Chapter 03.

POV; Lenora Aveyard.

I was glad everyone out back was having fun, almost all of the women with a glass of champagne in their hand and the men with a bottle of beer. There was music playing, simple music from the strings of an instrument with no lyrics other than the conversations and laughter of those out there in the cooling air. I hadn’t yet drunk myself and I’d resist. It was no secret to my husband or Marius for that matter, why I wasn’t consuming anything other than water mixed with enough blood to turn the waters colour. I was preparing myself for my upcoming pregnancy. I was taking no risks of having my body fail to hold a child, even if it wouldn’t belong to my Amadeo.
“It arrived this morning from Geneva.” Marius told my husband and me when I joined them and joined in on whatever conversation they’d been having. “As soon as it’s unloaded from the boxes it’ll be ready to use.”
Meaning it would be ready for me to consume every day for the length of the pregnancy, starting the morning of the day that I’d sleep with Marius and let him fill me with his child. That was the deal we’d made on the plane coming back from England when I was drowning in my self-destruction. Starting life as an immortal hadn’t been too welcoming for me; I failed in my control, I didn’t understand how to live this way when there were still so many things in my human life I had yet to do. I suffered with depression as a human and sadly in my immortal life this too carried over. I handled it well, the depression, though my constant mood swings had taken its toll on my marriage and not even a month in I’d asked for a divorce before going home to England with Marius hot on my tail. As much as I hadn’t liked him, he’d helped me in ways that have turned my life around. He straightened out my thoughts and didn’t allow my own thoughts and ideas to be the only outcome. He refused to let me wallow and with his constant pushing he drove out the bad from my head. It hadn’t been long after him talking to me, pushing out the bad from my mind and thoughts that he was touching me, kissing me, caressing me and all along I did the same to him, thousands of miles in the air without any other care in the world. He pushed out negativity from my body, physically, emotionally, internally. He opened my eyes to see the only man I wanted was my husband. He offered me a chance to be a mother again, as long as I gave him his own child first.
“Well, isn’t that a nice way to tell me you’ll be expecting my wife.” Amadeo spoke back, with a small amount of humour in his tone, though he wasn’t exactly laughing or smiling the way Marius did, or the way that my lips curled. Amadeo hadn’t known Marius and I slept together and it had been more than once. He knew of one time, not too long ago in our past when the three of shared Marius’ chambers together for the night. It was safe to say I hadn’t left the following morning.
“Amadeo, you know you are more than welcome to join us...”
“Although it would be such a waste of time given that I’m not like you, Marius…” My husband’s hazel eyes narrowed, his lips finally curling at the corners for him to smirk, rather than smile. “I don’t enjoy using the back entrances.”
  The two men, as if in perfect synchronisation, lifted their bottles of beer in their hands and took a sip, their eyes never leaving one another as my own eyes scanned between them both. If I hadn’t been devoted to Amadeo from the very beginning, I would have envisioned myself with Marius. He was a big man in height and with muscle, rough looking rather than beautiful with hair that hung past his shoulders and covered the lower half of his face. His eyes, like mine were blue though his a shade darker. His hair, like mine was dark thought lightened towards the ends. And his skin too was like mine, more olive than pale. His mind was a serious work of art, but if you were able to look deep enough it truly showed his age. Marius knew everything about everything I’d ever asked him about, from things so new and present to things that I’d never really heard of because of them being way before my time. He was brilliant in all ways and the fact he’d made a tonic for an immortal to drink daily to give them the chance of a normal pregnancy and to birth their own children that proved it enough.
“The sooner Lenora bares my child Amadeo, the sooner you get to extend your own family.” Marius almost chuckled after taking his sip, his eyes dropping from Amadeo’s face down to mine, blue eyes meeting blue, his left eye closing quickly to wink at me. He’d told me himself he’d never deny Amadeo anything; he’d made him in such a dark time and given him a life to be proud of, a life to live for himself rather than for his father and his family. He knew as well as I did that my husband deserved the world. And there’d be no one who’d get in our way to stop him getting all he deserved.
The silence that followed was my cue to speak. I knew most silences following Amadeo weren’t a good sign. “My love, Boe wanted to see us. She saw me as she arrived, but I told her to see Finnick first.”
