Chapter 190

“I am open to it,” I finally said. “I mean, I really do want to have a family with you. Of course I do. And I only really wanted to put it off before because I was doing school, and now that I’m not…”

Nolan was watching me intently, not blinking. He waited for me to say more.

“Yes,” I said, closing my eyes. “I… I think I could handle it.”

“You don’t sound very sure.”

I blew out a big breath of air. “I suppose I am just scared. I’m still only eighteen, Nolan. That’s young to have a baby.”

He said, his tone meekly half-joking, “Your birthday is coming up soon, though.”

“Okay. Soon I will be only nineteen. I just don’t know if I am ready to be a mother. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to do it… I’m just afraid.”

“I’m a little afraid, too,” he said, surprising me.

“You are?”

“Yes.”

“It seems like it’s something that you really want to do, though.”

Nolan shrugged. “You can really want something and be scared about it at the same time.”

I had to think about this for a few seconds.

“Do you ever feel like that about me?” I asked.

He hesitated. But then he said, his tone still very calm, “Sometimes.”

“Why? I’m not a scary person.”

His mouth moved into a slight frown.

Nolan seemed, then, to be thinking long and hard about how to answer me.

Finally he said, “Yena, I bullied you into marrying me. Sometimes I feel afraid that… you have grown to love me, but only after I trapped you first. Sometimes I fear you will wake up someday and wish you’d gotten out when you had the chance.”

I had not been expecting him to say that. Or anything like it.

“Huh,” I muttered. I wouldn’t have chosen that word, “bullied,” to describe it, but Nolan wasn’t completely wrong. The way our marriage had come together… there were lots of unpleasant moments along that journey. “Nolan, that was a long time and a lot of stuff ago…”

Yes, he had been a real ass the night he told me he wanted to marry me. The very eventful night of the Full Moon Ball, when he publicly claimed me as his Luna and also forced me to shift into my wolf form, for the very first time, in front of a crowd of hostile strangers. And yes, he also belittled me when I had the nerve to tell him I didn’t want to accept his proposal.

Nolan was quiet, looking away. Maybe he was sifting through his own memories of those moments as well.

“Can we maybe just move on from all that?” I asked gently.

I did not see another option besides that. I loved my husband. There was a lot in our past that we could worry about if we wanted to waste the time, but I didn’t see the point. Nolan and I had both changed a lot since we first met. Neither of us were the same as we used to be.

“Of course we can,” he said.

My hands went back to fidgeting with the earring box. “Will you put these on me?”

“Sure.” He took the earrings from me, then slid them into my ears while I kind of bowed, leaning over him on the bed.

“Would you look at that?” he asked quietly, using one finger under my chin to lift it. “They fit you perfectly.”

I groaned and rolled my eyes at the dumb joke. Nolan smirked.

“Now am I allowed to open the other one?” I asked.

He nodded. “Kiss me first.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

Nolan smiled. I kissed him and then pulled my lips away fast before he could spell me into lingering in a long make out session. He brought the box back out from behind his back.

I picked it up and shook it, holding it to my ear as if trying to figure out by sound what might possibly be inside. “Hmm, I wonder what it could be.” I bit my lower lip coyly. “Sounds like… maybe clothes of some sort?”

“Open it already.” He gave me a playful little spank that made me giggle.

Yes, of course it was a lingerie set. A super skimpy one this time. There was hardly any fabric there. Tiny, full-lace bikini cut white panties. And a kind of white lace ribbon thing that I was not totally sure what to do with.

I guess Nolan had been expecting me to have questions about the garment. He calmly and confidently (I found this kind of intimidating and also incredibly sexy) told me how I was supposed to put it on.

I took my time freshening up in the bathroom. My hair was drying, but still damp. I tied it into a side braid to tame it down. And then worked my way into the barely-there snow white lingerie.

I caught my reflection and got a little rush of confidence. This ensemble was about to be fun to play with. I understood the idea was that Nolan would tug on the ribbon part, which came together in a bow in between my breasts, and the whole intricate thing would unravel all at once.

As I turned in front of the mirror admiring myself, I also had a little spark of inspiration. An idea for something else that I could do for Nolan. Something that might put his worries about our marriage to rest.

NOLAN

Yena had hardly any energy left in her for their last round of the night.

It had been a long day. Nolan enjoyed the treat of watching her do a quick strip tease in the white lingerie, then pleased her till she passed out.

He was tired, too. The sharp weather here had sort of beaten them down in the brief moments the prince and princess had had to face it. And they’d been all over each other for the past twenty four hours, too.

They were both lost to heavy sleep when, in the dark of early morning, Nolan’s phone rang.

He was awake and had the phone in his hand in just a couple seconds.

His heart dropped when he saw the caller ID.

It was the nursing home. They very seldom reached out to Nolan, who was Alaster’s only emergency contact. And they’d never done so before six a.m.

He answered the call. The doctor said a few things with a somber, regretful tone, things that gave Nolan to understand that his dearest and oldest friend in the world was now gone from it forever.

“What is it?” Yena asked. She’d been asleep with her head on his chest, one arm wrapped around him. “What happened?”

He found himself unable to respond. But it was not necessary anyway. Yena, blinking awake, took Nolan’s phone from his hand. She looked at the screen and saw the name of the contact he’d just been on the line with.

“Oh, honey,” she said, understanding everything. She reached over Nolan’s body to toss his phone back onto the bedside table, then placed both her hands flat on his chest. “Oh, Nolan. I’m so sorry.”