“What do you mean, you influenced my father’s choice?” I heard his voice rumble in his chest beneath my ear. Shit, I’d let my thoughts slip.

I sat up and rolled off him.

“He was about to make a mistake, Henry. The best solution was to let the bears and wolves bring in their mates, if they had them. Your father’s stubbornness was about to create a war!”

“That’s his decision to make, not yours!” Fury poured from him in waves and I watched, shocked, as he stood up and put his clothes back on.

“Where are you going?”

“To ask him if he made that choice or if you really have developed the power to influence people’s decisions. Maybe you only think you did it.” He spat the words out and hurt flooded my chest.

“Henry...”

“No, Willow. This might be worse than blasting the fuck out of the courtyard the first time I brought you here. What happens when he makes another decision you don’t like? Will you force him to change his mind again?” He paused and deflated for a moment. “I know you thought you were doing what was best, but you are not the king. You can’t... fuck... I’ll be back in a little while.”

He brushed his hands through his hair as he left, the anger back again. I pulled the covers around me and tried to blink away my tears. It was a new symptom of my pregnancy this week. I cried at the drop of a hat. I’d put it off at the wedding, but now I was in a flood of tears again. It had to be the pregnancy, I wasn’t normally this weepy.

I’d only done what I thought was best and now Henry was saying it might have been worse than my light. I suppose it was. I’d imposed my own will on a king. I ducked my head down to my knees and bit the skin there to ease the pain inside of me. Okay, maybe it had been a stupid thing to do, but I could sense that the king wasn’t in his right mind and the bears and wolves were on the edge of a revolt. If a little nudge in the right direction could avert that, why shouldn’t I?

Henry was gone for a very long time and I used his bathtub to clean away the ache of the day. I found my stomach was larger than it had been the night before. The pregnancy had started to advance quickly here in this world. I wouldn’t be able to stay here long at this rate. It would be hard to explain a pregnancy that lasted only a few months to others in my world. Of course, time passed quickly in my world, so maybe it would equal out?

It was too confusing, and I decided to wander through the house instead. I found a new addition from my last visit. A piano from my world sat in a corner of one room. I went to it and stroked the keys. Tuned perfectly.

I sat down and trilled out a melody that soon turned into an entire piece. I lost myself in the music the way I used to do. I poured the last few months of craziness into the music, and let out my current resentment towards Henry and his family. The piece turned into something totally new as I played fast and hard, my fingers pounding on the keys hard enough to make the notes reverberate around the room.

Clarity came as I played. Why the hell was Henry going to his father to tell him what I’d done? He knew the man already didn’t trust either Arista or me, this would only make it worse. What did he think he’d accomplish by giving his dad a reason not to? I blushed because, for a change, Godwin would be right not to trust me. I’d made him say those words, I’d made him voice the new plan. He had fought me, but he’d done it anyway.

It might not have been the smartest choice to make, to take the will of a king away and replace it with my own, but if everyone but the king saw the sense in it, why shouldn’t I do what was best for everybody? Fuck them all. Playing with their own lives to please one man was just stupid. I was angry now, and I went to the room to look through my clothes. I think it might just be time to head back to my own world, get some advice from my own people.

I dressed, just as tense now as I was before I’d taken a bath and played the piano. I needed the voices of my mother and my aunt to soothe me. I mentally reached out, but all were busy, Arista with baby Galen, my mom and aunt with some charity work, even Edana, wide-eyed and beautiful Edana who’d witnessed everything in my home that night before without a single question, had left and gone back to her own little world.

I couldn’t talk to Mary, either. She was Henry’s sister and the king’s daughter. She was liable to come in and try to chop my head off with that massive sword I’d seen her wear as to tell me I’d done the right thing by infiltrating her father’s brain. For the first time since Henry and I had first mated I felt... alone.

The word hurt, but it was right. We’d faced problems, we’d faced things that made us angry, that hurt us, that caused us anxiety, but those things had never been about actions we had taken that upset the other. This was our first real fight, I realized. I didn’t like it at all.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t exactly the right thing to do, but I didn’t think it was wrong either. I’d saved them all a lot of grief by doing what I’d done. Surely they would see the sense in that? Laws could be changed, if Godwin had any sense he’d have done that at the first sign of trouble instead of obstinately sticking to old ways and old laws. He’d been on the verge of plunging his world into a civil war, and for what? The sake of tradition? It made no sense. Change the laws, adapt with the times, but never go back in time. That was just repeating a fool’s mistake.

I thought about all I’d heard over the last couple of days. Godwin might be using vampire blood which created a feeling of euphoria and invincibility. Perhaps that was clouding his judgment. He’d been twitchy before I got into his brain, was he already needing another dose? Was it that addictive?

Maybe the vampires were the ones pulling the string and not Godwin, the wolves, or the bears. Maybe this was all some underhanded vampire trick? I’d liked Sabrina, the little I got to know of her, but she was a seductress, even when she wasn’t trying to seduce her prey. I bit my lip and frowned over that thought. Prey? Ew!

Hadn’t she turned Jacob, the youngest Alexander, into a vampire? I’d thought I’d heard a vague mention of Jacob being a vampire now. He had looked paler than the other brothers. Was she part of the plot too? I didn’t know a lot about vampires, they were mythical creatures to me until I’d met Henry. Was she as committed to her mate and to the Alexander’s as they thought?

