The Lost Queen

Ch. 20: Wallowing

Rayne stared at the wall across from her bed.

She counted the seconds, then counted the divots in the wall, and watched many suns pass over the shadows that dwelled during nightfall and the early morning. A pillow lay clenched in her grasp, a half-eaten apple and a notebook with scribbled battle plans lay half-heartedly off to the side of her bed on a nightstand. Music, drifting somewhere in the background among the faint laughter and barks coming from the pups outside, attempted to lighten up her melancholy mood, but it unfortunately fell short. Instead, she continued to lie there, stuck between overthinking and thinking of nothing at all.

Rayne watched the warmth of the sun set against the wall again, casting a soft orange glow over the woven circle Jarrah left hanging the last time he stayed in her room. A catcher of bad dreams, he had called it. It looked more like a spiderweb with branches of sinew swapped around a bent, circular piece of willow bark. It was beautiful.

But it failed to steal her most recent nightmares of reality away from her. So, she supposed it stopped working now. Because she was still awake, reliving every nightmare she ever had to live through.

All the deaths, stemming from when Ambrosius was alive, to when he was dead and the queen controlled her assassin, flooded her mind. And suddenly, she wanted to strangle her mate all over again.

Jarrah tried to contact her the day after she got home, but she refused to respond to him. She managed to get Ronan to write a letter after a few more nights of him trying to see her. In the letter, she had Ronan explain that she needed time away from him, and that they would need to figure out how to parent their child in two different kingdoms, because she had no interest in sharing one with him. But, considering she was having their heir, she agreed to still stay over in the kingdom at least once a month until the baby was born. She still had a little one to protect, and a future to pave for them. No matter how angry she was with their father, she wouldn't rob them of a relationship with him.

So, Rayne allowed herself some time to wallow in self-pity. And her parents, much to her relief, took over the preparations for a possible war while she gathered herself. It was selfish of her, but she needed time. At least a week's worth if she could get it.

A gentle knock rapped at her door. Rayne tugged her pillow a little tighter to her chest and sniffed the air. Ronan.

He didn't wait for her to address him, as he opened the door and slid inside. One glance at his silhouette, and she could see he had a plate of hot food ready in his hands.

"Wow, Amira was right. You still do look like shit," Ronan chuckled, breaking the enveloping silence Rayne enveloped herself in.

She threw him a dirty look. "Thanks," she mumbled dryly.

He offered her one of his signature, beautiful smiles full of annoying cheekiness as he sat beside her on the bed. "Someone had to tell you," he said, shrugging his shoulders. Then took on a more serious face as he brushed his hair from his eyes. "How are you holding up today?"

Rayne grimaced half-heartedly. "I don't know," she answered truthfully. Then she looked down at his plate of food. "But definitely not hungry."

"Well, it's a good thing it isn't for you. It's for the baby."

She thinned her lips and took the plate from his hands. On it was one of her father's famous NDN tacos that he knew she adored, along with a cut up bowl of fruit and vegetables. What could she say, the old man knew just what to do when she was feeling down.

She took a hearty bite of the warm food and sighed with content at the way it settled in her grumbling belly where her pup inhaled all the nutrients it could.