Walking towards him, I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him. He immediately wrapped his hands around my waist and pulled me closer, deepening the kiss. Pulling apart I rested my head against his and whispered. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” He kissed my forehead and I smiled.
“Sometimes, you cannot undo certain things. And one of those is betrayal. I lost something very precious to me when I met him and I can never ever get it back. And with you I found pieces of me that I didn’t even know existed. I am not talking about choosing but it’s always you for me.” He smiled and hugged me tightly and I hugged him back discreetly wiping my tears.
“Thank you for telling me that. That’s the sweetest thing ever.” He kissed me all over my face, making me giggle at the wet, ticklish feeling.
I escaped his grip and went back to the kitchen.
Xavier followed me and hugged me from behind, kissing me on my neck. He bit my skin there and I hissed. “Don’t leave a hickey. I can’t cover it in spots I can’t find.”
“But I like these marks on you. They are proof that you are mine.”
“Isn’t this baby enough proof that I am yours and you are mine?” I was pregnant with his baby. We were yet to find out the gender but more than that we were so excited for this baby. After 3 years of dating and 10 months of our marriage, this was the best news ever.
“It is, but sometimes, these temporary tattoos on your skin are also very pretty.”
“Yeah, yeah. I don’t understand this fantasy of men and their attempts to mark their women. It’s such an alpha thing.”
“Except that I am not an alpha.” Both of us laughed at that statement as he joined our lips.
“I want to ravish you right now.” His fingers expertly worked in unbuttoning my shirt while his lips worked down simultaneously in leaving kisses down my neck to my chest. He effortlessly lifted me up and placed me on the kitchen counter.
I moaned when he bit the spot between my chest and shivered when he took my nipple in his mouth.
“Oh my god!” I panted hard when he bit my nipple gently, licking it again and again to soothe the pain.
“Scream louder baby, I can’t hear you.” He teased as he lowered himself down my body. He placed gentle kisses on my stomach as his fingers found the hem of my pants. Pulling them down in one swift go, he stared at my pussy with hooded eyes that I felt my cheeks becoming red.
“Don’t look at me like that.” I shyly whispered, but he didn’t have any of it.
“You are so beautiful baby. Only I know how hard it is to control myself around you.” He pulled down his shorts and his semi erect cock sprang out. The tip was already red and with precum leaking out of it. He stroked himself a few times before he aligned the tip with my entrance.
“Let me know if it hurts.” I nodded. He thrust himself inside me and I let out a loud moan.
“Oh my god, Xavier. That feels so good.” I wrapped my legs around his waist, as he thrusted in and out of me.
“Yes baby, you feel so good.” He moaned. The expression on his face was a delight to see. His head was thrown back while his mouth was open. He thrusted in and out of me as he navigated through the euphoria that flooded us.
Ding.
The bell of the oven rang and I turned around to look at it. Xavier turned his head, stopping his movements.
“I need to turn that off.” I said and the expression on his face was hilarious. He looked sad like a kid whose candy was taken away from him. He pulled out from me and stepped aside. Helping me down from the counter, he sighed, running his hands through his hair. I bit my lips trying to hide my smile seeing him suffer so badly.
I turned off the oven and pulled the biscuits out and placed them back on the counter.
Walking back to him, I giggled seeing his pout.
“Don’t laugh. No more sex while that thing is on.” He frowned and I laughed.
“Do you want to continue?” I asked, composing myself.
“Of course I want to. But not here.”
“Then where.”
“In our bedroom.” He lifted me off the floor and carried me to our bedroom until I became sore enough to move.
