Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 56786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 284(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 284(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
“Disgusting,” someone said, loud enough for them to hear. “That whore seduced even the son of his husband!”
Aksel stiffened. Entwining their fingers together, he straightened up and looked at the gathered crowd.
Bracing himself, Lucien pulled back and turned so they stood shoulder-to-shoulder.
It was frightening. And it was comforting. Them against the world.
Aksel lifted Lucien’s fingers to his mouth and kissed his knuckles. The gesture wasn’t improper, but it was kind of old-fashioned. Alphas used to do that to omegas they were courting.
“I will say it just once,” Aksel said. He didn’t raise his voice, but he didn’t need to. A hush fell over the room. Aksel’s eyes were glowing, his Xeus pheromones becoming so overwhelming that Lucien saw people flinch. “This is my mate, the man I’m going to marry. I will not tolerate any insult to him.” He gave a twisted smile, his sharp canines showing. “Everyone knows what poor self-control we beasts have. Don’t fucking test it.”
The silence that fell over the room was so absolute that it seemed deafening.
And then Belinda pushed through the crowd, smiling widely. “About time!” she all but squealed, hugging Lucien tightly, and then Aksel. “Congratulations!”
That finally seemed to break the tension.
Other people stepped forward, offering congratulations hesitantly.
Smiling, Lucien squeezed Aksel’s hand and thanked them graciously. He knew not all of them were being sincere. He knew people would still gossip and say nasty things behind their backs. He knew it wasn’t going to be easy.
But he also knew they would weather any storm together. They already had—and they would again.
Always.
Epilogue
Eight years later
Araminta Cleghorn had ten utterly perfect little fingers and ten equally perfect adorable toes. Lucien would know. He’d counted and kissed every single one of them, twice.
“She’s perfect, isn’t she?” he murmured, lifting his gaze to his mate.
Aksel watched him with a small smile. “She is,” he said, without even glancing at their daughter.
Lucien frowned. “You didn’t even look at her! You’re just humoring me.”
Aksel flickered his gaze to their newborn. “She isn’t much to look at right now, to be honest.”
“Aksel!” Lucien said, mock outraged. All right, his outrage was pretty real. Their baby was perfect!
Aksel laughed. “I’m sure she’ll grow into her face. How can she not with her genes? And you aren’t half bad to look at, either.”
Rolling his eyes, Lucien laughed. “Right,” he said with a wry smile. But it’s not like he could argue with that. Their daughter was blessed with a father who was so mouthwateringly handsome he still took Lucien’s breath away after years of marriage. It was already obvious that she was going to be a carbon copy of Aksel. Lucien couldn’t see even a slight resemblance to himself.
“It’s unfair that she looks so much like you when I did all the hard work!” He was joking. In truth, Lucien couldn’t be more delighted that their daughter looked like the man he loved the most in the world. Though, to be absolutely honest, Lucien didn’t really care what she looked like.
He was delighted that they had her at all.
For a long time, Lucien had thought they would never have children. He’d been so hopeful in the first few years of their marriage—hoping against hope that his doctor was wrong and he’d be able to give Aksel children—but both of his two pregnancies were chemical, ending mere days after conception. His doctor hadn’t been optimistic after examining him. His chemical pregnancies had confirmed her thoughts that Lucien’s body wasn’t capable of producing the pregnancy hormones necessary for the embryo to keep developing. She’d come up with an experimental hormone supplementation program, but Lucien had been unable to conceive again to try it.
After a few years of crushed hopes and negative pregnancy tests, Lucien had come to accept that he and Aksel would never have children. It wasn’t as though they’d been unhappy without children. They hadn’t been. Lucien was grateful for what he had. The seven years since they’d gotten married had been blissful for the most part. There had been ugly parts too, of course—Vagrippa hadn’t spoken to him for years after their marriage, and society’s reaction to their marriage had been... as bad as one might expect, but Lucien had found that it was rather easy not to care about the opinions of other people when he was so in love and loved back. He wouldn’t go as far as to claim that he didn’t care about people’s opinions at all—that would be a lie—but it was hard to be angry or upset about it when one look into Aksel’s intense, adoring eyes made him feel so warm and heady with happiness. So beloved and precious.
They had been happy. So damn happy. Lucien hadn’t known it was possible to be so happy.
But he couldn’t deny that a small part of him had yearned for a baby, yearned to know what it was like to carry Aksel’s child under his heart, yearned for a big family. His heart had ached every time he saw Aksel playing with his nephews and nieces, seeing what a wonderful dad Aksel would have been. In his weakest moments, when it had become too much, he’d even considered hiring a surrogate for them or growing a baby in the genetic centers of the Inner Core planets, a practice that was considered abhorrent on Eila, but he couldn’t go ahead with it, couldn’t deprive their child of pack bonds. It would be selfish. Artificially created Eilan children often ended up on permanent anti-depressants.