Claimed by the Elven King: Part Four (9 page)

As we walked to the center of the dais to stand before Sethian’s
throne, I glanced at the queen’s throne where Limira had already risen to her
feet to face us, her face a mask of perfect neutrality, though unsurprisingly,
her gaze was fixed on the baby.

Sethian unlinked our arms, and I handed our son to him, glad to have
something else to focus on briefly other than that sea of eyes or the queen. After
uncovering his head, the elven king turned to face his subjects with the baby
held out vertically before him with a hand supporting his head and the other
his bottom and gave them their first good look at their new prince.

The low buzz of conversation abruptly stopped in what sounded like one
loud, collective gasp, followed by a silence so profound that I could feel it
down to the very marrow in my bones. Nobody moved; nobody
breathed
. It
was as though reality, itself, had frozen while teetering on the edge of a
precipice.

Seemingly unperturbed, though the slight feeling of concern I was
picking up from him said otherwise, Sethian announced in Elvish in a booming
voice, “
Behold my son, Prince Thaylan of the royal House of Elerren, heir to
the throne of the Second Realm!
”

His voice echoed loudly throughout the room, but all I could hear was
my son’s name.

Thaylan
…

My heart thumped loudly in my ears in excitement, once, then twice,
three times, and then the room roared with the sound of a thousand voices that
made the very glass on the windows tremble. Shouts of disbelief, cries of
confusion, and accusations of trickery, all of this hit me with the force of a
wrecking ball.

Then the queen was suddenly beside Sethian, staring down at Thaylan as
if she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing. She reached a hand out as if
to touch his face, and suddenly enraged, I started to move towards them, intent
on stopping her. I only managed a single step before a surge of utter agitation
raged into my being, and a clear wave of pure power suddenly erupted out from
the baby, making me stagger as it pushed me backwards and knocked the queen
completely flat on her back.

Cries of surprise and pain sounded out from the direction of the
courtiers, and as I regained my footing, I turned and saw everyone to a man
sprawled out on the ground in every position imaginable, some moaning, some
still shouting, and others not moving at all. I reached Sethian just as he
turned to me, his eyes wide and his face pale with shock.

“Thaylan! Is Thaylan okay!” I demanded, reaching for him.

Sethian nodded somewhat dazedly and let me take the baby from his arms.
Thaylan was clearly upset, his face scrunched up just like a crying infant’s,
but the only sounds from his throat were those little noises of exclamation
that he would make every once in a while as though he was trying to talk but
frustrated that nothing would emerge. That was probably why holding him felt as
if I had gotten dangerously close to a live wire. His tiny body thrummed with
energy, making my arms start to feel a little numb. I immediately sat down onto
the steps of the dais and used my lap to support his back, afraid I would
abruptly lose all the feeling in my arms and drop him.

“Good. Stay there while I tend to the queen and my people,” Sethian
said after giving both of us a once-over, his voice strained.

Both Sethian and my friends had warned me that something like this
could probably happen, that some elven children might use an inborn ability
without warning, but judging from the completely stunned look on Sethian’s
face, Thaylan wasn’t supposed to be able do to something like
this
.

I rocked him gently in my arms and smiled down at him in an effort to
calm him, but from the waves of unhappiness that his emotions were shouting at
me and the way he was kicking his legs and flailing his arms, it was clear that
he was in no mood to be comforted. If he were a human baby, he would have been
screeching fit to wake the dead. I’m not sure if it was the queen, the roar of
the crowd, or even some negative emotion I had inadvertently sent him when I
saw that the queen was about to touch him that had set him off, but maybe it
was better to take him out of the throne room until things settled down.

Sethian was currently at the queen’s side, helping her to sit up and
asking if she was injured. I started to call out to him, but all I managed to get
out was the first syllable of his name before the throne room rapidly faded
from view and a startled breath later, I was sitting in the center of our bed.
Thaylan started to thrash about more vigorously, and I felt a rush of
excitement from him, probably because he had just spotted his bassinette beside
the bed.