The world between dream and waking was hazy, yet somehow brighter than reality itself. When I opened my eyes, the first thing I felt wasn’t fear, but warmth. My body was heavy with exhaustion, yet my heart—oh, my heart was full. Tears slipped down the corner of my eyes even before I realized why. Memories that weren’t mine lived inside me, whispering through my veins like blood carrying a thousand years of longing. Seraphina’s life. Her pain. Her love. Her desperate cries for her child. And finally, her peace when the Moon Goddess had held her and promised her a better life.I had seen it all. Lived it all.And now I knew—her better life was me.A shaky breath left my lips, my hand instinctively going to my belly. The faint swell beneath my palm pulsed with promise, the third heartbeat
Shane’s voice faded into silence, the story ending like a candle guttering out in a room too heavy with shadows. I sat there frozen, staring at her as though her words were still weaving themselves into the air around me. My throat felt raw, my chest heavy, and yet the ache that spread through me wasn’t only sorrow. It was something else—a strange, unexpected peace, tangled with grief.Seraphina. Her story was not just words, not just fragments of a past long buried—it was her life. Her pain. Her stolen joy. And for the first time, I felt the full weight of it.Tears burned at the corners of my eyes, and I didn’t bother wiping them away. I let them fall, let them trail down my skin. Maybe I owed her that. Maybe I owed her far more.
Silence.It was the kind that stretched endlessly, as though the world itself had gone mute. I stood upon what looked like endless clouds, pale and silver, shimmering beneath a sky that had no sun and no moon. My feet did not sink, nor did they move, yet somehow I was standing, breathing—though I was certain breath no longer belonged to me.I was dead.The thought struck me not with fear, but with an aching hollowness that spread through me like frost. I pressed a hand against my chest where once a heart had pounded restlessly, yearning, breaking, surviving. Now there was nothing. Only silence.And yet, even here, beyond the veil, my eyes were not allowed to rest. They sought something—someone. My child. The one who had not even taken his first breath, the li
It had been a month. A month of nights when the silence felt too vast, when her voice should have filled these walls but never did. A month of mornings when a child’s soft cry was the only thing that tethered me to this world. He was not mine by blood, not mine by right, yet the moment she had placed him in my arms, with that broken whisper—take him, promise me he will live—something inside me shifted.From that day, he was my son.I sat in the garden now, the late afternoon sun spilling across the stone paths, warming the cradle that swayed gently beside me. His tiny chest rose and fell in rhythm, fist curled against his cheek, lips parted as though he were smiling at some secret dream. Her dream.
Doing right by her.For once in my life, the phrase did not feel hollow. It was not about politics, it was not about appearances, not about the crown I carried like a curse—it was about her. Seraphina. The woman I loved, the woman I lost, the woman whose absence burned holes into my soul that no amount of time nor duty could mend.I stood in the great hall that morning, the weight of the crown heavy on my head, the council gathered around me like carrion birds. Their whispers had grown louder since Caelan left with my son—our son. They thought I didn’t hear, but I did. Every word. Every insult disguised as careful speculation. Every sneer at her name.“She was never meant to be queen.” “She bewitched him.” “She brought ruin.” “Perhaps the gods punished her, punished us, through her.”They didn’t say it to my face, but I knew. And today, I would not ignore it anymore.I slammed my hand against the throne’s armrest, the sound echoing like a crack of thunder across the marble walls. T
I couldn’t sleep.Not anymore.It has been a week since Caelan left with my son.My son.This is probably the first time I have acknowledged it to myself—that he was mine. He was ours. He is ours.I sat up, rubbing my eyes, trying to find ways to sleep. But I just couldn’t. Not anymore. A lot of things haunted me and it was too late.Why did she not tell me? I knew the answer for it. But a part of me wanted to ask her that question anyway, as if saying it aloud would change the truth.Why did I not do anything when I knew that she was pregnant? I saw her… I saw her in a way I had never seen before, I saw her swollen with my child, and yet I didn’t make a move. Not once did I go and check on her. Why?And the dreadful part. The birth.It clung to me like blood that refused to wash away.I leaned forward, pressing my forehead into my palms, when the memory clawed its way back to me—uninvited, merciless.The midwife had been trembling when she came to me that night, her hands still smell