Claimed by the Elven King: Part Two Read Online Free PDF Page B

violently that I almost fell out of my
chair in shock.
    I clamped a hand over my mouth and an arm around my stomach and
scrambled towards the en suite bathroom, whose door I had thankfully
left open. I barely made it in time to drop to my knees in front of the elven
version of a toilet—what amounted to a marble aqueduct of perpetually flowing
water that spanned the entire length of one of the walls in which a person
would squat or hover over to do their business. I then proceeded to spew
everything I had just eaten and then some until my throat was raw and I was
reduced to dry heaves.
    Once I was sure my stomach was finished rebelling, it took every ounce
of the meager strength I had left to keep from falling face-first into the
water stream and pull away to lean my back against the cool marble instead.
    I looked over and up to the ledge against an adjacent wall where a
pitcher of water sat. As awful and weak as I felt, it might as well have been
miles away rather than a few feet, but if I didn’t rinse the sour taste of bile
from my mouth soon, I feared I would start to dry heave again.
    Yet, what I really wanted to do was curl up into a miserable ball and
cry because even though there were several different explanations for my sudden
sickness, I knew damned well which one was correct.
    “In contrast, humans are exceedingly fertile.”
    Sethian’s words echoed through my mind almost mockingly as I wrapped my
arms around myself in an effort to control my sudden shaking. Sethian would be
ecstatic. My friends would be ecstatic. The entire elven realm would probably be
ecstatic, but the only thing I could feel in that moment of realization was
complete panic.
    Despite all the previous signs that had pointed to the contrary, I was
probably pregnant, and all I could think was, Sethian can’t know!
    My husband was finally coming to see me tonight after being gone and
out of touch for a whole freaking month, and fate had chosen today of
all days to drive me to my knees with morning sickness! Once Rinwen had told me
about Sethian coming, deep down I had figured the timing of his visit corresponding
with the start of my ovulation cycle wasn’t coincidental at all, and once he
found out that I was probably pregnant, would he even have a reason to visit me
except maybe to occasionally check on the progress of the pregnancy?
    I had to stop shaking and wallowing in misery on the floor. Lariel
would be back any minute now with everyone, and there was no way I could let
them find me like this. They would know immediately what was “wrong” with me,
and nothing short of the end of the world would keep them from running
immediately to their king with the glorious news.
    I needed time—time to sort out my feelings about having a child in the
first place, something I had been spending the last few weeks trying not to think about at all, which, given my current predicament, was about the
stupidest thing I had done since our “wedding” night. I needed time to talk
with Sethian and figure out what kind of relationship he wanted with me. Now
that my pregnancy was all but confirmed, things would definitely have to change,
the first being that the elf-king couldn’t just leave me here waiting without a
single word until he either got an itch for sex or I was fertile because there
was no way I was just going to sit in this royal apartment and spit out babies
for him like a damned machine.
    Maybe it was because I hadn’t been in Sethian’s overwhelming presence
for so long or the panic of realizing I could very well be carrying an elven
child within me, but for the first time in a long while, my mind felt clear and
wide awake. For the past month, I had lived my life as if I were moving within
a dream, accepting things as they had come along without thinking too hard
about them, if at all, but now I was determined to never let myself fall into
that deceptive spell ever again.
    If I was going to bring a child into this world, then dammit,