Page 98 of The Beekeeper

My heart began to pummel the inside of my ribs when I didn’t see the queen. A hive without a queen was like a kingdom without a king, volatile, chaotic, and at risk of complete collapse.

“I’m still looking for her,” I told her, scanning through the bees again. Laying the tray on top of the hive, I carefully brushed the sleeping bees apart searching for the queen. The majority of the bees who’d survived the mites had congregated on this level, so there was more to look through, but if there was no queen, if I had to tell Pais that there was no queen and the hive wasn’t going to make it⁠—

“I found her!” I gasped.

“Where?” Her hands clutched my shirt even tighter, fighting to contain her excitement.

“Right here.” I pointed to the young queen who’d been tucked underneath a small pile of her sleeping sisters, and my breath rushed out from my chest in relief. “She’s right here.”

Paisley and I looked up at each other, giant grins breaking out on both our faces.

“She made it.” Paisley jumped up and clapped her hands.

“She did,” I confirmed. “And now, so will the hive.”

She then proceeded to run a victory lap along the hives.

“Careful!” I called, always a little worried she might run over or too close to a bee and get stung. It hadn’t happened yet, but when you were around bees as much as she was, it was a matter of when not if.

Laughing to myself, I placed the trays back in the hive and closed the lid. It wouldn’t be long now before the new queen took her mating flight and began to repopulate the hive.

Heat coiled low in my stomach. Mating. Repopulation. There were so many things that carried new weight now that Blaze and I…well, I guess the phrase I’d use referred to rabbits not bees.

Anytime we were alone over the last two and a half weeks, we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. While Pais was at Wade’s. When she visited Frankie and played with her kids. While she went to Sea Creature Camp that Aurora hosted last week.

In my bed. In the shower. In the kitchen. On the living room floor.

I was so sore, but I couldn’t get enough, especially of the way he looked at me. The things he whispered. Somewhere, logically, I knew it was part of the kink, but illogically, it felt like so much more. Like we both wanted it to be so much more.

Careful, Harper, the cautionary voice in my head warned.

“Harper!” Paisley came sprinting over, pulling me from my distraction.

“What’s up?”

“How did the new queen get made?”

I sat back on my heels and patted the ground next to me. When she sat, I explained, “Well, she was made from a very little baby sister, one who was only a few days old. The other sisters feed her a special kind of food called Royal Jelly, and that gives her what she needs to grow into a queen.”

“So, any bee can become a queen?”

“With the support from her hive, any bee can become a queen.” I tried to turn the information into something valuable rather than just a fascinating fact, but instead of inspiring her, her head dipped and she started to gnaw on her bottom lip.

“Pais…” I reached for her hand. “What’s wrong?”

She stared at me, eyes wide and luminescent, and then blurted out, “Is my dad part of your hive, too?”

“Yes, of course.” The tightness in my chest intensified, worried she’d heard or seen…“What’s going on?”

She shrugged and tried to walk away, but keeping my hold on her hand, I stayed put, so she didn’t get far.

“You can tell me, Pais. It’s okay.”

She sighed and kicked her foot back and forth in the grass a few times while I waited patiently.

“I don’t think my dad is good at being in a hive.”

My brows lifted. I wasn’t expecting that. “Oh? Why do you say that?” I sent up a silent prayer that she wasn’t going to bring up boy bees and their role in the hive.