“I guess no one will ever question whether Sethian’s really your father
with a power like that,” I told him, smiling weakly as I continued to rock him.

If the elven king had been hoping for our son to shake up the court
today, he certainly got more than he had probably bargained for. I didn’t have
to be a political expert to know that knocking your future subjects on their
asses wasn’t the best way to win hearts.

Suddenly, the door flew open and Sethian came running in, his crown
lying skewed on his head, followed closely by Lariel, Saeria, and Rinwen.
“Thank the High Powers I found you!” Sethian exclaimed, relief flowing from him
like a bleeding wound. “When I saw you two disappear, I did not know what to
think!”

“It seems Thaylan just wanted to come home,” I said with a helpless
shrug. “I don’t think he liked the noise.”

“Noise, is putting it mildly,” Sethian replied with a sigh, running his
hand through his hair and catching his fingers in his crown. He frowned and
opted to just remove it rather than try to move it back into place.

“It sounds as though we missed a rather grand spectacle,” Lariel said
hesitantly.

“Yes, you could say the baby had quite the temper tantrum,” I said with
a slightly hysterical laugh. I was probably still in shock.

I guess hearing familiar voices and being in a familiar place again
were enough to finally settle Thaylan down because the energy emanating from
his body completely died down, leaving my arms to tingle madly as if they had
gone to sleep. His face had also lost that pinched look, and his eyes were
currently fixed on his father—or rather, the light from the oil lamp glinting
off the crown in his hands.

“We left a pretty big mess back there,” I said to Sethian. “The baby’s
calmed down now, so if you need to get back, I think we’ll be fine here with
everyone.”

His hands clenched the crown. He started to say something, then shook
his head and gave me a
look
. I nodded. We would have much to discuss
later when the room wasn’t so crowded and there were no more nobles moaning on
the floor in the throne room. Sethian bent over and kissed both of us on the
brow before phasing out of the room.

“So our little prince has been named, Thaylan,” Lariel said, sitting on
the bed beside us. “‘The one who sees all.’ Auspicious.”

No, threatening
, I though with an inward groan. What was Sethian
thinking giving him a name like that? The name had a pleasing ring to it, but
if that’s what it meant, it really did come off as a not-so-subtle warning,
especially after what had just happened in the throne room.

Of course, I told none of them this as I smiled and said, “I certainly
hope so.”

“I don’t think I have ever seen anyone so excited for a journey as you,”
Lariel remarked as I stuffed a few last minute things for Thaylan into a pack
that I would be keeping with me inside the carriage tomorrow.

Sethian had assured me that his staff would see to the rest of our
packing, and I was grateful. I had never gone on a trip that lasted over a few
days, much less a couple of months. I wouldn’t have known where to start.

I was both relieved and a little disappointed that we wouldn’t be
riding the elvensteed but instead pulled by them inside a carriage. Although
Sethian had taken me to see them once before, with Thaylan in tow, I had only
been able to pet them. At this early stage of an elven child’s life, the child
rarely left the side of his or her mother as the first few years were important
to the strengthening of their familial bonds. It was more than just cultural.

Learning to ride would have to come later when Thaylon was old enough
to take the lessons with me. I had to constantly remind myself that there was
no hurry, that a few years was nothing in this new lifespan I had been given.

“Remember, I’ve been living in the elven realm for over a year now, and
this is the first time I’ve ever left the palace grounds,” I said. “I’ve been
dying to see Talloth. Hell, I’ve been dying just to see the realm, itself, to
see how it differs from my world. Getting to go to a bunch of cities, too, is
just icing on the cake.”

“It will be a refreshing change of scenery,” Saeria agreed.

“That’s why I told you, all of you, that you should take a few days off
every once in a while,” I said pointedly. “Even if you don’t want to take a
year off from serving here like you’re
supposed to
, everyone needs a
little time to themselves to recharge.”

“We shall take our year after your children are grown,” Lariel said
with a grin.

“The last time I looked, I only have one,” I retorted.

