by Logan Jacobs
“Thank you,” Ainsley murmured into my chest. “I did not mean to make you come in here and take up all of your time.”
“Don’t say that,” I ordered. “You are never taking up all of my time. I care about every single one of you guys. And if you’re upset, then I want to help. What’s wrong?”
“I believe much of this is due to the changes this baby is bringing,” Ainsley managed to chuckle. “I am not normally so … ”
The blonde waved her hands in the air in lieu of the perfect words.
“Hormonal?” I laughed.
“What?” Ainsley cocked her head in confusion.
“When you’re carrying a baby, there are things in your body called hormones that start to change,” I explained. “And a lot of times this affects your emotions. Trust me, when my sister was pregnant with my nephew, she was like a complete nut job. One second she was laughing, and the next she was a sobbing mess.”
“Oh, my,” Ainsley laughed. “I hope I am not a mess like that.”
“You could never be a mess.” I grinned. “Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?”
“Nothing!” Ainsley cried out suddenly. “Nothing is wrong. That is the problem! I am so happy! It’s amazing!”
The strawberry blonde deer woman dissolved into tears and shoved her face into my chest, but it was all I could do to bite back the enormous laugh that wanted to rip free from me. Ainsley had the overdramatic air of any high school theatre kid, which would have been funny enough, if it wasn’t for the fact that I knew Ainsley was usually the complete opposite of being overdramatic.
Apparently, I didn’t hide my laughter well enough, though, because Ainsley’s head popped back up from its nest in my chest, and she glared at me with stormy blue eyes.
“What is so funny, Ben?” the strawberry blonde pouted.
“Nothing.” I tried to shake my head, but it didn’t work nearly as well as I’d hoped. “I’m not laughing at you, I swear!”
Ainsley’s eyes and mouth popped open wide.
“You are!” she gasped. The blonde tried to swat my chest as if she was actually mad, but I caught the wry smile she did her best to hide.
“It’s funny, admit it,” I urged her.
Ainsley crossed her arms over her chest and drew her soft, pink bottom lip into her mouth in an attempt to hide her laugh again, but it was no use. I knew she found the entire situation just as amusing as I did.
“Fine,” she sighed. “It is quite funny I seem to have no control over my emotions. I did not think this would happen to me when I got pregnant.”
“Ainsley, pregnancy is one of the things in life that never plays fair,” I replied.
“I suppose so,” she laughed. “I remember when my aunt was pregnant with my cousin and could not control her emotions. I was a child, but I promised myself I would never end up like that. And now look at me!”
She turned back to face me with her hands raised up into the air in defeat, and a few more tears streamed down her face, completely of their own accord. This time, I made no effort to hide my laughter.
“Come here,” I told her.
I turned to lay down on the bed, and Ainsley quickly snuggled in by my side. She rested her head on my chest and laid the blanket over both of us, and warm tears continued to stream down her face.
“How long does this last?” she grumbled.
“Not too long,” I reassured her, even though I had absolutely no idea if that was true or not. For all I knew, the poor woman could be a sobbing mess the rest of her pregnancy, in the same way Talise had been sick, or Nerissa had wanted sex nearly all the time.
Ainsley and I fell asleep curled up together, and at some point during the night, her tears finally stopped. When we woke, her eyes and nose were red and puffy, but she seemed to be in much brighter spirits.
“Well, I have decided that will never happen again,” she announced as she climbed out of bed and changed out of her night clothes. When she pulled off her shirt, I could actually see the small swell in her stomach. If I didn’t know the lithe woman’s body so well, it would have been completely invisible to me, but since I knew her stomach was almost always completely flat, the little bump was obvious.
“Of course,” I chuckled to humor her.
“What do you believe we will have?” Ainsley asked as she followed my gaze.
“I don’t care.” I shrugged. “As long as the kid is healthy and happy.”
“I feel the same way.” The strawberry blonde grinned.
I spent the rest of the day helping in the large garden plot we’d built in the jungle. There was a lot of planting to be done, but I could already see the beginning sprouts of some plants that had been seeded the very first day.
“Hmm,” Jemma hummed as she gazed at the garden with a serious eye.
“What is it?” I asked her.
Jemma was silent for a moment as she thought, but then she nodded to herself and walked over to where the empty baskets were piled near the corner of the garden. We’d used them to carry our seeds up to the plot of land.
“We need more nutrients for the plants,” she replied. “At home, we used tarrel dung to help feed the soil. It was rich in many wonderful things and helped our plants to grow big and strong. I believe we can use the dung of the boars to do the same thing here.”
“Jemma, that is a brilliant plan.” Netta grinned. “Nima and I will help you find some.”
“Hold on, I think I can do you one better,” I chuckled.
“What do you mean?” Jemma asked with a curious tilt of her head.
“I know some of Nerissa’s women had compost piles down in the village,” I explained. “Plus, George and Nixie have some very … potent fertilizer of their own. We can definitely use that here.”
“Oh, that sounds wonderful!” Jemma smiled and clapped her hands together.
“We will go collect that instead,” Nima chimed in.