I tapped my nails against the piano keys. None of it made any sense to me. I wasn’t a stupid woman, but without all of the facts, I couldn’t tease apart the puzzle, either. I waited, I had no way back to my world without a dragon to take me, and I started to fume. I was stranded here, at least until one of them came to take me home. If they took me home.

His father wouldn’t try to imprison me, would he? My blood ran cold, and a shiver ran up my spine. He’d put Malcolm and Arista in a prison, he could do the same thing to me, couldn’t he?

A knock came at the door before I could creep further into conspiracy theory land. Mary came in and looked around. She smiled when she saw me. She didn’t know then.

“Hey, Willow. Where’s Henry?” Mary looked around, didn’t see her brother and came to sit by me on the couch.

“With your father. Listen, Mary, something’s come up, could you run me back to my world?”

“You’re not feeling... I don’t know... twitchy are you?” She looked me over with concern and kind of leaned back away from me.

“No, nothing like that, I just need to get home.” I didn’t want to explain why, I didn’t want to cry. All I wanted was to get back to my own bed where I could sob in peace.

It felt as if my eyeballs were about to bulge out of my head as I sat there and looked at her. I tried so hard not to cry, but it was about to be a battle I lost.

“Sure, honey. Do you need a bag or anything?”

My answer was to run up the stairs and grab the bag I hadn’t even unpacked yet. I ran back down, and we took off from the house. I think she could sense the urgent need I had to get home and wanted to ask more about what was wrong but wisely held her tongue. She dropped me off and stayed long enough to have a mug of tea before she left again. The house was empty now, nobody had stayed once we returned from the honeymoon, and I felt as if a part of me was missing.

Henry wasn’t there, of course it felt like that! Maybe the stupid thing wasn’t the fact that I changed Godwin’s mind, maybe the stupid thing was that I’d run away to hide. The thought of being imprisoned in his dungeon didn’t appeal at all, and I’d taken the opportunity given to me and run like a rabbit that had spotted a hunter. No, it wasn’t stupid to run at all.

The question was what would Henry do about it? What would his father do about it all? I wanted to hide, and for a moment, even considered how I might make my way back to the Amazons. They wouldn’t allow anyone to take me.

Calm down, Willow. Henry won’t allow anything to happen to you. Besides, I’m still in your body. They won’t do anything until my arrival anyway.

I perked up at my baby’s words. You’re right. They’ll wait to do anything until then. I’ll have time to plead my case.

It’s really not that bad. If Godwin had made a sensible choice in the beginning…

Why didn’t you say anything to me before I left, Marya? I felt so alone…

I was in my quiet time, Willow. I grew these things that dangle off the bottom of my legs during that time. Feet, I think you call them.

I laughed at the baby’s description of her feet and then another thought occurred to me.

I can’t have you in a hospital, can I?

No, you’ll have to have a magical midwife of some kind. The fairies have good ones.

I was impressed with how well she knew the world she hadn’t even been born into yet.

We are all old souls, recycled into new lives, Willow. When I’m born, my slate will be wiped clean and I’ll start all over again. Until then, I’ll remain a shell of the person I used to be.

Do you know who you were? I was kind of surprised at Marya’s revelations and the knowledge that she used to be someone else. Did she feel trapped right now?

No, I don’t feel trapped, just eager to have another chance at life. I don’t remember who I was before, I just have knowledge of the magical world, so I must come from there.

Sounds like you must. It would be interesting to know who you were, just to see how your lives change.

Ah, but that would take away the point of getting to have another chance, wouldn’t it? If I knew who I was, if I was born fully cognizant of my past, I’d just wait to either make the same mistakes or try not to make them, and perhaps that in itself would be a mistake, mightn’t it?

Damn, my baby is a philosopher! Wow!

I see your point, I thought. So it’s like the Hindu idea of reincarnation?

They do have the better understanding of it all, yes. The only true Nirvana, though, is when we find our mates. That moment when your souls fuse together and you reach bliss, that’s the only real Nirvana we’ll ever know.

You must have been a shifter to know that. I felt a pang of sadness for my baby, to know about that, their former self must have experienced it. Would she be a shifter in this life?

I don’t know what I’ll be, Willow. I know I’m growing a human body, but could there be a dragon soul within me? I don’t know.

Will that make life hard for you? I remembered the words of the Amazon leader and worried.

It may, but I’ll have your strength and Henry’s to help me through it.

I hope you will. I hope we can guide you through life and make it easier for you.

It will be an odd life. We’ll manage. You know, Henry does love you. He’s loyal to his kind, and his king, but he loves you. It’s not just the mating that fuses you, it’s your love for each other.

You’re right. I know you are. I panicked and ran. I should have waited for him.

Oh no, Godwin may have imprisoned you if you’d stayed, but you took that chance from him.

That’s good then. I still thought it might have been a bad idea to run.

Sometimes the best path is the path of least resistance, Willow. You found it easier to leave the path that could be made harder if you’d stayed. It was a wise choice.

I can hope.

I need to sleep again, mother. I think I might be growing fingers now. There are nubs on my hands.

Oh my God, that’s so cute! I wish I could see you!

Meh, I just look like an alien right now. Wait until I’m born, then you’ll recognize me.

Go to sleep, little one, I think I’ll join you.

I changed into a nightgown, crawled under the covers, closed the shutters with the remote control, and blocked the world out. I needed to rest, to stop my thoughts, if just for a little. Maybe Henry would be here when I woke up. I didn’t know how I’d feel if he wasn’t, but I’d deal with that when we got to it.