He nodded. “Then let’s talk to Boe. Leave Marius here with those thoughts in his head.”
  Amadeo gave Marius another look before he turned his back with me on his arm. It wasn’t a bad look, not at all, but more of a look that two men would give each other when they knew they were sharing the same woman for a good cause in the long run. Was there a man out there who didn’t often dream of threesomes with any strings attached? “You’re not letting Marius get to you, Amadeo, are you?” Still, he was silent after I asked. “It was part of the deal that I promised, to give him a child first, to make sure his tonic works with my body…”
He stopped us as soon as we were inside, both his hands coming up to my jaw, his thumbs stroking back and forth gently against my cheek bones. “There is no reason the tonic will not work on you, Lenora. And I understand exactly why Marius would want a child with you and no one else at this time.” He leant in, kissing my forehead in a prolonged peck. “Still, it does not make it any easier to imagine you carrying his child, to imagine you in his arms for a night and not mine.”
I did what I knew to do without saying anything. Lifting my hands to wrap around both his wrists as his stayed against my jaw, I tilted my head back enough to capture his lips. And I kissed him softly, slowly. And I told him not to worry. I was his, all his, for however long he’d want me.

 

My husband had sat me on a stool by the breakfast bar in our new kitchen, carrying me from the moment he’d felt my lips find his until the moment he sat me, thankfully not having to stop to breathe like humans. He didn’t sit at my side, more like leant against the stool, one of his arms always around my waist, his fingers sitting perfectly against my opposite hip. And just as I crossed my legs and ran my hands down my own stomach to brush out any creases in the dress from sitting, our daughter padded into the kitchen against the tiled floor. I watched my husband smile as he looked over his shoulder to her; Boe was his pride and joy, I’m sure the world knew that from the way he looked at her. I slid my eyes aside from him after having my spilt second to see Amadeo’s reaction first. And in behind our little girl strolled the Krayt boy that neither myself nor my husband were the biggest fan of. Boe had said on arrival that she wanted to speak with us, the two of them, herself and the Krayt. They’d come along to the Plantation together … This didn’t have a good ending. I could sense it in my stomach.
  “You intend to have our daughters hand in marriage?” Amadeo asked sounding as if he were simply repeating Leenan’s words to us only a short second before. The question had indeed come as a shock, maybe more so of a shock to my husband than it had to me. I’d spoken with Boe in the past about her relationship with the Krayt boy. She was young when they’d started ‘dating’. She was sick and in her reckless way to regain her health she’d asked the Krayt to take her away from home. And he did, flying our daughter to the tropical islands without a single say so as to where they were. It broke my heart to have my daughter missing when she was so sick and to this day, even after having her returned safe and well, I knew my husband did and always would blame Leenan Krayt.
“You are aware she is the mother of Soren’s child, are you not? Isn’t he your best friend?” He paused briefly, his hand no longer at my side. “They haven’t been broken up an exact seven days and you think it’s prudent to ask for her hand in marriage? …The audacity! Especially after what you’ve done…” My husband’s hands curled into fists, his left fisting over the top of his right, both lifting to press against his closed lips. I dropped my eyes from our daughter, from Leenan, down to my own hands in my lap.
“Amadeo, I don’t intend on hurting anyone. I love your daughter, I always have.” He sounded as calm and collected as the Krayt’s always did, though maybe as if he were pleading a little with a furious man. “I want nothing but the best.”
“The best?!” Amadeo’s voice was louder. T was the first and easiest way for the three of us to know he was in fact furious. He rarely raised his voice for anything. It took allot to have that look flash into my husband’s eyes. “Taking her away when she was ill, snatching her from another man’s hand, breaking a family that had only just begun, is that what is best for my daughter?!” Amadeo scoffed, his head shaking.
“Amadeo, please.” I begged, lifting my right hand from my lap to take hold of one of his wrists, bringing it back down to the kitchen breakfast counter. “My love, calm yourself.” Neither Boe nor I had said anything from the moment Leenan asked for our daughters hand in marriage. It had simply between father and … Partner? With my brow tugged in and eyes now at the side of my husband’s face, I slid them forward to Boe who sat as I was, with a frown on her face but looking just as stern as her father. “Boe, baby?”
