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T eryn couldn’t stop looking at her, the beautiful woman dozing on his chest, a soft smile on her swollen lips. His body was sated, but his eyes couldn’t get enough of her, nor could his hands. He caressed her dark tresses—tangled now, thanks to their activities—and wound his fingers through her hair, memorizing its sheen, its texture. His other hand brushed the dark tan skin of her forearm that was draped across his chest.

How did he get so lucky?

What did he do to deserve this fierce and gorgeous creature?

He studied the side of her face, her bare shoulder, her slender neck. As his eyes settled on her puncture scar, a protective fire burned inside him. He’d felt it when they’d assessed each other’s scars earlier. While he felt no bitterness at having worn the collar briefly himself—it had helped him take back his body, after all—seeing hers filled him with rage. In her letters, Cora had told him all that had happened in El’Ara. How she’d been forced to endure that collar for nearly an entire day, how an Elvyn named Fanon had hated her beyond reason, going so far as to pit her against a dragon.

His anger at that Elvyn male was so strong, it overshadowed any sympathy he might feel for those who lived in El’Ara. For the fact that their land was dying, smothered by the Blight that was slowly creeping from the Veil. He was almost glad Cora couldn’t fulfill her role as the mother in a prophecy that foretold the fae realm’s salvation, if only to spite that single Elvyn. Though he couldn’t fully relish it. Not when Cora’s inability to birth the prophesied savior had come at such a heartbreaking cost—being cursed by Morkai.

Cora stirred, drawing his mind from his dark thoughts. As she lifted her head from his chest, his stomach sank. He knew what she was going to say before she uttered a word.

A sad smile crept over her mouth. “I should get back to my room.”

“Can’t you stay?” he asked, running a fingertip over her cheek, her chin.

“I wish I could, but what would my ladies think if they found me missing in the morning?”

She was right. As queen, she granted honors to aristocratic families by appointing their daughters and nieces as her royal lady’s maids, or their sisters and wives as ladies-in-waiting. That didn’t mean they were women she could trust. As far as Teryn knew from the letters they’d exchanged, she hadn’t gotten close to any of them. If they discovered any unsavory gossip about Cora, they could spread it through the castle and beyond in a matter of hours.

He hated that royal women were expected to remain chaste while men were not. He hated that their pure and beautiful love could devolve into a scandal, even though their wedding was a mere few days away. Even so, this wasn’t the time to battle such lofty expectations and traditions. Cora’s reign was still new.

Yet he couldn’t bear to let her go so soon.

“Go back in the morning then, before sunrise,” he said.

Her eyes narrowed in consideration. Then suspicion. “I have a feeling we won’t get much sleep if I stay the night.”

He shifted to the side and rolled her onto her back. Her eyes widened with amused surprise. He nipped at her bottom lip. “Whatever could you mean, Your Formidable Majesty?”

“Hmm, I wonder.” She glanced down, arching a brow at the part of him that answered for both of them.

Just when he thought he was sated, his craving for her returned. He angled himself closer to her, let his hand skate up her thigh, her hip, her stomach, until he cupped one of her breasts in his hand. He ran his thumb in a slow circle over her hardened peak, delighting in the way her lashes fluttered shut, the way her lips parted. “What do you say?”

She opened her mouth, either in a gasp or to give her answer, but before he could find out which it was, a rhythmic knock invaded his awareness. It was coming from his sitting room, at his suite’s main door. His bedroom door was closed, stifling the sound. He had every intention of ignoring it, even as it sounded again, more insistent this time.

Cora released a heavy sigh. “You should answer that.”

Teryn groaned, and it wasn’t the pleasurable kind. “Must I?”

She shrugged. “It could be important.”

The knock sounded again, an incessant rumble that told him his caller would not relent.

Cora leaned forward and captured his lips in a too-short kiss. “Don’t worry. I’ll wait until you return before I leave.”

His heart fell. That meant she was leaving after all. He wasn’t ready to say goodnight, but perhaps if he dealt quickly with their interloper, he could go back to convincing her to stay just a little longer.

