didn't have thoughts the way that we do but if he had, I'd be able to hear them. It made me wonder if we would continue our mental connection after he was born.
“Leave her be!” I heard Trevo
r's growl come from the hallway.
“She deserves to know,” Odin argued.
I frowned and sat up in the lounge chair I'd been relaxing in, out on our bedroom balcony. The sun had been gently warming my bare legs and there was a light breeze scented with sweet grass swirling through my hair. It had been perfect and I'd been enjoying the peace immensely.
“I von't allow her to involve herself in zis,” Kirill added his voice to the argument.
“What in the name of all the gazillion gods is this about?” I snarled and stood.
“I'm telling her,” Fallon's voice now.
A scuffling sound drifted through the closed bedroom door as I made my way into the room.
“Let him go, Kirill,” Odin snapped.
“Nyet,” Kirill snapped back. “I'm Ganza, I decide vhat ve tell our Tima.”
“Just because you're the highest ranking lion, it doesn't mean you can withhold pertinent information from our goddess,” Fallon said reasonably.
“Da, it does,” Kirill wasn't feeling reasonable evidently.
“Does it now?” I yanked open our bedroom door and scowled at the scene in the hallway.
Odin and Trevor stood near Kirill and Fallon. Kirill had Fallon's neck in a vise. My Ganza looked up at me and abruptly shoved Fallon away from him, like a bully caught in the act.
“You do not get to decide what I hear or don't hear,” my lioness, wolf, and dragon teamed up against Kirill. “Whether you're my Ganza or my husband!”
Fallon shot Kirill a smug look and Kirill punched Fallon in the face with a casual, sideways maneuver that was so fast, I barely tracked it. Fallon went down like a boxer with a glass jaw and I gaped at the mass of his crumpled body. Fallon was a big guy and I had a feeling that he'd be lying there until he woke up.
“Kirill!” I screeched.
“Vhat?” Kirill shrugged. “Zere vas bug on his face.”
“A bug?” I lifted a brow as I glared at him.
“On his face,” Kirill nodded.
“You gonna punch me in the mug too?” Odin grimaced. “Cause I'm still going to tell her. I've learned long ago never to lie to my wife.”
“Not mug, bug,” Kirill insisted.
“Mug is another word for a face,” Trevor explained as he gave Kirill's shoulder a pat.
“Someone had better freakin' start talking right now!” I shouted and my lovers went as still as a band of meerkats sensing a predator.
“Anubis has invited all of us to a party,” Odin said softly.
“A party?” I blinked.
“Yes,” Trevor nodded.
“You're all upset because of a party?” I clarified.
“Party in Duat,” Kirill growled, his lion coming out clearly.
“So?” I frowned. “The Intare can visit their dead brothers. It's very nice of Anubis.”
“If it's even his idea,” Trevor's jaw clenched.
“Whose idea would it be if not...” I trailed off as I finally understood why they were so tense. “Re. You think Re has persuaded Anubis to host a party in Duat so that he can what? Abduct me? Woo me? Hypnotize me with his beauty? You guys do know that I'm pregnant, right?” I waved my hands at my huge belly. “I don't think the Egyptian Sun God is going to be too interested in shagging a woman who's obviously pregnant with another man's child.”
“Why not?” Odin cocked his head at me. “We are.”
“Yeah but you guys love me,” I huffed. “Re doesn't. All Re has are some hazy dreams of a future that will never happen. He's not masterminding an abduction with the help of another man who once did actually think he loved me.”
“Another man who abducted you,” Trevor pointed out.
“Anubis has moved on,” I protested. “After his dip in the fountain, he became much calmer. And saner.”
“Zen he may not mind helping Re,” Kirill circled back.
“You've all lost your damn minds over this Re thing,” I gaped at them. “This is silly. I haven't even heard from Re since that day.”
“You mean the day he vowed to have you despite the fact that you're already taken?” Trevor narrowed his eyes on me. “You never got around to speaking to him like you said you would.”
“He did not vow to have me,” I huffed. “And I haven't spoken to him because when I finally had the opportunity to, too much time had gone by without any contact from him. If I approached him now, I'd look silly. Re's my friend. He probably just needed some time to cool down and think things over. To realize that dreams don't make a relationship and that a relationship between us wouldn't work anyway.”
“I agree,” Odin nodded.
“You do?” I looked at him in surprise.
“Even if he were to try something,” Odin shrugged, “we can handle one sun god.”
I frowned at that. Smack talk always preceded trouble.