Our daughter inhaled through her nose slowly, the base of her neck dipping in with her breath before she parted her lips to speak in front of the man she wanted to marry standing behind her. “May I just remind you that it was me who asked him to go away? To save me from the two of you and the rest of the coven who’d pester and prod and poke?” Her eyes slid between my blue and Amadeo’s hazel. He did me a favour, a favour that I asked for. He did it for me, for my happiness.” She paused again, swallowing now before she in return shook her head. “My family is not broken; you have no right to say that. Finnick will be fine; he has parents who love him. Just because Soren and I aren’t together doesn’t mean we can’t be a good family. He won’t go without anything.”
Boe hadn’t finished when Amadeo’s eyes broke from her, looking back to Leenan. He was madder now than he had been those few seconds before. “You greedy, careless, egocentric son of a …”
“You don’t talk to him that way!” Boe’s right hand lifted from her legs under the counter, her index finger pointing directly to her father. In their anger, my husband and my daughter were more alike than they’d realise. Neither would back down when standing for something they believed in, no matter how right or wrong a situation seemed to be. Boe was definitely an Aveyard in her blood. “He does what’s best for me, he always has. Whenever I’ve needed someone, where do you think I went? Who do you think I went running to?”
   It fell silent in the kitchen area, a long silence between the four of us. Boe’s hands were now back in her lap, Leenan’s hands were at her shoulders. I still my hand against Amadeo’s wrist against the breakfast counter, my eyes up watching the side of his face. Boe’s hybrid heart was racing in her chest, everyone outside had dispersed away from the kitchen windows to the far side of the yard, continuing with their drinking and their laughter. Though Marius stayed a little closer than the rest.
“Dad, I love him. I’ve always loved him, the same way you love mom. You got your happiness with her; you found what you were looking for. Don’t I deserve that? And if I find that with Leenan, which I have, shouldn’t I take it with both hands?”
Her hazel eyes slid from her father’s face to find me, frowning and looking more like I did as a child. She knew just how much her father disliked her choice of partner. “He’s really not the bad guy that you think he is. For my sake, please, just give him a chance that he deserves.” She fell silent again and just when I thought Amadeo would pipe up with something else to argue, he remained perfectly silent, perfectly still. And in the silence, I watched our daughter stiffen her shoulders and hold up her head. “We’ll marry either way, with your blessing, your approval or not. It would just be so much memorable if you’d accept it and you’d be with us to celebrate.”
“Amadeo, please. We mean no harm, I mean no harm. My intentions are and always have been Boe’s happiness.”
My heart filled with instant regret when Leenan spoke out after Boe. I felt it before I saw it; my husband’s hand left mine at the counter, both his hands lifting before slamming down heavily against the marble, heavily enough that although I saw it coming, I jumped in my seat. The sound echoed through our new home, my husband was fully on his feet now and more furious than I’d seen him before with my own eyes and in the past I’d gotten him pretty riled up myself.
“I want you both out. Neither of you will come into my home and speak to me nor my wife in a such a way, do you hear me Boe Marie?”
“Amadeo, please…” The Krayt boy was relentless, I’d give him that. “Lenora?” Still frowning, I moved my eyes to fin the blonde man with his hands on my daughter’s shoulders. "I love her. I swear on my immortal soul no harm or unhappiness shall ever come to her. I don't mean her ill nor do I wish to bring sorrow to your fam..."
"I have no time for more foolish words" Amadeo cut through Leenan. "I don't trust you Krayt. I don't care for any one of you, your sisters, your brother. You're a plague to me; none of you have good heads on your shoulders. There is no surprise your coven were killed. You’ve cast a spell on my daughter and I can't pull her out from it."
I watched like a puppy with her tail between her legs as my daughter frowned at her father’s words, as Leenan’s expression looked more like a deer being caught in the headlights. My husband had said what he had deliberately to hurt Leenan and to attempt to convince Boe she was choosing wrong. I was shocked myself to know he’d go so low, but I knew in my heart if I felt as strongly I would have done the same for her protection. Amadeo’s left arm opened at his side, to which I stood from the stool and stood under, right at his side, my left hand lifting to sit at his chest as if the pose was now natural for us. I had to be at his side in this, though unlike him I’d refuse to cast our daughter away.