With another frustrated groan, he dragged himself away from Cora, donned his shirt and trousers with haste, and marched from his bedroom. He closed the door behind him and strode through the sitting room in darkness, the only light coming from the moon’s pale white streaks that shot through the windows. When he reached the door, he flung it open with far more force than necessary.

He opened his mouth, ready to tell his caller to kindly piss off, but held himself back as he saw who was on the other side of his threshold.

Mareleau glowered at him, teeth bared. Without waiting for his permission, she charged inside and closed the door behind her. Crossing her arms, she faced him. “I need to speak with Cora right now.”

His mind stuttered before he conjured a reply. “What makes you think she’s here?”

She gave him a withering look. “It’s five nights before your wedding and you just saw each other for the first time in months. She’s not in her room, which means of course she’s here. Tell her I need?—”

The sound of his bedroom door creeping open silenced her. “Mareleau, what’s?—”

“Seven devils, Cora,” Mareleau said with equal parts relief and frustration. “There you are. I need you.”

“Why?” Cora was dressed in her chemise and robe again, though her tangled hair and crooked sash made it obvious what they’d been doing before.

Mareleau glanced from Teryn to Cora, a wild look in her eyes. Finally, her gaze settled on Cora. “Either I’ve just wet my skirts for the first time in my adult life, or my waters have broken. Gods above.” Her voice broke, rippling with a frantic tremor. “I’m going into godsdamned labor.”

Every inch of bravado Mareleau had ever possessed, all her boasting that she could give birth anywhere and it wouldn’t matter, fled the instant she admitted she was going into labor. Here. Now. She’d been brave when she’d thought the grand event was still weeks away, and her midwives had indulged her, assuring her she’d more likely deliver late than early. But this…no, this couldn’t be happening.

Cora took a step closer. “You’re going into labor? Are you sure?”

“I’m pretty sure the water soaking my skirts says I am.” She couldn’t stop the panicked edge from creeping into her tone, but at least it helped mask her embarrassment. She didn’t want to talk about this in front of her brother-in-law, but it couldn’t be helped. She needed Cora. For what, she wasn’t entirely sure. All she knew was that she couldn’t face her mother or her midwives right now. Her mother would fly into hysteria, which would only heighten Mareleau’s own, while her midwives would confirm her fears. That this was happening. She was giving birth.

Her abdomen tightened, a strange and foreign feeling that was somehow coming from inside her, against her will. She’d experienced lesser contractions for days now, ones deemed normal by her midwives, but the ones she’d begun feeling this evening were anything but mild. They’d begun at dinner and hadn’t stopped.

She closed her eyes, hand to her belly, and waited for the tightening to pass. When it did, there remained a similar constriction in her chest. “I can’t do this.”

“Breathe, Mareleau,” Cora said, her voice soft and calm. She placed her hands on Mareleau’s shoulders. “Tell me slowly. Why are you alone? Where are your ladies?”

“Breah is down the hall.” Despite trying her best to speak slowly like Cora had requested, her words still came out rushed and racked with a tremor. “I asked her to keep watch while I came to find you.”

“Yes, but why did you come find me? Why not your midwives?”

Mareleau opened her mouth to answer that which she hardly understood herself. She’d awoken after a couple fitful hours of sleep and left her room to pace the halls, choosing Breah to accompany her. Waking up to walk in the middle of the night wasn’t unusual for Mareleau, for she often woke due to discomfort and needed to stretch her legs before settling back into her fort of pillows. But tonight, as she’d slowly wandered the corridor outside her suite, waiting for restfulness to settle back in, she’d felt a sudden gush of warm water. She’d frozen in place, her mind whirling. Once she’d been able to form a coherent thought, it had been to find Cora at once.

The reason?

Mareleau shrugged and blurted out the first semi-reasonable thing that came to mind. “I came to you so…so you can stop this.”

Cora pulled her head back. “Stop what? Your labor? How the seven devils do you expect me to do that?”

“I don’t know. Your…magic.”

