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“Rokai has never been interested in living in the palace. Once he became of age to express his own opinions, he preferred the hunting lodges we have spread across the estate, or the training areas for our warriors. If he ever decides to move home, he’s welcome to our wing, and we’ll move into the main of the palace, or he can choose a hunting lodge — there are several.”

“He may decide to come home now that we’re here,” Vivi said.

Eula caught her eye and shared an unspoken smirk before they shook their heads and at the same time said, “No, he won’t.”

Chapter 4

Vivian stood looking up the white marble stairs toward the second floor of her new home. The idea of getting to the top and seeing for herself all the lovely things Eula had described at the front of her mind. Yet, still, she stood there, one hand cupping her huge belly, the other pressed as near to the small of her back as she could get it.

“Ehlealah?” Quin asked as he walked into their downstairs living room.

“Hmm,” she just barely answered, her eyes still pinned to the top of the stairs.

“You did too much today,” Quin said.

“Couldn’t help it. I wanted to see everything.” She didn’t look at him, instead still staring up the stairs.

“What is it?” Quin asked, coming to stand beside her and peer up in the direction she was looking.

“I wonder what it looks like.”

Quin looked at his mate, then followed her gaze once more toward the top of the stairs. “The stairs?” he asked.

“No. The rooms at the top of the stairs,” she snapped. “But I just don’t have it in me to climb up them. Your mother explained that it’s our usual quarters up there, but she turned all the common areas down here into bedrooms and a whole other apartment for us to use while the baby is little and I might want help more. I’ve seen these, they’re gorgeous. But I haven’t been upstairs yet.”

“That is not an issue,” he said, sweeping her quickly up into his arms and bounding effortlessly up the stairs.

Vivian squeaked a little as her hands grasped at him to secure herself.

“I will not drop you. You know this.”

“Yes, well, I didn’t weigh eight hundred pounds when you picked me up before. Now I do.”

“You do not weigh 800 pounds. You weigh a bit more than before, and you’re more round — a lot more round, and out of breath more easily — even when you walk, but you’re not 800 pounds. Maybe 200 pounds,” he said cluelessly, not noticing the way she slowly, deliberately turned her face toward his.

Finally he felt her gaze on him and turned to her with a huge smile on his face. That smile faded quickly when he saw the brows on her delicate face raised dramatically and the thinning of her lips as she pressed them together tightly in her aggravation. “What did I say this time?” he asked.

“You said I was fat. You said I can’t do anything and I even have trouble catching my breath with a simple walk,” she answered, her tone terrifyingly calm as one of her eyes twitched.

“Vivi, you can’t take offense to truth. You are easily tired and you have trouble with walking too much, and you have become round!”

“Because I’m carrying a child that is probably half your size! You did this! If I’m fat it’s your fault! If I can’t breathe it’s because you put a baby in me that is practically your size and there’s no room for my lungs to work properly, and you’re lucky my heart hasn’t called end game!”

Quin stood at the landing at the top of the stairs. “I’m sorry?” he asked.

“Oh, and now you’re sorry that I’m pregnant?!” she demanded. “Put me down!”

Very carefully, even moving his body to block hers from falling down the stairs if she happened to teeter the wrong way due to her extra weight and top-heaviness, he placed her on her feet and simply stood there, waiting to see what she’d do next.

“You know that is not what I meant,” he said gently, having become somewhat accustomed to her emotional outbursts, the longer she was pregnant.

Eyes of fury turned away from his as she caught a glittering effect in her peripheral vision. She turned her back to him and took several steps away from him. Her gaze swept up and over ahuge replica of her St. Christopher’s medal, complete with a chain of perfectly carved links appearing to spread out delicately beyond it to the left and the right to create an almost arch like quality as it reached from one side of the entrance to another with the St. Christopher centered perfectly. It had been carved into a relief standing out from the white marble that extended from the stairs to the grand entrance of the apartment, but to be clearly seen one had to be standing at the top of the staircase. The relief was covered in silver and glittered with the lights bouncing off it.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered. “Quin,” she said, turning to face him with tears in her eyes. “How…”

“It is no secret what your necklace means to you. My mother asked me to send her its likeness because she wanted to work it into our new home so you’d always know that you belong here.”

“And I thought she’d done so much before! I had no idea she’d gone to such measures. I have to go tell her how much it means to me.”

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