Free Claimed by the Elven King: Part Three by Cristina Rayne Page A

about me?”
    “But he hasn’t been away overly long at all,” Lariel insisted. “Oh, you
poor thing! You should have told us you were still having these fears sooner.
It’s no wonder you have no appetite; you have worried yourself sick!” The
concern in her eyes abruptly melted into sadness. “My earlier misunderstanding
must have been terribly troubling, as well. Forgive me. It was never our
intention to put so much pressure on you concerning a royal heir.”
    If I wasn’t already feeing so ill, then her words would have definitely
made me feel sick to my stomach with guilt. At that moment, I wanted to tell
them I thought I was pregnant so badly. It would have been such a relief, but
in the end I just couldn’t do it. I trusted that Lariel had meant every word of
her promise not to tell Sethian that I had told them about my pregnancy, but
what I couldn’t trust was their ability to lie to their king if he flat-out
asked them.
    Even though I had only lived within the elven realm for about a month,
the information I had absorbed from my many discussions with the three elven
women made me understand that the king’s word really was law in the strictest
sense of the word. I was already acting selfishly as it was; I wasn’t about to
endanger the lives of my only friends for something as petty as easing the
guilt I was feeling. The guilt I should be feeling.
    I needed to keep this secret for as long as possible. The performance had to continue…
    “You haven’t,” I assured them. “This is just me being stupid, I guess.”
    “We just haven’t explained things well enough,” Saeria said firmly. She
reached down and tugged on my arm. “Come. You need fresh air and sunshine. We
cannot let His Majesty see you so pale and distraught.”
    I grimaced. “Yeah, I don’t want him getting mad at any of you because
of something that’s totally my fault.” I considered the state of my stomach, what
standing would do to it, and then added tentatively, “You might need to help me
up. My stomach’s so tied in knots right now that I’m not sure I can do it
without making it worse. The last thing I want to do is puke all over the
floor.”
    Even with both Lariel and Saeria’s help, the moment I stood, my stomach
cramped badly, and I very nearly started to retch again. Only the fact that
both women were supporting the majority of my weight saved me from that
indignity as it allowed me to completely concentrate on controlling the urge to
gag. The smart thing would have been to just have them rush me to the bathroom
and just be done with it now that I had given them a very good reason for being
nauseous, but once my stubbornness kicked in, it was like all my good sense
took a vacation.
    “You need to practice” my mind kept telling me, and like an idiot, I
listened.
    “I’m—okay,” I said after a long pause, opening my eyes to three nearly
identical skeptical expressions. What they must think of the weak human now…
    “Perhaps it would be better for you to just return to bed,” Saeria
said. “I know so little about the intricacies of human illness. It has been
centuries since a human was last brought to the realm, thus the study of them
by our healers has only just resumed in response to His Majesty’s decree that
human women may once again be invited here after an heir is born.”
    Curling up in a warm bed sounded heavenly at the moment, but I knew I
would just fall back asleep. Lariel would probably let me sleep until this
evening, and the last thing I needed to be was groggy and sick when I
was with Sethian.
    I managed a tiny smile. “Talking with all of you over a cup of tea never
fails to calm my nerves. If I go back to bed, I’ll just worry myself sick again
with a bunch of ‘what ifs.’ Besides, I really want to be able to greet my lord
properly in Elvish when I see him tonight, and we all know that my accent is
still awful!”
    Lariel laughed. “I don’t think he will mind it as much as you seem