Cora leveled a look at her that conveyed just how ridiculous Mareleau’s words were. Yet she’d already known that as soon as they’d left her mouth. Mareleau had learned many things about Cora over the last few months of their increasing correspondence, particularly about her past, her abilities, and how they related to what had happened that night in the meadow seven months ago. When she thought rationally, she knew Cora could do nothing about her situation.

So why had she come to Cora?

“I just need a friend, all right?” The tightness in her chest eased a little as she settled on this truth. “I need you to be here for me, that’s all.”

Cora’s expression softened. “I’m here. I’ll stay by your side through what comes next, but you need to tell your midwives you’re going into labor. Your mother and husband too, for that matter.”

Teryn voiced his agreement. “Larylis deserves to know.”

“I can’t tell Larylis,” Mareleau said. “Not yet. You know how he gets when he’s anxious. He’ll start reciting great queens of history who’ve given birth in unusual situations. If I have to hear about Queen Constantina of Rovana in 56 Year of the Stag one more time, I will scream.”

She’d had enough of Queen Constantina, who’d ridden into battle heavily pregnant and gave birth behind a shield wall while arrows rained overhead. Mareleau didn’t need that kind of pressure. She wasn’t nearly as valiant.

Teryn’s jaw shifted back and forth before he released a resigned sigh. “You make a valid point.”

“Your mother then,” Cora said. “It will be impossible to avoid her anyway. Isn’t she staying in your suite with you?”

She was, and Mareleau wouldn’t be surprised if her mother was already frantically looking for her. And yet…

“I can’t handle her right now. If she finds out I’m going into labor here, she’ll only say I told you so .”

“And I won’t?” Cora removed her hands from Mareleau’s shoulders and propped them on her hips. “I told you not to come, Mare. You had to have known this was a possibility.”

She had known, and she’d thought she’d been prepared. She’d imagined several scenarios, walked through each one in excruciating detail, per her husband’s insistence. So long as she’d agreed to work through the myriad of possibilities they might encounter regarding her pregnancy, he’d support her travels. But in every scenario, she’d been calm. She’d had a plan. She’d dealt with every imagined ordeal with grace.

Reality, however, was proving far different. She hadn’t anticipated this all-encompassing shock. This terror. This dreadful feeling that the gods had made a grave mistake in bestowing such a heavy responsibility on her. She wasn’t ready. She’d never be ready. Why did she ever have the nerve to consider herself an adult?

Another contraction stuck her abdomen. She closed her eyes and felt a gentle hand smoothing circles over her back.

“I can’t do this,” Mareleau said, tears leaking from her tightly squeezed eyelids. “I can’t be a mother. I’m going to do a terrible job. I’m going to be awful.”

“No, you won’t,” Cora said. “Don’t you recall what I said to you, after you first told me about your pregnancy? I said you’ll be an okay mother.”

The tightness eased, allowing her to scoff. “An okay mother,” she echoed. “That’s hardly comforting.”

“Well, it should be. Because that’s all you have to be. You don’t need to be perfect. You don’t have to do everything right. Was your mother perfect?”

“Hardly.”

“Exactly. Look how great you turned out.”

Mareleau pried her eyes open but she couldn’t see much through her tears. She coughed on a sob before she managed to say, “You think I’m great?”

“You’re at the very least tolerable.” The teasing in Cora’s voice gave Mareleau a sense of calm to cling to. If Cora was taunting her, refusing to give in to her vanity, things couldn’t be too dire, right?

Mareleau blinked the tears from her eyes and found her friend’s smiling face. She blew out a shaking breath.

Cora rubbed another circle over her back. “Are you ready? Can we go tell your midwives now?”

Ready wasn’t the right word, but she had no other choice. With a shaky nod, she said, “Fine. Let’s show Queen Constantina who can give birth in a worse environment.”

“Aww, you’re insulting my castle again,” Cora said in a simpering tone. “You must be feeling better already.”

Mareleau gave a humorless laugh, then pinned Teryn with a warning look. “Don’t you dare let Larylis in my room until I say so. I don’t care if you have to tie him to a chair.”

Teryn gave a reluctant nod, then Cora steered Mareleau out the door.

And toward the greatest battlefield she’d ever face.