The two sisters each grabbed pots of their own, and I was glad to see them happy and healthy.
“Keep your bows handy, you two,” I told them. “You never know what you might come across in the jungle.”
“Of course, Ben,” the sisters responded in unison.
“George, can you go with them?” I added,
Yes, dear one, the dragon responded. Then he rose from his spot in the shade of some of the trees and ambled after the redheaded sisters.
I grabbed my pot from Jemma, and the two of us turned to head into the jungle. Her bow was strapped to her back, ready to be grabbed at a moment’s notice, and my sword was in the scabbard at my side.
Jemma and I walked through the jungle for a few minutes as we scoured the ground for any signs of the boars.
“Do they have a place they like to congregate, the way the tarrels did?” she asked as she studied the jungle around us curiously.
“Not really.” I shook my head. “They’re scattered throughout the jungle. Sometimes, they’ll come down a ways, closer to the palace, but it’s very rare to see them all in one place.”
“Interesting,” Jemma murmured as she took in the information. She was always very curious about the serpent women’s island and how it worked, and I could tell she’d be just as curious about any new place she visited.
We hadn’t gone all that much farther into the forest when I heard the tell tale screech of one of the large jungle cats.
“What is that?” Jemma hissed as we both froze.
I paused, with my finger to my lips, and just listened. The last few days in the jungle had been relatively easy, given that we hadn’t seen even one of the massive, striped cats, but I knew that would only last for so long.
Suddenly, there was a rustling in the trees above us, and my head snapped up just in time to see two massive cats as they leapt down on top of us.
“Jemma, duck!” I shouted.
I saw the auburn-haired deer woman duck and roll out of the corner of my eye, and I was about to turn to help her when I felt a sharp claw slic
e through the skin of my upper right bicep.
In one swift move, I yanked my sword out from its scabbard and spun to face the cat, right as it tried to take another wild swing at me.
“Not today, sucker,” I spat. I blocked the swing with my sword and felt the blade slice open the cat’s meaty paw. It fell back with a loud roar as bright red blood gushed from its claws.
Slowly, the cat backpedaled a little bit. It hopped from side to side as it tried to keep the weight off its damaged paw, but I didn’t bother to give it a chance to regain its senses before I raised my sword and sprinted toward it. I aimed right at its huge, diamond shaped head with its alert green eyes and giant saber teeth.
The cat weakly attempted to block my assault with its other paw, the undamaged one, but it was too off balance to really do much damage. I ducked its wild, haymaker swing and stabbed my sea glass sword upward, right into its heart.
A screech left its lungs at the spark of pain, but its cry was quickly cut off as the creature froze.
I didn’t have a moment to think, though, and I spun around in search of Jemma, who had been assaulted by a cat of her own.
My worries were quickly put to bed when I saw the auburn-haired deer woman with one foot planted proudly on the massive, dead cat. There were three arrows stuck in it: two in its heart, and one in one of its eyes.
“I’m impressed.” I grinned at her proudly.
“Thank you.” The deer woman nodded before she let out a breath and looked back down at her kill. “This is even more terrifying than a fycan.”
“It’s just bigger,” I replied. “The fycans are much smarter, if you ask me.”
“Well, I do not care whether or not these creatures are smart.” She shook her head. “I do not believe I want to run into one again.”
“In this jungle, that’s a hard thing to do,” I laughed. “Come on, let’s go find some manure.”
We finished our trek through the jungle and made it back to the garden with two baskets full of boar shit. The stuff stank, but I was pretty sure that was a good sign. From the little I knew about farming, the stinkier poo meant it was more filled with nutrients.
When we arrived back at the palace, dirty and tired from our day of planting, Netta, Nima, and Jemma immediately headed down to the bathing rooms to wash off the day.
I, on the other hand, was about to do the same when Nerissa called my name.
“My king!” the queen greeted as she strode quickly toward me. “You must come with me.”
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
“Marella had a vision,” she murmured, so I could tell from her tone this was not a good thing.
So, I quickly followed Nerissa back into her bedroom, where my bright eyed little girl sat on the bed, with her eyes focused on the door as she waited for me to come in.
A soft smile lit up her face when I came into the room, and she instantly shuffled across the bed and reached out for me.
“Daddy, I had another vision,” she informed me in a serious, way too grown-up tone.
“So I’ve heard,” I chuckled. “What did you see this time?”
“Big white ships,” she said, and her eyes went wide as she remembered what she’d seen. “They were massive, Daddy, and they sailed over the land like it was the water. Only, the big men on board weren’t regular people, like you and me. I couldn’t do this.”
Marella reached out and poked my side with one of her small fingers.
“You couldn’t touch them,” I clarified. “That would be because they were ghosts.”
“Yeah.” She nodded seriously. “And they were fighting with you all. There was so much noise, and they had these big canons that went boom!”
“Were the canons doing any damage?” I asked with a frown. “Or did they just sail through stuff the way the ships did?”
“No,” Marella sighed and shook her head. “It was like they could make the canons hurt people. One second, I couldn’t touch anything, and then the next second there was a big boom, and everything exploded around me!”