I glanced at the bed where Thaylan was currently playing with an
assortment of colorful wooden block of various shapes and sizes with Rinwen.
And by playing, I meant he was levitating a few of them around her body in a rapid
whirlwind while a giggling Rinwen tried to keep from getting pummeled.

The first time I had seen him do this I nearly had a heart attack, but
the elven women had been delighted. Thaylan had launched one at me, expecting
me to catch it or levitate it like him, but it had hit me square in the nose
hard enough to make it bleed. The confused look on his face would have been
adorable had I not been choking on blood.

Lariel’s grin widened. “That will change soon, I think.”

I felt heat rise in my cheeks despite myself. Not for the first time, I
wondered if they could hear us making love at night. When Sethian was here, my
friends stayed in the servant wing attached to the Royal Suite, which was only
a few rooms away. I could get pretty loud sometimes, to my eternal
embarrassment.

“If by soon, you mean in about ten years, then sure, a sibling for
Thaylan would be great.”

I could only imagine the chaos that would erupt if I had two gifted
children hurdling blocks and lord knows what else at each other. Not to mention
phasing in and out of existence. That alone would probably have me completely
gray by the time he turned one. Luckily, the farthest he had gone was wherever
Sethian happened to be in the palace. Maybe it was because of the familial
bond, but he always seemed to know exactly where Sethian was at any given time
and would just pop over to see him whenever he felt like it. The maddening part
was that there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop him from doing this,
being the mundane human that I was.

Unfortunately, Sethian seemed to find the whole thing extremely
amusing, and when I had pointed out rather crossly that Thaylan could end up on
the other side of the realm, he had assured me that the ability to manipulate
space was limited, and he doubted Thaylan could even manage to phase to
somewhere outside the palace. I wasn’t as confident.

“I would hope sooner, but ten years is also fine,” Lariel said with a
nod.

I just shook my head. Sometimes my sarcasm just went right over their
heads, and it was easier to just let it go rather than try to explain.

“You should probably put the little one to bed soon,” Saeria said.
“Didn’t His Majesty say that we would be leaving at first light tomorrow?”

“Or as soon as he gets back from Nallos, whichever is sooner. It had
something to do with a land dispute between a couple of pretty important nobles
that couldn’t wait until after the trip, so I don’t really expect him back by
dawn, either.”

I went over to the bed and sat next to Thaylan. “Hey, sweetie, it’s
time for bed,” I said, pointing to his bassinette once I had captured his
attention.

“No!” he said clearly in English, making me sigh.

Some days it was in Elvish. Whether human or elven, I guess some things
were just universal.

The first thing I became aware of was the feeling of something moist on
the back of my neck. I shifted and tried to turn my head, but a hand
immediately pushed my face back towards my pillow.

“Sethian?” I said somewhat groggily.

Was it morning already? I felt as though I had only been a sleep for a
few minutes.

“
Mmph
,” he replied against my skin as he moved his kisses from
the back of my neck to my collarbone, pulling the collar of my nightgown away
to give his mouth more access to my skin.

I gasped as he sucked rather hard on my pulse point, the sensation
bordering on pain. Although waking me up like this was nothing new for us, I
was surprised that he even had the stamina to make love after riding what must
have been all night to get here if it was indeed morning. Well, at the slower
pace of riding in a sort of caravan, we would be on the road for the next two
days before we reached Talloth, so I suppose I understood his desire to get in
one last tumble before we left.

I felt Sethian press tightly against my back, his erection already digging
into my lower spine. Maybe it was the grogginess, but his kisses this time
seemed to make my head swim more than usual until I felt not only lightheaded,
but euphoric.

He hadn’t bothered to turn on one of the oil lamps, so when he rose up
above me and rolled me onto my back, all I could see of him in the darkness was
the outline of his body and the lighter shade of darkness that was his hair as
it spilled over his shoulders and tickled my nose. I was a little surprised
that he was already completely nude, but then his mouth crashed onto mine and
whatever thoughts had been going through my mind scattered until the only thing
I could focus on was his hot mouth trying to suck the life out of me and his hands
that were aggressively fondling my breasts through my gown and tugging at the
thin material a bit impatiently.