Adrasteia (Eternelles: A Prequel, Book 0) (2 page)

Did you know Madame Dionysios gave birth last night, all on her own? Even we didn’t know she was in the family way. Must be the sadness of losing her poor husband so tragically in that hunting accident. She tried to put a brave front out in society—you know the French do not hold to such stringent rules of mourning—but still. The poor dear now has a baby girl.

She wrapped the words and forced the thought onto the sleeping servants. In a few moments, they would wake up to this knowledge. The humans’ propensity to gossip and embroider the truth would take care of the rest, shaping her a “husband” from their imaginations.

And she would have no way of going back....

“Come,” Ares said. In the dark, he drew to his full Greek god size and had no trouble hauling her and her little charge into his arms, then taking the stairs two by two to reach her bedroom suite.

He daintily placed her in her bed. Her first thought was to check on the baby. She had fallen asleep on Adri’s breast, the nipple lying on her half-open lips. Adri gently tugged her away.

“She needs to be cleaned.” She peered at her brother, who had a wide frown on his forehead. “Go wake Marie. Tell her I need her help.”

“She’s the pretty one with the blonde hair?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, she is. The one you’ve been trying to score with every time you come here.”

Once he’d left, she squirmed with the pain wracking her body. Her lower half now felt too warm and sticky. Blood. She could smell its metallic tinge in the air. Her bodice was no longer soaking milk.

Milk! Where had that come from? And she had just breast fed a baby she knew nothing of. A baby that appeared in a burst of flame. Who on Earth could this child belong to?

Reaching for the pendant, she gently tugged it off. Something told her the child would be safe as long as she was with her. Damn, those White Witches’ chants must’ve worked a number on her. How could they be involved? More importantly, why? Why
her
?

She brought the necklace close and frowned. The tie was thick hide, the pendant in tough, almost unbreakable shell. Adri gasped. The material considered sacred by mystical Gypsy tribes of Slavic Europe. Which tribe, though? And was that an etching on the shell? Nothing could dent that substance; Gypsies only managed to cut it in rough pieces using age-old magic.

The carving depicted a bird taking flight. Flames appeared to rise from its wings.

She gasped. A phoenix? Again? She couldn’t deny now that she’d seen the mythical bird when the child had come to her.

She slanted a glance onto the sleeping baby.

The child of a mystical Gypsy and a phoenix? Another aberration, like her—a child that shouldn’t have been born? What the hell had those damn White Witches gotten her involved in?

“
Bon sang, Madame! Vous auriez dû nous dire que vous accouchiez!
”

Marie rushed into the bedroom. She stopped in her tracks at the sight of the immobile baby on the bed. “It is....”

“She is sleeping. I just fed her,” Adri said.

The other woman sighed and did the sign of the cross. “I asked for water to be boiled and linens to be brought up.”

A knock came, and the maid answered, coming back into the bedchamber with a large basin of water and a stack of linens. “Let me clean this little treasure up.”

Pain, of a different kind, lanced through Adri as Marie took the baby away from her. Suddenly, her heart beat so fast all she could hear was the pounding of blood inside her head. She needed her baby....

Adri blinked.
Her
baby? Since when had the infant become hers?

You fed her milk from your breast.

Did that make the baby hers? All she knew was that she yearned for the warm, soft bundle that had been close to her for all the time she had had the child.

Marie, please hurry!

The compulsion would not work, though. Not on a single person. She needed crowds to work her magic. So she could do nothing except bide her time. Another maid came in. Colette, Marie’s daughter. Over by the basin, Marie sang lilting lullabies to the baby.

Had she awoken? Adri tried to peer from her position on the bed, but extreme fatigue kept her flat on her back.

Marie came back to her, nothing in her arms.
Where
...she started to think in panic, until she saw Colette cradling the swaddled baby in her arms.

Give her to me. I need her.

For the first time in her life, Adri wanted to beg, shamelessly show her weakness to another. But she bit her lip. Too much happening too fast. What was going on?

“
Madame Adri
, it is time to take care of you,
d’accord
?”

She nodded without a word, too tired to make sense of anything. Marie clucked and fussed over her as she divested her of her stained garments and bathed her with a sponge and warm water.

“Your bleeding is slowing already. I cannot understand how that is possible, but it is a good thing,” the maid said.

Once she was in a linen shift, Adri forced the words out. “Bring her to me. Please.”

The last request came on a whisper, the soft sound not dulling any note of begging in the plea.

“
La voilà, Madame
.” Marie placed the now clean and sweet-smelling bundle in her arms. “Look, she is searching for her
Maman
.”

The baby had indeed opened her eyes. Her irises gleamed a deep blue grey. Now that her hair no longer lay matted, Adri could see the color tended toward flaming red.

Fitting, for the daughter of a phoenix.

“She has your eyes,” Marie said.

Strange, but true. Adri could be staring at her own gaze when she glimpsed the baby’s.

“How are you going to name her,
Madame
?”

“Séraphine.” The name burned itself into her consciousness without more need of a prompt.
Seraphim
—the burning ones, and most powerful angels.

“A beautiful name. You should rest now, Madame. She needs to sleep, too.”

She turned toward the maid. “Send my brother in, please.”

Marie nodded, and as soon as she left, Ares came back into the room.

He came to sit on the edge of her bed, didn’t say a word.

“I’m keeping her,” Adri said.

“I know.”

