The Usurper's Throne

54

**Six Years later**

I swallowed nervously as the nurse moved the wand over my stomach. "What do you think? Will the new alpha let me take a few months off for maternity?"

Elijah shook his head seriously, looking at the screen. "I don't know. I've heard he is a horrible stickler."

I frowned.

"But, I know he has a soft spot for chocolate chip cookies. So, if you bake him some, he might relent." His smirk betrayed his intent.

"Babe," I said, laughing. "You're really going to make your heavily pregnant wife bake cookies for you? You should be making me cookies."

Elijah erupted in laughter. I joined him, and the nurse smiled politely waiting for my belly to stop moving so she could continue. Elijah brough my hand to his mouth and kissed it. I watched him and my heart filled with inexpressible love.

"Fine, the alpha will make you cookies," he conceded. "No promises about how edible they will be."

I laughed again. "Edible is part of the deal," I argued, then realized, "I don't actually want cookies."

He erupted into laughter again. I stared at my husband in front of me. He was weathered. Time and stress had worn him down, and he looked older than his twenty-eight years. But time had made him stronger, surer. He could rule the darkness and still stand strong in the light.

He laughed again. "I can't understand you, Nao. Your first pregnancy all you craved were peanut butter cookies." I laughed. "I learned, like, ten recipes for you."

"And now I crave worms," I joked.

"Worms?" Elijah asked.

"Yeah. You remember how I said that I hoped I would never crave worms like a..." I faded off, sadness briefly filling my chest. "Never mind."

"A usurper memory?" he asked.

I nodded. "I'm so—"

"Naomi," Elijah interrupted, "you're lucky 'sorry' wasn't Josiah's first word. You have nothing to be sorry about," he reminded me. I nodded. He squeezed my hand. "To clarify? No worms? I could get you some. There's a very nice fishing place down the road, I could stop by pick some up?"

I laughed again. "No worms. Maybe some sushi."

"You hate sushi!" he exclaimed.

"But the baby loves it. She also loves foot massages for her mom, so you have a tall order in front of you." Elijah chuckled. I didn't take Elijah to be funny. When I met him, he was so rigid and distant. He was far more comfortable in the darkness. He was like a flower that had bloomed.

He would hate hearing himself compared to a flower. I filed that away. I would tell him tonight.

He saw that I had been lost in my thoughts and I found him staring at me. "You okay?" he asked tenderly.

I nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay. Thinking about how you're like a flower." He frowned. I was right; he hated it.

"The baby looks good," the nurse interrupted. "You can see here..."

++++++++++++++

I sat in a rocking chair that night, watching my Josiah play around with Josie. The backyard overlooked the yard and our lake in the distance. Only a few neighbors were close enough to see us and none close enough to hear us.

"Do you think they'll grow up to be friends?" I asked. Berry glanced over at me from her rocking chair and smiled.

"Two year age difference? It's not bad. I think they will. Their fathers are certainly friendly," Berry noted, watching the two of them play with the kids. Elijah picked Josiah up and set him on his shoulders. Josiah spread his hands like he was flying.