Judith (Queen's Birds of Prey 3)

“Are you all right?” She couldn’t answer him, so she simply shook her head. “Yes, I think I feel the same way. I didn’t expect—I suppose I should have guessed it would be wonderful to taste of you, but I never thought the world would move for us.”

“I came.” As soon as the words left her mouth, she was mortified by them. But he didn’t tease her or even laugh at her. Instead, he leaned his forehead to hers and held her upright. “I’m not sure what I should be saying to you right now.”

“I don’t either, to be honest. I never thought a kiss could do so much to one’s body. I know I’ve never felt this way with anyone before.” She told him she’d not either. “I don’t want to allow you to walk away from me. I have a feeling, and I have no idea why, but if you walk away from me right now, I’m going to think this was all a dream.”

She pinched him, taking a chunk of the flesh on his arm and twisting it hard. When he asked her what she was doing, she smiled at him.

“I was making sure we were neither one dreaming.” He looked at her with furrowed brows. Jude wondered if he hadn’t thought it was funny. Then, he did the most incredible thing—he threw back his head and laughed. It was just like hearing his mother laughing at some joke decades ago. “Your mother laughed like that. She never cared what people thought of her when she was in good humor. And she was a great deal—in good humor.”

“When she’d come to visit me, Mom would always have a tale about you and the other birds. How Mercy would take her up too high in the sky. How easily you were able to take down a kingdom. She loved you six like her own children, I think.” Jude told him she had loved Dante just as much. “She knew that, as well. Mom, she told me once that without you birds there with her, she would never have survived life. Living to be as old as she did, it wasn’t something that common to women of that era.”

Jude made her way to the gift room. It was actually the living room, but the furniture had all been put in storage, and gifts for the children had been brought in. The large bags, filled with several gifts, had a name on each of them. Jude was glad when Duncan joined her in the room. It didn’t even bother her when he was close to her any longer.

“Before I forget to tell you, I’ve spoken to your neighbor, Mr. Bloom. And before you ask, yes, he’s still alive.” Duncan asked her what he wanted now. “I’m sending a car for him to be here in the morning when the children arrive. I told him we needed someone here to tell the children the Christmas story. I appealed to his sense of duty in making sure it was done correctly. I also know this will be his last holiday. He isn’t long for this world.”

“Does he know?” Jude told him what she’d found out. “So you have the gift of seeing as well. I do, but it is sort of temperamental on what it shows me.”

“Mine is much stronger since I came here.” She turned her back to him as she continued. “I know too that you and I are going to have a child by the next Christmas. It’s not of our body.”

“I don’t have a problem with that if you don’t.” Jude told him she didn’t care so long as he knew she knew nothing of small children. “I know a little. For a while, I was a children’s doctor. I know seeing them as a doctor isn’t the best of circumstances, but I did learn a great deal. What do you think of my grandparents living here?”

The change of subject didn’t bother her—it was the question. Turning to look at him, she wondered why he’d think she would have a problem with them living in his home. When she told him what she thought, he shook his head.

“No, it’s our home. I did this for us. All the improvements were done with you in mind. The perches have been put back the way they were simply for us to use when we fly. This house, that’s all it is—just a house. I want to make it a home with you. It seems silly to say this, but I’ve never lived in my own home before. I’ve lived in other people’s homes, lived with people in a big house. But never have I lived in my own home before.”

Jude thought about what he was saying. She hadn’t either. It had either been a small place where she could store things, a place so people wouldn’t be asking questions about where she lived when she was out. And if it hadn’t been just a place for others to see and know about, she’d lived with the other birds.

“I don’t know much about having a home either. I’ve seen the houses that Mercy and Blaze have. I think their mates have a great deal to do with the touches I can see there now. But as for making myself a nest, a home, I’ve never had the inclination to have one before.” Jude sat down on the floor to finish up the last of the candy canes she’d been putting on each of the smaller packages for the adults coming in the morning. “This is our first Christmas too. I mean, we’ve celebrated them, but nothing like this. I can’t remember the last time I put up a tree or got a card from someone.” She thought of all the times she’d not even realized it was the holidays until it was almost too late.

