Lil swept a disdainful grimace around the group. “Tasi I’ll grant you. The rest… you’ve treated him like shit and I’m not about to abandon him to your cruelty.” She put her arm around Bastien’s waist. “He’s mykogur-theren. I’ll personally cut the throat of anyone who hurts him.”
Those words brought a lump to his throat. While they might fight ninety percent of the time themselves, he could always count on his brother and sister to be there when he needed them. It was why he loved his family so much.
They were assholes. But they were loyal assholes.
The commander stepped back and allowed him to enter the room with Lil in tow.
Alura sat in the bed with a tear-streaked face. Her mother was at her side, holding her hand. The moment Alura saw him, she burst into tears.
“Wow, Bas, still charming every woman you meet, I see,” Lil said under her breath.
He grimaced over his shoulder at his sister’s facetious humor. Feeling awkward and unsure, he went to Alura so that he could offer her a hug. “What happened?” he asked her mother.
She didn’t answer.
Instead, the doctor came forward. He glanced to Lil. “This is a private family matter.”
Lil took on her full regal haughty stature as she raked the doctor with a quelling sneer that would have impressed even their mother. “I am family, Doctor, and unless you wish to spend the rest of your career washing out bedpans, you will take an entirely new tone with me and speak to me only when I allow it and end all such sentences with ‘Zyl Latessa.’ Understood?”
He swallowed audibly as he realized what he’d just done. And to whom. “Yes,Zyl Latessa.”
“Very good. Now, answer my theren’s question and remember that he, too, is a crowned member of the royal family.”
“Yes,Zyl Latessa.” Visibly trembling, the doctor turned toward Bastien, then remembered that he wasn’t supposed to have his back to Lil.
Bastien would have been amused if he wasn’t concerned about Alura and irritated at Lil for showing her ass right now. “It’s fine, Doctor. I’m not one for protocol. I’m just worried about my wife.”
“I lost the baby, Bastien.” Alura clutched at him and wailed.
The doctor nodded. “I’m so sorry,Latenn. But she should be able to conceive again.” And with that, he beat a hasty retreat.
Alura continued to wail in his arms.
“Sh, Alura. It’ll be okay.”
“No, it won’t.” Sobs racked her body. “You’ll divorce me now. I know you will. You only married me because of the baby!”
His jaw went slack at her accusation. The same one that was mirrored in her mother’s gaze. And by the smirk on Lil’s face, he could tell that his sister expected him to agree.
But that wasn’t him. And he damn sure wasn’t about to kick her while she was down.
“No… I’m not a cad, Alura. I took a vow to you, before the gods, and I will stand by it.” Those words shocked her mother.
And pissed his sister off to no end.
Alura pulled back with a ragged breath so that she could stare up at him to see if he was lying. “You will?”
He wiped at the tears on her beautiful face and nodded. “Of course. I’m not going to leave you in your hour of need. I’m not a total ass. Just a partial one.”
That only made her cry harder as she clutched at his uniform.
For the first time since Ember had broken up with him, Charlotte looked at him with something other than contempt. If he didn’t know better, he might even think that his mother-in-law finally approved of him again.
Alura trembled and wiped her nose on his shirt. “I love you, Bastien.”
“I know.” He kissed the top of her head, wishing he felt the same for her. Wishing even more that he could bring himself to lie and say the words back to her like she wanted him to. But no matter how hard he tried, they stuck in his craw.
It was a growing wall between them that he barely touched her. Rarely went home. He still hadn’t moved his things from his barracks to the house he’d bought for Alura and the baby. Since he was Gyron Force and they were at war, it was an easy excuse that he was needed for their late-night patrols, and that he was required to stay on base in case they had to scramble for emergency attacks.
