Lahn carefully picked up Isis and handed her to me after I pulled the drawstring loose over my breasts.

“Our princess first,” he murmured as I cautiously took her.

I was positioning her, feeling a little weird and a lot embarrassed as I offered my nipple to my daughter and Lahn picked up the fussing Tunahn.

Then, with Tunahn snug in the crook of Lahn’s arm, his other one snaked out, wrapped around my waist and he gently turned me and pulled me and Isis back so we were resting against his solid bulk.

Once there, instantly Isis latched on and started to suck.

I closed my eyes as my milk flowed, nourishing my child with my husband’s strength supporting me and all this slid through me like silk.

I relaxed and cradled my daughter to me. Lahn’s fingers stroked my side soothingly. Tunahn continued to fret.

“Our son will be greedy,” Lahn murmured and I smiled.

Like father like son.

“Maybe, in future, Tunahn should go first. Isis seemed content to wait,” I suggested.

“Me,” Lahn replied. “He took more of your womb and pushed out first. He must now learn patience and sharing.”

This was true, the taking more of my womb part. Tunahn was a healthy little bugger. Isis was dainty in comparison to her brother.

“Okay, Lahn,” I said softly, “you know how to build a warrior.”

“Mm,” he murmured and that slid through me like silk too, “and I look forward to learning how to spoil a princess.”

Man oh man.

Oh man.

I couldn’t stop it and didn’t try; I rested my head on his shoulder and turned it so I could press my temple against his neck. At this, Lahn held on tighter.

When Isis was done, it was Lahn who executed the impossible maneuver of exchanging babies and held Isis and me again while Tunahn fed (he latched on immediately and sucked hard – definitely greedy and knowing what he wanted – therefore definitely his father’s son).

I fell asleep in the middle of it, temple to my husband’s neck, son in my arms and woke up later to a dark room, my nightdress tied

over my breasts, my body sheltered against the chill under the strong safety of my king’s.

“Sleep, my Circe,” he murmured, his arm around me tightening.

“You must regain your strength.”

“Where are the children?” I asked in a drowsy voice, my eyelids drifting up and down, wanting to adhere to his command at the same I wanted an answer.

“In their beds, where they will always sleep. This is our bed, my golden queen,” Lahn replied, my eyes drifted closed but before I drifted away, I heard him finish on a murmured afterthought,

“Unless my golden Isis is troubled. Then she will have her father.”

I floated away thinking, oh man.

Chapter Thirty-Three

The Resurrection

Six weeks later…

“Circe! I just don’t know what to do with you!” Diandra cried, staring at me with unconcealed impatience and I lifted my hand to cup the dark head on top of the tiny sleeping body strapped to my chest.

“Diandra!” I hissed, “Shush!” My eyes slid side to side around the bustling marketplace me and my posse were wandering through.

“You’ll wake Tunahn or people might hear.”

I heard a slight giggle and my eyes moved to Sabine who was standing very close to Zahnin and also by Narinda who had Isis strapped to her chest over her own little baby bump. Then my gaze moved through Claudine, Nahka, Anastasie, Oahsee, Char and Vuntus who quickly looked away, pressing their lips together, turning their dancing eyes and feigning avid interest at a stall that held a variety of leather straps men could wear across their chests.

Diandra got close to me and laid her hand on mine on Tunahn’s head and she hissed back, “I do not want to disturb your little warrior but I do not care if people hear! This cannot go on.”

At Diandra’s not-so-gentle questioning, I had hesitantly just shared with her (and my posse) that even after the touching scenes after our children were born, things had not changed between Lahn and me.

This was mostly because I was caught up in suddenly being a mother of two in a primitive world and deciding, even if I had slaves who could not wait to get their mitts on my babies, this would be hands on.

Not to mention, considering I was nursing them both, and Tunahn seemed to want to feed continuously, I had no choice for it to be hands on.

Therefore, I was exhausted, constantly running around and had one or two children in my arms (or attached to my body) almost all the time. Even half the night. And when this wasn’t happening, I was trying to catch up on sleep or bolting down food because nursing made you ravenous.

So I didn’t see my husband a lot, partly because I was busy and partly because I was doing my all to avoid him (thus wandering the marketplace with my posse and the many walks I would take with my kids to be amongst my people and to work off my baby weight) because when he was with our kids, especially Isis, the way he doted on her (and both of them, really, but early warning signs showed Princess Isis was going to be Daddy’s Little Girl) sent that warm sweetness through me so strong, sometimes it was a wonder I kept my feet.

And this didn’t take into account the way he doted on me.

Dax Lahn was proud of his family and he made no bones about it.

As he would be mostly because I dug my heels in his shoulders as payback in the heat of the moment. I’d forgotten that my Mom’s Mom had been a twin and I’d researched this ages ago to discover what it might mean to my future and found it was the woman who was genetically predisposed to carrying twins.

So it was my fault-ish, or, more accurately, my boon.

I did not share this information with anyone and therefore everyone was crowing their Dax was not only mightiest but also the most virile, seeing as his other powerful sword sired two children on me. They had no idea it was me who was predisposed to it and released two eggs his swimming warriors could fertilize. They wouldn’t get it even if I tried to explain and, it must be said, Lahn himself seemed pretty freaking pleased with the results of our union so I didn’t have the heart to explain.

This was all also, I was not admitting to myself, my defense mechanism against a husband who had injured me deeply but whose

unrelenting sweetness was healing a wound I had stubbornly refused to allow to heal.

But now, I had forgiven him and I just didn’t know how to tell him that. And the tables were turning. The longer I procrastinated, the more it was becoming less a matter of me telling him I forgave him and more me needing to be forgiven for my delay in letting my savage brute off the hook.

Why did I always do this?

God, I was so freaking stupid!

And now, because I was stupid, about three weeks ago Lahn’s sweetness started to hold an edge of impatience, that edge grew, spread, built and honed and now it was long and very sharp, like the side of his sword.