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)
“But I’m sure Halun is having so much fun trying to make sure you get pregnant,” Selina teases.
I’m sure I turn some shade of red while Zarah chuckles behind her hand and Selina wiggles her brows. I shake my head as I finally laugh, too.
“He’s having a whole lot of fun, and I am not complaining.”
“You know, Mother,” Selina begins. “There are some older Hallans who I’ve seen with their eye on you.”
“Oh, I’m beyond all that.” Zarah waves her words off. “Besides, don’t all of them have mates, or … do they just wait forever if they never find their mate?”
“There are a few whose mates have passed. They didn’t perform Onata, so they’ve lost their mates, but have chosen to continue on.”
“Onata?” I inquire.
Selina’s eyes get sad, but a small smile comes to her face. “When someone has lost a mate, the one left behind can choose to go through with a ritual where the head Mina gives them a painless death using herbs that grow here, so they can join their mate in their afterlife.”
My mouth hangs open for a few seconds. And everyone is just okay with that? It boggles my mind. “But … what about their families?”
“That’s why some choose to stay, especially, of course, if they have young children. But for others, going on just isn’t an option.”
In an instant, Halun’s face appears in my mind, that smile he only ever gives me upon it. How would it feel to have to face the rest of my life without him? To look at the beauty of Hallalah every day and yet, know that what was best about my existence was gone? Having a mate, and even with that being a very new concept to me, isn’t like any relationship or bond I’ve ever known or experienced. To Halun, the moment he knew I was his mate, I became his everything. And he is slowly becoming the very same to me. If I lost that … Maybe I would be asking myself what use living was after him, too.
As if my thoughts conjure him, Halun comes to the doorway of the garden, his lips curving up on one side with him smiling at me.
“Ready, Zawla?”
His voice makes instant desire rush through me. Well, that and the way he shamelessly licks his lips while his eyes go up and down my body.
It’s the giggles beside me that takes my attention away from him.
“You two are acting like school children.” I chuckle while shaking my head.
Zarah and Selina only make a bunch of kissing noises as I rise from my chair.
“Have fun,” Zarah says.
“Oh, she will,” Halun is quick to state.
“I think you both will,” Selina teases.
“I’m going to blame that on some sort of post baby hormones,” I tell her as Halun wraps his arm around my waist, tucking me close to his body.
I give them all a wave and then Halun is moving us, very urgently, towards the staircase.
“Excited much?” I laugh.
“For so many reasons.”
He nips at my neck and I have to fight to suppress a moan as we pass a servant.
“Everything ready?” I ask.
“Every single thing we’ll need for a weekend with zero distractions or interruptions is already at the house.”
“We haven’t spent nearly enough time there.”
“I believe you mean to say, we have not spent nearly enough time alone.”
“Yes, that, too.”
“I told everyone that unless it is an utter emergency that no one else can handle, then absolutely no one is to show up at our door.”
“I like the sound of that.” I smile over at him as we leave the palace.
Children immediately run up to us, some of the smaller ones climbing Halun like a tree. He pretends to be a growling, stomping monster while we walk through the village. When we reach where the rivers begins to curve, and the children know they’re at the limit of where their parents allow them to go, there’s a chorus of groans as we bid them goodbye.
“When you’re king, will you still let them climb on you?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Well, I’ll probably be an old male by then, so I don’t know if my bones can take it.”
I cut my eyes over at him before laughing. “Oh, please, Halun.”
He grins. “Does that mean you won’t want me when I’m old?”
“You’re stuck with me for life, Halun. Young, old, doesn’t matter, we’re together.”
“Well, we’re still young now, so every second spent in this house,” he says as we approach his one level home, “will be spent using our youthfulness.”
I laugh as he links our hands and pulls me forward. The house is tucked into a grouping of tall trees that act as canopy over it. The first time he brought me here, days after landing, I must have slept for a full day, just enjoying the quiet. And he let me, waiting until I woke up to greet me with fingers stroking across my cheek. Nothing reaches here except the sound of the river as it begins to rush faster now and the animals in the trees.