Page 159 of A Reign of Embers
I peer down at him where he’s sprawled by the footboard and nudge his arm with my toes. “You know any children I have will be yours too, no matter how they come into being.”
His eyes soften. He takes my foot in his hands to massage the arch. “Never doubted it. And I’m not going to regret my sacrifice when the gift I got for it ensured you stayed alive.”
Lorenzo dips his head to give my neck a provocative nip. His breath spills hot across my skin alongside his illusionary voice in my head.“Do you think— Do we need to worry about what the court and everyone else will make of it?”
His caress brings a giddy hitch into my voice. “It’s not as if they won’t realize any other children I have must be one ofyours. They can’t imagine ‘Marclinus’ has returned from the grave. I doubtwhichof you it is will matter much to them.”
Marc strokes his fingers across my temple. “As long as you don’t give any indication of removing Coraya as your heir, I can’t imagine anyone raising a fuss about it.” He pauses. “Areyou considering it, then?”
I think of Coraya nestled in my arms on the throne, of watching her frolic with her fathers. The answer wells up inside me. “I think motherhood is something I wouldn’t mind experiencing more of. When the time is right.”
Raul arches an eyebrow. “Then it’ll only be a matter of who gets the next turn.”
Bastien, having already had his, stretches his arms in an unusually languid pose. “Perhaps we should leave this one to the fates. Find out whose seed is stronger.”
I wrinkle my nose at him. “We’re not going to make a competition out of getting me pregnant.”
He grins. “I don’t know. It sounds like a much more enjoyable trial than any other we’ve been through.”
I can’t hold back a guffaw. “All right, I’ll give you that.”
I lean back into Lorenzo’s embrace, tuck one hand around Marc’s wrist and the other by Bastien’s neck, and rest my feet against Raul’s solid chest where he’s continuing his massage. “One more dream to add to the list for after I’m finished seeing my greatest one through. Any other child I have is going to be born into a world we can be proud of.”
“You know,” Raul says in an unusually soft tone, “for the first time, I’m actually looking forward to everything the future could bring.”
A deeper warmth washes over me, full of affection for the men around me and the knowledge of theirs for me—and hope, shining like the signal star Bastien likes to call me.
A smile stretches my lips. “So am I.”
* * *
