Page 32 of A Story of Mates and Temptation

“That’s not very king-like either,” she murmurs, amused.

“They’re so big on training,” I muse. I love to see Ziven so laid back.

“Do they do that a lot?” my mum questions. “The fighting?”

“Yeah.” I grin. “It’s better when they are shirtless.”

She laughs and gestures for me to move up so she can sit next to me.

“Have you seen Avaluna? Is she recovering well?” Ziven didn’t know when I asked him earlier.

“She is not far from you and asks about you, too. I’ll take you to see her if you wish. But first, I have something for you.” I watch as she reaches into a satchel, pulling out a green book. It’s old—extremely weathered. “I went to the breeding camps with some of the others,” she explains. “I wanted to look for survivors, but also…I went back to our old home. There was something there—something really important that I wanted to give you.”

She presses the book into my hands, and I run my fingers over the cracked leather, feeling the weight of it. “What is it about?”

“This is your father’s family diary.” Her voice is thick. “It holds generations of dedication to the deities. It’s how I knew about them, about everything—including you. About the rebellion he started.” I swallow hard, my fingers curling over the edges of the book. “There are a lot of empty pages after it.” She clears her throat. “You should write in it if you want to. Your story would be interesting—worth adding.”

I blink, looking up at her. “Thank you, I will treasure this. Why did you call me Story?” I ask. “I mean, of all the names in the world…why that?”

She takes a slow breath. “My mother…” she starts, and her voice wavers. She looks away for a moment before continuing. “My mother was never in my life for more than a minute. She died in childbirth, giving birth to me. I was her sixth child. I don’t know if I ever told you that, but I was. She was from the breeding camps too, and there wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t wish I knew what she was like—what she looked like.” Her eyes grow distant. “My siblings and I lived together,” she murmurs. “My eldest sister looked after all of us, but she was only twelve—twelve years old, looking after all those children, including a baby, when my mother died. It changed her.” Sadness lingers in her every word. I don’t move. I barely breathe. “When she was eighteen, she was sent to a new breeding camp with us, and it was the one you and I lived in,” she explains. “She got sick—not from pregnancy, just…so sick. She’d spent so many years taking care of all of us. We all got sick and there was no help. No medicine to help the fevers.” Her sharp inhale echoes in the air. “They all died, and I remember it. It is my first memory. A part of me went with them, too.”

My heart clenches. “I’m sorry.”

She carries on like she can’t stop or she might never be able to tell me it all. “I became a breeder, just like my mother, like my sibling…what they probably all would have turned out to be.” I shake my head in disgust of those camps. “I had no life. Nothing. Nothing good anyway. Nothing worth living for. No family. I was empty of anything. Empty of a story that could live on beyond my mortal years.” She lifts her head, and for the first time, I see the light in her eyes—the warmth of something more. “Then Imet your father,” she whispers, and she smiles like she is seeing him in my face. “It felt like everything began with him—like the first page of a book was turned.” She swallows. “And then, when we had you…it wasn’t just like turning a book page. It was like exploding straight into a story that grabbed my heart. Made my blood flow. Made my soul feel alive.” Tears burn my eyes. “And I knew,” she finishes. “That first moment I held you, I knew you were a special beginning of a story.”

“I really love you for telling me this, even when I can see it hurts,” I admit.

She presses my hands around the book I have. “That’s why you have this name,” she finishes. I exhale shakily, looking down at the worn leather. “Read the book,” she says. “Recover. And I’ll get you some food.” She winks. “In your condition, you definitely need to eat.”

I blink up at her. “How did you?—”

She laughs. “I was in a breeding camp for nearly all of my life. Pregnancy was a common thing, and I know all the signs. I’ve known for weeks.” I gape at her. “I was just waiting for you to catch up, find out, and tell me.” Then her face softens. “And then…my grandbaby will need food.”

I watch her go, warmth filling my chest. Of course she would know. The joy in her eyes—the future she sees with us is worth every fight I had. Ziven, my mother, Hettie and our dynasty. My family.

I sit back, exhaling, and turn the first page of the book my father wrote in. The book my grandfather wrote in, and my great-grandmother before him.

A story of fae who were brought into a world forgotten.

And as I begin to read about a rebellion, I see that it didn’t fail like my father thought. It just began and lived through me.

Chapter Eighteen

Page Eighteen. The power of books should be feared as much as deities.

It’s days before I can get out of bed without nearly falling back or everything spinning. The healers are constant and soon begin to get on my nerves as they check on me and the baby, which Ziven has agreed we should keep to ourselves until we want to share the baby news with the world. There is so much going on, so many unfamiliar faces, and we don’t have anything other than half-built huts to live in right now as the cities and towns are burnt, or raided, and destroyed. Ziven doesn’t want us to move into remains of places that were vampyre-controlled; he wants us to rebuild something new, so the huts in the forest are our homes for the considerable future. I don’t mind where I live when I’m free and with Ziven and my family. I already have everything I could ever want.

I don’t know whether it’s the magic, like Ziven suggested, or whether the pregnancy is exhausting me, but everything aches,and it’s near impossible for me to get up until today. I feel better today and I’ve been finally walking around the camp town, and I got to see Avaluna. She is nearly healed herself, and she hugged me and asked us to not speak about the books for a long time. I completely agree with her.

Unfortunately, all the time I’ve spent in bed, Ziven hasn’t been with me for a good chunk of it. There are thousands of refugees from the city who want to rebuild, who have bent a knee to him and are working with him. He is on crowd control nearly constantly, and any time I found him today, he has been surrounded. Several groups of fae bow to me too when I walk past without even knowing who I am.

I miss Catherine again—I haven’t seen her since the war—but she is with her mate, and he will keep her safe. There’s a strange quietness to the world, like the humming of injustice is just…gone. At least, most of it, and we will make laws, rules and protect people. It’s the honour and responsibility of any ruler. Ziven looks back at me, while hundreds of fae and vampyres are staring at him with their new moon marks. I’ve learnt from Calix, he can use his shadow magic to mark hundreds of fae at a time and bind them to his command.

“Excuse me,” he says to the crowd, who begin asking for him, and he ignores them to head straight to me. My cheeks are burning as he wraps his arms around my waist and kisses me like no one else is here. “Wife, are you healed enough for a flight on Maeve, if I can join you?”

I reach for her and find her waiting, like she knew somehow. “Will you let Ziven join me for a flight?”

“You risked the world for him. I can allow a flight.” She accepts with her usual snark.

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