“Shit,” I murmured. “Did you see anything else?”
“No,” she whispered and dropped her eyes in disappointment. “I don’t know what else is going to happen, but I know the ships are going to come here and fight you, Daddy, and they’re very angry.”
Chapter Eleven
Marella fell asleep not too long after she told us all about the vision she’d had. Talise was there as well, since the little girl had woken her out of a dead sleep to insist her mother come to find Nerissa and me.
“What does this mean?” Talise asked as she carefully stroked our daughter’s hair. “Do you know when the fight is going to happen?”
“No.” I shook my head. “The ships keep appearing and disappearing. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, so we can’t predict when they’re going to decide it’s time for a big fight. So, we set up the extra guard tower to watch out for them.”
“I thought you had another reason for doing that,” Talise chuckled. “I suppose all we can do is wait.”
“And try to prepare,” I responded. “I don’t know how to fight off a ghost ship that gets to choose when it’s solid and when it’s not.”
“There has got to be some answers in the legends somewhere,” Mira mused. “Ben, should we take the dragons down to the lagoon where you heard Ladonis’ voice after your very first bond? Do you think that might be able to get us some answers?”
“Possibly,” I replied to Mira, so I reached out with my mind to feel for George’s presence.
I am here, dear one, he responded when I felt him. What is it?
“Mira had a good idea,” I told him, and I made sure all of them could hear me, including Mira and Nixie. “She wants to know if you’d be able to connect with Ladonis again, the way we did after we bonded. Maybe we could get some answers that will help us defeat the ghost ships before they try to conquer us.”
I do not believe so, the dragon responded. I believe he passed on to the next world… but I may know of a way we can contact Oshun.
“The god?” Mira gasped, and her gold eyes nearly bulged out of her head.
Yes, dear one, Nixie responded.
“We’ll go in the morning,” I told them.
“Does George have answers?” Nerissa asked when she could tell Mira and I had finished our mental conversation.
“He might,” her sister replied. “We will try in the morning.”
“I’d also like to set up a new government system,” I added.
I’d been deliberating for a few days whether or not I wanted to try and implement a whole new system, but I realized it was a good way to help blend the cultures even more and create something uniquely us.
“That is a good idea, Draco Rex.” Nerissa nodded. “We shall convene on that tomorrow, after you and Mira have gone to the lagoon to hopefully solve our ghost ship problem.”
We all parted ways, and I slipped into Nerissa’s chamber to give my lovely queen some one-on-one attention for the night. As always, Nerissa was perfectly calm and levelheaded about the possible impending danger.
“Ever since you have come to this island, Ben, everything has changed,” she murmured as we cuddled up together, naked, with our warm skin touching.
“You think things have changed,” I snorted. “What about for me?”
“Your life has changed the most, no doubt,” she laughed. “But I am finding all of these legends and stories we were told as children are actually true. That is both amazing and terrifying all at the same time. You have traveled to another island and brought back a completely new species of women, and now we are contending with ghost ships and a fight we do not know how we will win.”
“You sound excited,” I chuckled.
“I am,” she replied. “If this activity is not exciting to someone, I would be curious to find out what is.”
“Touché.” I nodded.
“Two shay?” she asked.
“Just another strange
expression from my world, in another language, even,” I laughed. “I don’t think Ainsley’s people would quite hold the same opinion as you, though.”
“They are simply different.” The queen shrugged. “Our entire lives, my people have been taught to be brave and to fight. I can tell these other women received a very different message, until you came along, of course.”
“That’s true,” I mused as I stared up at the ceiling. “I’m really glad everyone is coming together so well. It’s really starting to feel like one big community, and I’m very glad for it.”
“I am, as well,” Nerissa mumbled. “I am beginning to feel like we have a kingdom again, the way we did before the orcs invaded. And I owe it all to you, Ben.”
The queen peered out at me from under thick, black lashes, and she looked like the most beautiful creature in the world.
“You are very welcome,” I murmured as I leaned forward to press our lips together.
A sultry, sexy moan whispered out of her, and her hands instantly came up to tangle in my thick hair.
Within seconds, Nerissa had tilted her head back to allow me access to her beautiful, dark, smooth skin, and I peppered her with tiny kisses and nipped and sucked in all the right places. I’d learned all of the little buttons that sat along her skin, hidden from anyone else’s sight. She loved the little space where her jaw met her ear, and the hollow of her throat just above her chest, and I made sure to pay close attention to those spots.
Meanwhile, I slowly explored her body with my hands, and I reveled in the soft whispers and moans my queen let out. The noises were so quiet they were almost imperceptible, but I knew what to listen for.
Suddenly, Nerissa flipped us over so she could straddle my waist, and a devilish grin spread across her lips wide.
“I want to ride you tonight, my king,” Nerissa moaned as she leaned back, pulled her dress over her head, and exposed her entire body to me. “I let Careen have you first since you weren’t able to be there for the birth of Oshuna, but now I want to ensure we have another child together, too.”