Amadeo hadn’t spoken to me for the remainder of the evening while our guests remained their happy selves; minus Boe and Leenan who had left swiftly after Amadeo’s say so.  Boe had warned of her invitation being sent to us, disregarding Amadeo from their day and being sent to myself only. If my husband and my daughter didn’t patch their feud up in time for her wedding day, it was inevitable that this would be the toughest thing I’d ever go through.
  Neither Amadeo or I went back to join the guests, though I had stepped out for a brief moment to let Marius know the basics of what had happened ad to let him know I’d be with my husband for the remainder of the evening. And at my husband’s side I did stay. He retreated to the room we’d decided on being his new study, fitted with a large bookcase and stable desk with his laptop, a sofa and a set of twin arm chairs. I followed closed behind him as silent as a mouse, sitting on one of the armchairs while he took off his dress jacket, laid it over the back of the computer chair tucked in neatly under the desk and reached for the typical bottle of whiskey that was always on a coaster alongside the laptop.
“You were very quiet in there.” He spoke to me without finding my face, his eyes down and focused on pouring the caramel coloured liquid into his glass.
“I had nothing to say.” I simply replied in my honesty.
He scoffed at me. I hated that. “You had nothing to say? Nothing at all to say about our daughter wanting to marry that man, that boy?” He took a drink, the liquid leaving the glass just as quickly as he’d poured it out. “You’re not a woman who has nothing to say, Lenora.” And again, he was pouring out more whiskey.
I sighed to myself, running both my hands gently against my thighs to flatten out the lower half of my dress. “While you were voicing your opinion’s, my love, I came up with my own reasoning’s in my mind as to why Boe would want to marry Leenan so quickly after being without Soren.” He didn’t respond to me. Instead he threw back the second glass of caramel coloured liquid and again, poured out a glass full. My brows tugged in as I watched him. “If you’d like to stop your drinking for a minute and talk to me, Amadeo, I’m sure you’d feel better.”
Lowering his glass from his mouth, he lowered his head from having it tipped back to drink to look directly at me. His eyes had lost their spark, lost the shine to them that I saw daily. “I’m just asking you to listen to me. You’ll understand why I said nothing down there but stuck at your side.”
  My words seemed to work. Amadeo set his bottle of whiskey back down along with his glass and sat on the black leather couch he had in his study, opposite his desk with a rug between the space. When he sat I stood and made my way to his side, perching down on the edge of the leather cushion with both my hands down and forward against his left thigh. I parted my lips to speak but was stopped when he lifted his left hand to my chin, his thumb holding beneath as his index finger curled around the end. “I should not have put you in such a position downstairs. For that I am sorry, my Lenora.”
To that I smiled, closing my eyes as I gave my head the softest of shakes in his light hold. “I came with up with two reasons only.” I said softly before reopening my eyes, his hand coming back down from my face and resting it over my left at his thigh. “One, she may be right in her saying that she loves Leenan in the same way that I love you, that you love me. But if that were true there’d be no real proof. No one sees the way you love me, they don’t see your eyes when you look at me, when I look at you. They don’t feel what I feel when you touch me.” I paused briefly, turning my left hand on his thighs to twine our fingers. “But she’s young, I know that. And I also know she fell so quickly for Soren. She may be looking to Leenan for a rebound, to which in the end they’ll both be hurt.” I paused again as this time my husband pushed out a sigh from his nose. “Or,” And this possibility was something I feared, for Boe’s sake. “Or, Boe may in fact be pregnant.”
That got Amadeo’s attention; his brows rose, eyes widened before his brows sunk back down again. “Why would she marry because of pregnancy? She never even mentioned marrying Soren. There was allot going on, I know that, with what our coven went through, but I’m sure she would have mentioned something.”
“But Soren isn’t a believer of Catholic traditions.” The corners of my lips curled as I said it aloud, as I watched Amadeo’s expression change as the realisation that I could be right set in. “The Krayt’s are catholic. And the right thing for any catholic is to be married before children are welcomed.” His own lips curled the more I spoke, the more I made sense. “If Boe is pregnant with his child, even so soon after having Finnick, the best thing for them both to do for Leenan’s conscience and respect to his family is to be married.”
