Free Claimed by the Elven King: Part Four by Cristina Rayne

he said.
    As always, whenever he threw a wrench that big into the conversation, I
had no idea how to reply, leaving me feeling a bit unsettled. It seemed it was
happening more and more often lately, but maybe it was because ever since
someone had tried to push me off the balcony, he had been spending more time just
sitting and talking with me.
    The baby picked that moment to wiggle a bit, giving me the perfect
excuse to turn my attention away from Sethian to him. I couldn’t believe how
well he was already able to focus on my face, as though he was months and not
hours old. When I looked into his eyes, I could practically see the wheels
turning within. It had been a bit disquieting at first, but now I couldn’t get
enough of just looking at him, wondering what he was thinking, if anything.
    I couldn’t resist bending down and kissing him on the forehead. The
moment my lips touched his incredibly soft skin, I felt a tiny surge of an
emotion that made me think of how pleasant it felt to feel the cool wind on my
face while sitting out on the balcony.
    “I think I just felt one of his emotions,” I said in something like
awe. “It made me remember a time when I had felt the same. Is that what it’s
been like for you all this time when you said you could hear his soul?”
    “Yes,” he said, sounding strangely hesitant.
    I immediately looked over to him, but the expression on his face hadn’t
changed. “What is it?” I asked anyway.
    “What we were talking about before, about the reason for Hirion being
born with such incredible abilities, about how such a perfect balance came to
be…”
    I could feel myself stiffen in response to the gravity I heard in his
voice. “Just tell me,” I said firmly.
    Suddenly I felt a wave of foreboding crash through me so powerful that
my entire soul as well as my body shuddered in reaction.
    “W-What did you just do ?” I stuttered.
    “I just accepted the truth,” Sethian said.
    “Huh?” I said intellectually.
    He reached over with his free hand and gently cupped the side of my
face. The expression in his eyes was something that I had only seen once
before, and just as it had that time, the shock of it hit me like a bolt of
lightning to the heart.
    “There was another version of Hirion’s tale that offered a very
different answer as to how the balance had come to be. It was said that his Sidhe father and human mother had bonded as soulmates at the same moment that he was
conceived, something I never thought could happen—” The smile Sethian gave me
was beautiful and simple. “—until it did.”
    I opened my mouth, to say what, I had no idea, but the implications of
Sethian’s declaration left me stunned and unable to utter a sound. Tears welled
up in my eyes as I suddenly understood the emotion I was seeing in his eyes. It
was impossible. Things like this never happened to someone like me. I was
suddenly terrified that this moment wasn’t real, that I had passed out during
the birth and was dreaming this whole conversation.
    Sethian leaned forward and brushed his lips tenderly against mine, soft
and fleeting. A rush of pure affection instantly flooded my being, causing the
tears to begin falling down my cheeks. There was no more doubt. That strong
connection we had seemed to form the second time we had made love still
existed, and judging from the clarity of the emotions I could now sense from
him, it had probably never faded at all.
    He pulled back and rubbed a thumb beneath my eyes, wiping the tears
away. “There is nothing to fear,” he said. “I am truly here. This moment is
real. Just as I never thought I would be able to gaze upon my child like this,
I believed I would never find this kind of love with another and did not allow
myself to see our bond for what it was until our son opened my eyes. Forgive
me.”
    Love… Just hearing him say that one word, the word I had desperately
wanted to hear him say for all these long months made a quiet sob burst