Free The Clever Fox: Part Three (The Pleasure Hound Series) by Ines Johnson Page B

drama.”
    “I have a strike against my face, that evidence remains of your offense.” Alyss turned her check so her Mother could see her fading handiwork. “It may not be a capitol offense for a woman to strike another woman, but would you really want the spectacle of it aired out in the public as you go about corralling triads into your clinic for the insemination trials. A Mother who beats her own daughter handling the conception of their child?”
    Throughout Alyss’ entire speech, her Mother took steps away from her. A tremor went through the older woman’s hand as though she wished she could strike out once more to silence her daughter. But then a howl of pain erupted down the hall. Jian dashed past them toward the call of distress. Alyss followed in his wake.
    They found Chanyn leaning a against a wall. Her body doubled over as she grasped her belly. A puddle of water pooled at her feet.
    “The baby,” Chanyn panted. “She’s coming.”
    Jian reached his wife and placed his arms around her. “Lady Merlyn is already on her way, my love.”
    “There’s no time.” Angyla came before Chanyn.
    Chanyn jerked away. “Don’t touch me. I don’t want you. I don’t want you in my home.”
    “If you want this babe delivered then you need me. You don’t have time to wait. Your water is broken. The babe needs to come out now. I don’t care for you either, niece. But a child’s a child. A female child, anyway.”
    They moved Chanyn to one of the ground floor guest bedrooms. Lady Angyla set to work on the delivery. Alyss proved next to useless as she held sterile towels for her Mother. Angyla insisted the males be put out of doors, that they had no place in a birthing room. Both Khial and Jian refused. They took sentry on either side of their wife, holding her hand, whipping her sweat, whispering words of love and encouragement.
    Though she hadn’t attended a birth before, Alyss knew that laboring was hard. She watched in part horror, part awe, as the child struggled to break free of its Mother’s womb. The baby girl came into the world kicking, screaming, and punching the air. The moment she came to rest in Chanyn’s open arms, the child settled.
    Chanyn, who had been moaning in the agony of child birth, peered down at her daughter. The little girl, whom they named Dayna, had been cast from the safety of the womb with her limbs flailing, hushed in the crock of her Mother’s arms. She opened her golden brown eyes and stared at her Mother. Then a beatific smile broke across the child’s face. After just one moment of knowing her Mother, little Dayna’s eyes filled with trust and love. Chanyn’s smile was one of instant acceptance and adoration.
    “Welcome home,” Chanyn whispered to her daughter.
    Lord Khial and Jian surrounded the girls, the same trust, love and acceptance mirroring their own facades. They made a cocoon around the little girl who babbled nonsense. But they all looked down at her, nodding as though they understood and would support her in any way. They wrapped their arms around one another, binding the four of them together.
    “Come along Alyss.”  
    Alyss jumped at the sound of her own Mother’s voice.
    “It's getting late. We can find our own way out.”
    Alyss looked from the open smiles, tears, and awe on Chanyn and her family’s faces to her Mother’s pinched expression of disapproval. Alyss ran her fingers over the fading marks of her wrists.
    “Yes,” Alyss said. “You’re right. I’ll find my own way.”

Chapter Two

    The Peacekeepers didn’t come that night. No one knocked on the door. The wind didn’t even rattle the windows. All was quiet without and within their home. In the morning, the sun’s rays broke the silence.  
    A beam of light shimmered over the sheets. Adom felt the warmth snap to his toes. The rays tick-tocked their hands up his legs, brushing aside the weariness from carrying Alyss’ limp body out of the storefront, cradling her in his lap as they