Read Online Balance Of The Worlds by Calle J. Brookes - Free Book Online

entrance.”
    “You did all of this to bring me to your home? I was already on my way here, you idiot. The babes are inside; do you plan to carry me in as a prisoner? In front of our babes?”
    “That is exactly what is to happen. I wish every servant, every soul in this place to know where I stand. You are not to leave; you are my prisoner until I say otherwise.” He sat her on the ground.
    She looked up at him—Lothonos was a head taller than she and he used that to his advantage. Some of his hold on her body—the magical kind, not the physical, as he’d yet to lower his arms—was loosening. “I still don’t understand why. ”
    “It’s a simple matter of logic. You will be safe here; while I do what must be done.”
    She gawked at him. He was serious, wasn’t he? “And what gives you the right to decree where I am to be? I have an army of witches waiting for me to lead them—”
    “Yet we both know you are not as capable in that as your people expect.”
    That stung. Mostly because of the truth in it. Not many of her Kind had been gathered in Av yet, but they were coming. And they knew that it was to war they were headed. It was the task she had given Whin an hour after she had reunited with her sister. The other woman hadn’t wished to leave her, but Nelciana had insisted.
    “I will not leave my sister to fight this war alone.”
    “She will not be alone. Your former beloved is at her side, no?”
    There was something in his tone when he said it that told her Lothonos was actually feeling something. What that feeling was, she could not figure out.
    But it was there. Why?
    “Let me go, Lothonos. You do not want to do this.”
    “What is it that I do? Protect the mother of my children? My female? Who would think less of me for doing such?”
    Still that infuriating emotionless tone. “ I would. And I am not your female, Lothonos. I have never been—nor will I ever be.”
    “Yet you are the one I have children with. If that is not being my female, then what is?”
    Was he really that clueless? “Have you looked at your cousin and Kennera lately? They breathe for each other. You barely tolerate me—and I do not understand you at all.”
    “Yet we have a family, do we not?”
    “Do we? Somehow I do not feel it so. The babes do not know you, as father or otherwise. Your doing, not mine.”
    “In case you have missed it, war comes. What kind of father would I be if I spent my time coddling my young when I should be out there protecting the world they will one day rule?”
    She felt her eyes widen. There was such passion in his words.
    And the Druid god was the antithesis of passion.
    “What of my choice? I am a creature of my own free will, as are you. Why do you have the right to override that?”
    “None have given me such a right, no. Unless it is the babes. I act in their stead. To keep their mother safe for them. And for me.”
    She fought a snort at that. “You care not for me, Lothonos. I was just a broodmare. Forget not that I was there that day, too. When you made your proposition. And when you fulfilled your side of the bargain. Now I am fulfilling mine.”
    “By leaving our babes with wolves? Somehow I think not. You vowed to see my children raised…”
    “And safe. This is my way of doing that.” His enchantment was waning; she felt movement returning to her feet, her hands. But what did it matter—the only place she wanted to be was inside his manor house.
    Still, she would not make it easy for him. “I will see the babes, then I will be returning to Relaklonos. I have duties there. My stewardess is taking my army there for me to train. I have responsibilities to my Kind.”
    “Responsibilities greater than our family?”
    “ We are not a family. We happen to share children. That is it. Plenty of deities do the same.”
    “Yes, but we are not Greek or Roman or Norse, or any of those other foolish houses. We are Levian and Gaian.”
    “Evalanadean.” Loren had returned to