She frowned. “How—”

He chuckled. “It’s written all over your face. I see a mother now when I look at you. Not the flighty woman who has been trudging the world for the past centuries.”

Did he now? She was too tired to ponder that revelation.

“Her name is Séraphine.”

“Sera.” He reached out and touched the soft red curls. “It suits her.”

“Ares,” she started. “You’re the only one who knows about her.”

He bent toward her. “And your secret is safe with me. You know you can trust me, right?”

She reached out and squeezed his hand.

He stood and dropped a kiss on her forehead. “Rest. I have no idea what just happened, but everything has changed. I know that. You’ll need all your energy, Adri.”

A strangled moan escaped her throat when he moved toward the door. He couldn’t go, and leave her all alone.

“I can’t do this.”

He stepped back toward the bed and knelt beside her. “You can. I’ve never seen anyone take anything on with as much panache and zest as you do.”

She glanced at the baby, then at him. “I know nothing of parenting, Ares. How will I make it?”

He clasped her hand and brought her knuckles to his lips. “Every first time mother says that. You’ll do fine. And,” he paused. “I’m here. For you. For her. I promise.”

On that blatant note of conviction, some peace settled onto her ragged spirit. From his touch, she could figure out he meant every word, that he’d keep his promise. She could read people, sups and humans alike, with a single touch, and right then, Ares allowed her to see through the depths of his heart. She had nothing to fear.

“Sleep,” her brother said.

Suddenly so tired she could see nothing except a blank before her eyes, she listened to his words and let oblivion close on her.

But before she allowed the darkness to lay siege, she tucked the baby closer to her in the safety of her arms.

****

Adri awoke to a dull heaviness inside her whole body. Her breasts tingled, but not in any pleasurable way. In fact, the more she remained prone, the more the tension in her flesh grew and hurt. What was happening?

Then her eyes flew open.

The baby.
Séraphine!

She reached for her side, but the swaddled lump wasn’t there. Fear pooled inside her, and she sat up with a start, paying scant attention to the pain that cramped every muscle inside her body. Where was her daughter?

Adri’s gaze alighted on the baby in Colette’s arms, in front of the window.

“Colette,” she croaked.

The young maid turned to her with a big smile. “
Regarde, petite fille. Ta maman est réveillée.
”

Ta
maman. Your mother
.... She was really this little girl’s mother?

Colette gently tucked the swathed baby in her arms.

Séraphine opened those big eyes wide and stared at her.

“
Bonjour, toi
,
mon petit coeur
,” Adri cooed to her.

Was that a smile? Did babies so young smile?

“Look,
Madame
. She is smiling at you.” Colette laughed. “I’ll leave you two to get better acquainted, then. If you need anything,
Madame
, just ring the bell.”

Adri nodded as Colette left. She frowned when Séraphine’s little face scrunched. What was wrong? Could the girl be in pain?

The tiny mouth opened to let out a loud wail, and Adri startled. The tension increased in her breasts, and wetness started to seep into her nightgown.

Hungry. The baby must be hungry. She undid the front buttons on her night shirt and brought the crying infant to her bosom. The suckling mouth latched onto her nipple and she cursed softly at the flare of pain this caused.

But a strange feeling of contentment filled her the more she contemplated the nursing baby.

Her baby.

Unbidden, her thoughts returned to the night before, right before she had stepped into the stables and onto the path of what she just knew would totally change her life.

She’d been asking herself if what she’d had was enough. A part of her had been reluctant to admit that life as she’d known it had started to get tedious. Each day a chore to slug through. She was an immortal, though, and couldn’t allow herself to think in those terms. She had eternity in front of her. Same life, same routine. Different people, but humans, never mind the era, remained the same everywhere in the world.

Had she unknowingly asked for a reason to live, a meaning to life, in those moments?

Had White Witches heard her, and thus rushed this baby to her?

And what about this child? Who was she? Where did she come from? Aside from the information the pendant provided, she had no clue.

She didn’t know for how long she remained cradling Séraphine—or Sera, as Ares had pointed out—to her breast. When she snapped out of her daze, the baby had fallen asleep, the sustenance-providing nipple long forgotten.

The tightness in her chest had diminished. Did that mean that whenever she would start leaking milk, it was a sign the time had come to feed her daughter?

A daughter. She had a daughter.

Panic gripped her in a freezing hold, and she glanced around the room for an escape route. What was she getting herself into?

Then her gaze landed on a beautiful, carved wood cot in the corner near the window. Her curiosity piqued, Adri cradled the baby and tried to shuffle off the bed.

Distance. Perspective. She needed all of these.

With a slow, heavy gait, she trudged toward the cot. The linens wrapped around her lower body to stave the blood flow made her uncomfortable, and she detested that warm, wet sensation between her legs. She needed only her breasts to start leaking milk again and she’d be all set.

A bark of laughter escaped her. Adrasteia Dionysios, famed courtesan, regal heiress, daughter of a Greek god, and trained warrior from Mount Olympus, having to battle petty womanhood woes like too much milk and the flow of afterbirth. Who would’ve ever thought?

Thick linens and one of her cashmere throws adorned the cot amid wood buffed to a high shine. Who among the household servants had gone looking for such a piece of furniture from the attic and put it back into use overnight? She’d have to thank him or her.

Her arms refused to obey at first when she tried to lower the baby, but she forced herself to go through with it.