I waited for Amadeo’s response in silence for what felt like minutes, when in fact I’m sure it were only seconds that had passed before he sat himself forward, took my face in both his hands once more and kissed me. He broke away from me for a counted second, before he kissed me once again. “Lenora, you are a brilliant woman.” And there was more kissing, both my hands reaching up from his thighs to his chest. “And here I’m sure many think I married you solely for your looks.”
I couldn’t help but to giggle against his lips at his words, giving both my eyes a roll as it was me this time that pulled back. “Oh, God forbid those minds who think such a thing.” Lifting my left hand, I ran my fingers through his hair to brush back those strands that had found their way to his face. “If only they knew as you do how wonderful my mind can be.” I pulled my lower lip between my teeth, turning my face from him before rolling my right shoulder. “Of course, my body helps in matters like this.” My grin took over my face, as much as I’d ever try to be cheeky with my husband it would fail miserably with the affect he’d always have on me. Leaning back into him to take his lips with mine, I fell into kissing him so naturally, kissing him as if he were the air that I needed to breathe even in immortality.
  It was the feeling of the back of his fingers caressing down the left side of my neck that gave me my green light, not that I’d ever truly need one to move forward with him. I never had. His fingers turned at my collarbone, smoothing down over my shoulder and taking the thin strap of my dress along with him. It happened so quickly, but it wasn’t in any way that I didn’t like or didn’t want. I knew his mood; I knew his anger hadn’t fully left when we’d retreated from the gathering downstairs to his study. I knew what to do to relax him, to take his mind elsewhere. However, it did seem right now his own mind was fully divulged into his own thoughts.
  He was sat forward on the edge of the couch, knees straight and together and with my stomach laid flat against his thighs. My right arm had bent for my hand to take hold of the edge of the couch, the other stretching down to support myself with my fingertips on the wood floor as my legs hung over the other side. His right hand was firm against the idle of my back as his left wandered smoothly down over the small hump of my a*s and the straight line of the back of my thighs. I felt him stop at the back of my knees, listening to the material of the dress I wore gather in his hold, feeling as the material crept up over my skin to bare myself to him. I listened to the ‘tsk’ leaving my husband’s mouth; though I knew fine well without looking at him he’d be smiling. Honestly, I didn’t even know why I wore panties anymore with him. The bottom of my dress rolled over my back, the bottom folding against my shoulders. His hand that moved my dress ran back down to my a*s, his fingers curling under the lace of my panties until they too gathered in his hold, tightening against my body, causing my lips to pull together and eyes close. I had a feeling I knew where this was going, how this would end. But Amadeo was different. Rather than shredding my panties in his hold to have them fall from my body and leaving me with nothing, he tugged them down, leaving them against the small crease under my backside that joined with my thighs.
“You’re probably lucky you said nothing downstairs, my love.” He spoke in a husky voice that I knew all too well. I knew exactly where we were going with this. My heart jumped. “It would have brought on more spankings.” His hand slid over my bare cheek. “And I’m quite aware of how much your body can take.”
Last time he’d spanked me, we’d got up to the number six. It wasn’t something I’d forget. My behind was raw when he was done and he’d made me count along with him with every hand to cheek connection. I wouldn’t deny it hurt, but I also wouldn’t deny that seeing how it made him, how it made his body come alive and bring a sadistic spark to his eyes, that did its own things to me.
“Shall we go with four?” He asked me, his palm still running up and down against my left cheek. “Dare I start with my own pleasure in mind, after the commotion downstairs that you sat back through?”
Spank!
My body tensed under his hold, his hand instantly stroking over the skin where he’d struck me. “God forbid you saying anything.”
Spank!
“God help you for standing at my side with our daughter.”
Spank!
After the third I let out my discomfort with a single sigh through parted lips, letting my head fall forward, though still I was smiling physically and internally, my legs over the other side of him bending at the knee to lift from touching the floor. The hand he’d had against my back the whole time came down to my hair, his fingers stepping out at each side of my neck to pull my hair together. He could see me but in my position there was no chance I could see him. I felt air leave him in a soft laughing puff.
“The sounds you give me like this make me wonder what goes on inside your mind, Lenora.” A perk of Amadeo giving me immortality? He’d never be able to get inside my head. “And yet while your mouth tells me of your discomfort, your body tells me something completely different.” The hand still stroking over my cheek slipped lower, down between my closed legs and with two fingers he stroked me. “Much different.”