Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 77692 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77692 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
“Now presented to you by our king and queen, the traditional dance of Hallan mates.”
“Oop,” Selina mutters beside me, taking one step backwards at the same time as several eyes, and my mate’s, turn on me. “That’s you.”
Yep.
Sure is.
Fate is finally put to the floor where she rushes to her father who makes his way towards Selina while Halun stays in the middle of the floor and opens a hand to me. The number of times he’s practiced this dance with me can’t be counted, but the butterflies still beat in my stomach with every step I take that brings me closer to him.
A new melody begins as the swell of the crowd moves further back in the hall to give us even more room, and all I can hear are the beats of my heart and our footsteps on the stone floor when our fingers finally meet and the dance begins.
It starts with a circle, and we barely touch. Just our fingertips pressed together as we turn one way twice, and go back the other. Every time our circle is complete, we break apart to walk back a step, and then the two of us come back together. Hands touching this time, the circle begins again, and when we break apart, the steps we take are further and further out. But no matter how far away from him the dance takes me, we come back together again, touching more and more until our bodies meld together, our noses touch, and our circle is one single spot on the floor.
Leaving it open for any other mated pair to now join.
“Well done,” my mate praises me after a bruising kiss that leaves me breathless.
I’m not even sure how many pairs have joined us, or if they even did, and I barely hear the music under the weight of Halun’s gaze on me. He makes the rest of the world around us disappear for a moment, and I love him for it.
“The last time we did that dance, it ended with us naked on the floor, Halun, as it often did when we practiced, so forgive me for being nervous about how this time would go,” I joke with him as he spins me wide with an arm tight around my back so he can dip me low.
Above, the banners with black crescents hang from one end of the hall to the other. A last-minute decoration I wasn’t sure would happen because the merchant had not been able to find a deep enough black. He ended up coming through, but I had the great pleasure of watching Halun show off his climbing skills for me as he hung each and every banner one moon before the ball was to begin.
He made love to me, then, too. Under the banners, on the floor of this very hall.
Our dance finally comes to a stop, but only so Halun can pull me close again until our noses meet. His lips seek mine, and I’m lost again the moment his tongue tangles with mine. He doesn’t pull away until a wolf-whistle and a rumble about lovers keeping it appropriate for the children cuts through the Hallans and humans when his hands starts to fist into the skirt of my purple gown.
Halun pulls back with a husky laugh.
“That’s what they’ll call you, Halun,” I tell him as he grins at me.
“What, my mate? What will they call me?”
The fact that he doesn’t know amazes me, but I’m happy to be the one to tell him.
“The Lover,” I say. “They’ll call you King Halun, The Lover.”
SIXTEEN
“If you ever come near me again, I will shove every one of your teeth down your throat,” I growl out in a voice that doesn’t even sound like my own.
“Uh …” That’s all my mate has to say. I turn my head, forehead slick with sweat, and eyelids feeling too heavy, to look at him. To glare at him.
Halun’s grandmother chuckles. “You wouldn’t believe the things that come out of a female's mouth during labor. She doesn’t mean it.”
I give a scoff that comes out sounding as exhausted as me. “Oh, I mean it. You kiss me, touch me, or do anything that could get me pregnant and end up in this pain again, and I will hurt you, Halun. Badly.”
“I’m sorry you’re in pain, Zawla,” Halun says as he puts his forehead to mine.
Damn him for making my anger fade some. I do release a relieved breath, though, even if I know the relief will be very short-lived. The pain will return, not that it ever truly feels like it leaves at this point in my labor. But with his forehead to mine, I get a moment of peace.
“I would take every ounce of pain from you if I could,” he continues. “But it won’t be much longer before our baby is here, in your arms, heart to heart.”