I had no choice but to rest my head on his shoulder so I did. I kept my eyes closed. Then I opened them because his fingers were drawing random patterns on my hip over the silk of my nightgown and that felt better with my eyes closed.

The problem was, I could see his chest when my eyes were open.

So I was screwed either way.

“Kah Lahnahsahna, nahna rahna linas, shalah,” he murmured, My tigress, your golden eyes, please.

I sighed softly, pushed up to my elbow and looked at him.

God, he was gorgeous and I freaking hated that.

He stared in my eyes and said not a word. Then his gaze moved over my face. Then he stared in my eyes again.

Same drill. Every morning. Every single morning every freaking day for six weeks.

“She keeps it locked from me,” he muttered and I blinked.

Hmm. That was new.

And that’s also when I understood. I finally understood what he was doing.

He was looking for my spirit.

Well, that was gone. He’d broken it.

I looked away.

His hand came up and curled around my jaw, gently moving my face so I was looking back at him.

“I lost your eyes for five months, my doe, and I missed them.

Even having them back without your spirit shining in them, I don’t like them turned away.”

Yep, same drill. He was being sweet.

I held his eyes. I did not stare. I did not glare. I waited for this to be done.

Sometimes, it took longer than others. Today, I had a feeling he was in for the long haul.

Then he did something else new. He rolled me to my back and loomed over me, but close, and his hand moved to my big, swollen belly, its warmth penetrating the silk.

“He comes soon,” he murmured.

This was true. It was getting close. Any day now.

And Lahn, I also knew, had given up on his golden girl. I knew this because he told me one time in the dead of night when my kid kicked me so hard he woke me. And Lahn, who had his hand on my belly, woke too. It sucked but I had to admit when I saw his eyes in the moonlight shining bright with wonder, his spirit exposed for me to see, his delight at feeling his child move for the first time not

even close to hidden, I liked it. All of it. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

And he had murmured, pressing his hand gently into my belly,

“That is a warrior, my golden doe.”

I figured he wasn’t wrong. The kid could freaking kick and he was a mover. It was like he was swimming in there, flips, breaststroke, the whole enchilada. And he was peeved he didn’t have more room to move and told me so frequently by kicking the crap out of me.

Lahn took me out of my thoughts when he informed me, “I know you don’t wish it but I will be in the bath with you and the healer.”

I sighed again.

I’d guessed that.

Lahn had, by the way, sometime in the last five months decided to believe me. He was looking forward to this kid again if him sleeping with his hand on my belly or coming up behind me whenever he came upon me standing, wrapping his arms around me and putting both hands on it were anything to go by.

The good news was, I was to have the healer with me. The bad news was, I was giving birth in the bathing pool. I was thinking this would be okay, normally, but the water came from a hot spring and I wasn’t big on my kid being boiled alive before it took its first breath.

But I said not a word.

And anyway, maybe I was being dramatic about the water. It wasn’t that hot. I bathed in it.

I didn’t reply to Lahn’s comment and it was his turn to sigh.

“Your friends, I am told, come daily to see you, Circe,” he told me quietly and my eyes slid away. “Linas, shalah,” he whispered and my eyes went back.

I’d been avoiding the girls. I hadn’t seen any of them since I returned. Not even Diandra. This was rude but I was in a state. I didn’t want to be here and I didn’t intend to stay here therefore I

didn’t want to continue to build our friendships because I’d missed them enough the first time.

I was going to go home.

How I was going to do that, I didn’t know because now I really had no way of getting home unless I could get out from under Lahn’s thumb and somehow find another witch who didn’t mind being out of it for a day or two, losing all of her power for a decade and sending me home.

I did not think this kind of search would prove fruitful.

But I had hope. Every day, I hoped my father was working with that witch and Korwahn would melt and I’d be back home. Then I was finding a protection spell to root me there. I didn’t care if that meant I had to tattoo weird shit on every inch of my body. I was never leaving.

“They are missing you, my queen,” Lahn kept talking and I focused again on him. “They are concerned for you, the child you carry. They wish to see you.”

“I don’t wish to see them,” I said quietly.

His eyes got soft. “Circe –”

I shook my head. “I can’t build strong ties here. My father knows of a witch at home who can take me back. I’m sure she’s gearing up.

I’ll be leaving soon.”

Wrong thing to say. His face got hard and his hand slid down my belly, up my side and then his arm tightened, locking my other side to his front as his face got close.

“You will not leave again,” he growled.