"How you doing?"
Layla opened her heavy eyes and looked up Qhuinn's body to his face. Standing next to her side of the bed in his room, he was fully dressed, big and remote, awkward though not unkind.
She knew how he felt. With the intense fire of the needing having passed, those hours of straining
and pounding and clawing were done and dusted, a strange footnote that appeared to be already fading in her memory like a dream. When the two of them had been gripped in the fist of the experience, it had seemed as if nothing would ever be the same, that they would be forever changed and transformed by the volcanic eruptions.
But now. . . the quiet return of normalcy appeared to be just as powerful, wiping the slate clean.
"I think I'm ready to get up," she said.
He had been so good about feeding her from his vein and also bringing her food, and she had stayed on bed rest for at least twenty-fours afterward, as was the tradition up in the Sanctuary after the Primale had lain with a Chosen.
It was time to get moving, however.
"You can stay here, you know. " He went over to his closet and began to arm himself for the night. "Rest some more. Relax. "
No, she had done enough of that.
Pushing herself up on her arms, she waited to feel light-headed, and was relieved when she didn't. If anything, she felt strong.
There was no other way to put it. Her body just felt. . . strong.
Shifting her legs off the side of the mattress, she put her weight on her bare soles and slowly rose up. Qhuinn came instantly to her side, but she didn't need the help.
"I think I'll have a shower," she announced.
And after that? She didn't have a clue what she was going to do.
"I want you to stay here," Qhuinn said as if reading her mind. "You are going to stay here. With me. "
"We don't know if I'm pregnant. "
"All the more reason to take it easy. And if you are, you're going to keep on staying with me. "
"All right. " They were, after all, going to be in this together - assuming there was any "this" to be had.
"I'm going out to fight now, but I have my cell phone with me at all times, and I've left you one on that bedside table. " He held his up and pointed to the one by the alarm clock. "You call or text if you need me, clear?"
His face was dead serious, his eyes focusing on her with an intensity that gave her an idea of how accomplished he probably was in the field: Nothing and nobody was going to get in his way if she called for him.
"I promise. "
He nodded and went for the door. Before he opened the way out, he paused and seemed to be searching for words. "How will we know if you. . . "
"Miscarry? I'll start cramping, and then I will bleed. I saw it happen on the Other Side a number of times. "
"Are you in any danger if you do?"
"Not that I ever saw - not this early. "
"Should you stay on bed rest?"
"After the first twenty-four hours, if it's going to take, it does - whether I am inactive or not at this point, our die is already cast. "
"Let me know?"
"As soon as I do. "