“Was he a king?”
My smile got sadder. “Yes, of a very small kingdom.”
“So you were princess.”
I pressed my lips together to bite back the tears. Then I nodded my head and whispered, “Yes, I was definitely a princess.”
“And now you are queen.”
“Yes, now I am queen.”
“Your father would want that for you, is this not true?” he asked and I blinked.
Boy, he orchestrated that well, clever bastard.
“Kah Dax –” I started but stopped when his arm squeezed the breath out of me.
I felt his lips at my ear where he growled, “Lahn.”
“Lahn,” I wheezed and his arm loosened but I said no more.
This got me a, “I asked you a question, Circe.”
“No,” I answered. “No, he would not care if I was queen. He’d be happy I married a peasant, just as long as it made me happy. He’d even be happy that I was a slave, just as long as I spent my days doing something that made me content.”
“No king would want that,” Lahn stated.
“They would if they loved their daughters.”
“You are wrong,” he informed me.
“I most definitely am not,” I informed him.
“You are, my tigress. A man would want his daughter showered with riches. He would want an army to be at her service to keep her safe from harm. He would want her to have the adulation of a nation of people. He would want her to be the consort of a leader of men.
And if he could not find that for her, he’d want her to be in the bed of a free man, a strong man, a brave man, one who provides for her and one who has the respect of his brothers. I am a man, we may have daughters and this is what I would wish for them.”
I blinked at the landscape.
Oh my God, God, God.
How could I…?
Oh my God, God, God.
How could I forget about birth control?
Oh my God!
“Circe?” he called on another arm squeeze.
“What?” I whispered.
“Did you hear what I said?”
“Yeah.” I was still whispering.
“You have no response?”
“No, uh… you’re right. Showered with riches, army at her service, adulation, consort to a leader. That all sounds good. Pop would dig all that.”
“Dig?” Diandra asked and I turned distracted eyes to her.
“Like. He’d like that,” I explained, Diandra nodded and translated.
I looked forward.
“She jokes,” Lahn muttered (but Diandra still interpreted).
“No,” I said softly and shook my head once. “No, I’m not joking.
But, the truth is, Pop wouldn’t like that. What he would like is that a man would wish to give his daughter that and that that man would want the same for his daughters.”
Diandra hadn’t finished translating when Lahn’s hand came up making his arm slant at an angle across my chest so his fingers could curve around my neck and he could pull me so my full back was tight against his chest.
“We will make warriors,” he told me quietly, his voice deeper than normal.
Oh God.
