# 13.
Brayden fought the
urge to give in to the beast that he knew dwelled within him. Now that his
brother could change at will between his two forms, Brayden's realised his own
beast wanted out. It wanted the chance to run free instead of being locked away
from the real world. It also wanted the chance to prove he was the dominant
creature. Brayden had been avoiding all his friends and family, even Quinlan
was starting to notice just how much he was pulling away, and he wasn’t happy
about it. He had ordered—not asked—but
ordered, that Brayden attend him after morning feast.
This was so not good.
Brayden paced
outside the King’s door and rubbed at his stomach. The constant movement of the
beast within was making him nauseous. He would have liked nothing better than
to run away from all this and pretend that this—whatever this was—wasn’t happening. He’d even prefer to
be locked up again on his uncle’s estate. He didn’t want to be different. He truly
just wanted to be normal. Be a normal man, who was loved by and could love his
husband without all of this getting
in the way.
Raising a hand he
tentatively knocked on the door separating him from King Quinlan. For at this
moment he was the King and not the husband Brayden loved so much. Remorse
flooded through him when he realised this was all his fault. He should have
just come clean and told Quinlan what, or rather, how he was feeling. Instead
now it had become bigger mess, and would be recorded in the official records of
the Kingdom.
“Come!” Quinlan
called.
Before Brayden could
turn the handle the door was opened and Cleric Saskia watched him with something
akin to sadness in his eyes as he gestured Brayden into the room. He didn’t
speak as he went and took his seat at the side of Quinlan’s huge mahogany desk.
His hands hovering over the paper that would forever hold this conversation.
“You wanted to see
me?” Brayden asked as he tried to act like he didn’t know what this was all
about. He knew he’d been acting like an arse toward everyone, but there was
still a childish part of him which didn’t want to own up to any wrong doing.
Quinlan silently studied
him for a very long time before he spoke. Brayden got the feeling that whatever
it was Quinlan had to say he wasn’t going to want to hear. He braced himself
for the scolding he knew was coming his way.
“Bray, take a seat.
I have something to talk to you about, and I think you need to be sitting to
hear it.”
Brayden's heart
thundered in his chest. Was this is where Quinlan was going to tell him their
marriage had all been a mistake, and that he was ending their commitment to
each other. Maybe Quinlan realised he should have chosen a girl all along. His
hands fluttered to his throat as he sat opposite his husband. A sudden numbness
was flowing through his body making it harder to breathe.
“Bray,” Quinlan
began, his words coming faster the more he spoke. “Cleric Saskia has done some
research, and we think we may know why you’ve been acting the way you have.
Apparently the old ones had a system where they could bear children by their
mates; whether said mate be male or female. Bray I think you are pregnant.”
Brayden didn’t even
have time to filter through it all before his eyes rolled back into his head
and he slid sideways off the chair and landed with a thump on the floor.
**~*~**
“Well that went
well,” Cleric Saskia said as he laid his pen and paper on the desk.
Quinlan jumped up
and ran to kneel beside his mate. He gently cradled Brayden in his arms as he
picked him up and sat back in the chair. Everyone had noticed the change coming
over Brayden in the past month, and it wasn’t until that little piece of
information came to light that everything started to make sense. Brayden was
off his food. He no longer slept completely through the night. His moods
shifted with the winds and he definitely wasn’t the happy person Quinlan had
married.
“Should we try and
wake him?” Quinlan asked as he softly stroked his husband’s hair. “I thought he’d
take it better than he did.”
Cleric Saskia
chuckled beside him, “You just informed him that he may be carrying your child.
How did you expect him to react?”
Kissing Brayden's
temple Quinlan shrugged. “I don’t know, better than he did I suppose. Maybe he
doesn’t want to be pregnant.”
“Give him time. He
loves you. Once he’s had a chance to think about and absorb what you just told
him he’ll be happy. It was a lot to take in.”
Quinlan smiled,
“Could you imagine the beautiful child we’d make together. I thought Killian
and Larkin were the most beautiful babies I’d ever laid eyes on when they were
born. Could you imagine a little girl with Brayden's features? She would be
sought after by so many admirers when she comes of marriageable age.”
**~*~**
Brayden woke, but still
kept his eyes closed while he listened to Quinlan discuss the future of their
child. A child! The fact this was even possible was truly amazing. Thinking that
he had been gifted a way to further connect himself to Quinlan.
He felt Quinlan
jump when he spoke. “Getting a little ahead of yourself aren’t you. Who says
that we’ll have a girl? It very well maybe a boy. We don’t even know if I am
carrying a child at all. To be honest I thought I was acting the way I was
because I was going to turn like Javier has. I thought I could feel my beast
wanting to be free.”
Quinlan turned
Brayden's face and fully kiss him on the lips. “I think there’s only one way to
solve this. We must take you straight to the healers and have them run the
tests to find out when you’re truly carrying or not. You might also be correct
in that your body may be going through changes readying yourself to shift for
the first time.”
Brayden put his
hands flat out over his rolling stomach and smiled. Maybe what he’d been
feeling was the beast’s way of telling him that he was now with child. He
couldn’t stop smiling as Quinlan carried him to the healing rooms. He even
stayed and watched as the healers performed their tests, then announced Brayden
was indeed with child.
Brayden threw his
arms around Quinlan’s neck and cried. Tears of joy and of fear ran their course
until they were spent. He was so happy to be sharing this miracle with Quinlan
and terrified the person who had put the price on his head would now double his
efforts now he was pregnant.
Hiccupping he turned
his tear stained face towards his husband. “Quin, we’re having a baby.”
“Yes we are,”
Quinlan smiled, and gently placed a kiss on his forehead. “You’re pregnancy is
just what our family needed. It’s also just what our people needed to accept
our marriage once and for all. Though to be honest I’m not sure I’m ready to
share our impending parenthood with the rest of our people.”
Brayden grinned
back. “You always make me happy.”
“I think this is definitely
a gift from the four brother. Our Gods of old who once ruled so lovingly over
us.” One of the healers pronounced.
Brayden nodded, he
also believed this to be a gift from the Gods. “When my uncle would spend time
with me he often told me stories about the four brothers. The way he talked I
honestly believed he’d met more than one of them. He spoke as if they were
living, breathing people. The things he told me were mostly about two of them,
Raevyn Blue and someone called Simian. I think he truly believed they resided
in our timeframes still.”
“Why does the name
Raevyn Blue seem so familiar to me?” Quinlan asked the room in general.
It was one of the healers
who answered. “Because up until your Consort’s father, our then king was
murdered Raevyn Blue was the lead sentinel of all of Panthea as well as serving
the high castle. When King Thayer was taken Raevyn resigned his position and
disappeared. No one ever said he was one of the God’s, or descended from their
bloodline, but I always got the feeling he was sent here to protect someone.”
Brayden lent into
his husband’s body as he took in what was said. He knew he was going to spend
more time talking to this particular healers because he wanted to know more
about his parents. He wanted to see if his memories match up with those of his
uncle.
“What is your name,
healer?”
The healer smiled. “I’m
simply known around here as Healer Loman.”
