LENA
I was at my chamber window watching the sunset over city walls that would soon be tested by war. I had my hand on my swollen stomach, feeling the baby move — kicks that gave me a strong sense of what I was fighting for. Not just survival, but a future where this child might grow up without the wars and divisions of our world.
But that future should be a sturdy one, and to make sure it would be, I needed to be as tough as I could. And that required finally doing what I’d been putting off for weeks.
And the matings with Riven and Kael still were not complete. We had become friends, had real feelings, relationships that went beyond politics as mere expediency. But one step of the final ritual that would solidify those ties had been withheld from us.
I'd been afraid. Scared of intimac