“I think we’re in the same mind frame on that. You’ve been around for so long, it became just another day to you. Another year you’ve been alive. My grandparents have been doing the day to day for a long time, Grandma told me. Just getting through one day at a time.” Jude asked him about their money situation. “I didn’t know about it. I’m glad you were able to take care of all those outstanding debts. I would have gotten in touch with them before had I thought they were still alive.”

“I can understand why Dante didn’t tell anyone about them. They would have been murdered to bring her to heel. It was like her hiding you away. If they didn’t know about you, you couldn’t be harmed in any way and used against her. They would have too.” Duncan told her he knew that too. “I don’t know why she didn’t tell us about you, however. I’m sure she had her reasons. Maybe she was afraid if someone were to capture us, or worse yet, if she were to fall to another king, we’d have to tell them about you. I wouldn’t have. But back then, we were simply her birds and not anything that could have changed into a human form.”

“In one of her books, she talks about changing you to humans when she was in a place she could live without the help. I don’t think she meant to make it so you could be birds too. But when she spoke of you six, she seemed to have hated what she’d done to you. Making you larger than life. Her own death squad, so to speak.” Duncan sat on the floor with her, tying the ribbon around some of the packages as she was doing with the candy canes. When he stood up suddenly and smacked his hand on his head, she thought for sure something had happened. “The fireplace. I completely forgot to show it to you guys. Can you round up the others for me? Mom showed me something in the fireplace that I had to give to you. I cannot believe I forgot about it. I’ll meet you in the living room with them.”

When he to

ok off toward the back of the house, Jude did what he asked. He said his mother told him about a place in the fireplace we have to look at. Mercy asked if she could bring Miley too. I don’t know why not. I mean, she’s a part of us as much as Joel is. But I don’t know what he’s talking about, just so you know, so I can’t give you a heads up on what might be in the fireplace. I don’t even know if it’s going to be dangerous. Not that I think she’d want to hurt us after all this time.

When the others showed up in the living room, Jude asked to have something brought in to tide them over until dinner. They were eating later tonight, so they could go to bed full and get up early. She had no idea why that made them all sleep better, to have a full belly. But it worked, and she wasn’t going to change it now.

Grandma and Grandpa Beswick came into the room with them. Jude had asked them to be there as well. Tomorrow they were going to get their titles back, and Jude was excited about that. They’d be Lord and Lady Beswick of Honeysuckle Estates, the name of their estate long ago. They’d have their own home if they wanted to move, but she and Duncan hoped they’d live in the castle with them. The two of them were sweet, and she was getting to love everything about them being there.

~*~

Duncan tried to remember which of the stones his mother had told him to push. If he was honest with the others in the room, he was nervous about doing this. Before he could settle on one stone, like it was going to make a difference if it was the wrong one, Joel stopped him.

“Before you do that, I’d like to say something.” Duncan turned and nodded when he stood up. “I’ve only been a part of this family for a short time. I wanted to tell all of you how much I’ve come to love you. I know it’s sappy, but I had to say it. You know, just in case there is some kind of poison in there that’s going to kill us all off.” Mercy told him he was immortal, and he didn’t have to worry about that. “Oh yeah. Well, hell, go ahead and release the Kraken.”

Duncan was still laughing when he pushed the correct stone. Standing back out of the way when the rest of the chimney started to move, he watched the entire thing open up and show an entire room in the back of the thing.

It was a huge opening once the fireplace moved back and out of the way. The room seemed to light its way deep inside before it started to illuminate the area where they were standing. When he looked deeper into the room, he noticed it wasn’t a room at all but a long corridor. There were steps that went both up and down from where they were standing. The stone, which was what it was made of, looked like it was one continuous stone that just naturally conformed to the shape it was now in.

“Now what?” He told Bryson he didn’t know. “Do we go up, or should some of us take different stairs? I mean, it’s sort of a long looking way up or down, don’t you think?”

“Up.” Duncan nodded when Jude told him up was the way to go. “I think if we were meant to go down, it would have told us so. But up…. I have no idea why, but that seems like where we should begin. Don’t you think?”

They couldn’t go up the flight of stairs in pairs because the stairs were narrow but sturdy. As he led the way up, he could see there were torches above his head that lit the areas as they got closer to it. When he was ready to have a seat and rest, he saw the floor leveling out just as he cleared the last few steps.