“Fine,” Trevor snapped. “We'll go to the party but at the first sign of fishiness, you will be escorted away by one of us. Agreed?”
“Alright,” I sighed.
“I still don't like it,” Kirill mumbled.
“You can have the first shot at him if he tries anything,” Trevor offered and Kirill began to grin. It was kind of terrifying.
Note from the Author:
If you enjoyed this book and would like to receive a newsletter on important information relating to my books, such as release dates, please sign up here:
http://eepurl.com/buwoMv
And if you like Vervain, you'll love Seren. Check out the first chapter in Amy's new fairy series:
Fairy-Struck
Fairy-Struck: Several types of conditions such as paralysis, wasting away, pining, and unnatural behavior resulting from an enchantment laid by an offended fairy.
Chapter One
Once upon a time, isn't that how all fairy tales begin? Except this isn't your average fairy tale. There are no charming princes or wicked witches within these pages and the fair maidens are more deadly than any big bad wolf. This is a fairy tale in the truest sense of the words; a story about fairies... the real story.
My name is Seren Sloane and I'm an Extinguisher. That will mean nothing to you, I'm sure, so let me go back a little further. No one knows the true origins of the fey, I don't think even the fey themselves remember, but theories abound. One theory has them evolving alongside us but where we advanced in groups, banding together to become stronger, the fey morphed out of those outcast predators who were too wild for a pack. Those who don't believe in evolution, think instead that the fey stem from divine creations, angels fallen from God's grace. Yet another tale insists they were gods themselves, or demi-gods, led by a mother goddess named Danu.
A final theory suggests they were not gods or angels or outcasts, merely nomads from an advanced civilization. The Scythians or Sidheans, from which the word sidhe originates. Myths tell of these talented Sidhe coming to Ireland where they flung about their magic and generally wrecked havoc until the aggrieved locals fought back and forced the fey to retreat into their raths, holy shrines now known as fairy mounds. History has disguised the raths as burial mounds even though originally, they were thought to be royal palaces for portal guardians. Although I cannot validate the rest of the tale, I do know this; the fey don't live under mounds of dirt. The original descriptions strike closer to the truth. The raths shrouded portals not corpses. Hidden paths to the fairy world, a realm laid parallel to ours and not at all underground.
Anyway, we did just fine living side by side with them until humans started destroying the environment around those entrances to Fairy. Fairies don't like it when you mess with nature and when they stroll from their magical abodes to find that mess strewn all over their backyard, they get even more pissy. So they began to fling the mess back. All those old stories about fairies stealing babies and striking people with wasting diseases, stem from this time period. Things got real bad, so bad that those of us who had the gift of clairvoyance and could actually see fairies, joined together to defend the human race.
The first Human-Fey war erupted across Eire, now known as Ireland, and the losses on both sides were staggering. After the third war, a grudging truce was finally attained and councils were created to mediate between the races and support the truce with laws approved by both sides. A good start to be sure but laws flounder and fail if they can't be enforced. Both councils conceded jurisdiction over their people to the other, agreeing upon the penalties to be meted out should someone be found guilty of a crime. Rules for determining guilt and administering justice were set into place and military units were sanctioned to carry out the verdicts of the councils.
The fairies created the Wild Hunt. They gathered the fiercest, most terrifying of their people and trained them to stalk the shadows of our world, watching us like guardian angels until one of us breaks the law. Then the angels become devils who do much more than watch. Trust me when I say you don't want to ever meet a member of the Hunt.
To police the fey, we created the Extinguishers. Formed of the five great psychic families who originally defended humanity, the Extinguishers inspire a fair amount of fear as well. Armed with clairvoyance among other talents which varies by person but can include; telekinesis, pyrokinesis, telepathy, and psychometry, we also have some serious combat skills. Most humans don't have the ability to see a fairy unless that fairy wants to be seen, so both council members and Extinguishers must at least possess clairvoyance. The Council keeps an eye out for humans with exceptional psychic abilities so they can recruit more into their fold but Extinguishers are born into the job. I'm one of those lucky few.
Kavanaugh, Teagan, Sullivan, Murdock, and Sloane. The first five psychic families of Ireland. Over the centuries we've become a secret society so big it spans the globe, gaining strength by breeding only within the five. This has virtually guaranteed powerful psychic gifts in our children. I'm the product of a Sloane and a Kavanaugh. Over thirty generations of contrived breeding(not inbreeding, thank you very much) has given me abilities which rank me as one of the top ten Extinguishers of all time.