Read Online Daughters of Lyra: Heart of an Emperor by Felicity Heaton - Free Book Online Page B

his hand. “I have seen it...
felt it.”

    “ You have made
me realise it.” He squeezed her hand and sighed. “Although I fear
you will no longer love me.”

    “ It’s foolish,
but when I met you, I longed for you to be the emperor so I could
spend time with you. I hated the emperor.”

    “ Do you still
hate the emperor?” he said with a hopeful look.

    Her frown melted away and
she sighed. A smile curved her beautiful lips.

    “ I’m an idiot,
but I think I love him.”

    Regis smiled, warmed by
her confession and the fact that everything was out in the open
now.

    Almost
everything.

    “ Would you
marry the emperor?”

    “ I don’t think
the emperor should talk about himself in the third person,” she
said and then frowned again. “Your name is Regis though,
yes?”

    He nodded.

    “ And the Count
of Sagres bit?”

    “ Count of
Sagres is the name traditionally given to me as Emperor Varka. It
was a risk to use it, but it is not well documented.”

    Sophia stared at him.
Regis was a count, and also the emperor. The man she had thought
was the emperor wasn’t the emperor at all. She couldn’t believe
this. It was almost as strange and fantastical as the thought that
he couldn’t love. She had wanted Regis to be the emperor, and it
had turned out that he was. Was this the deception her father had
spoken of?

    “ My father
knows, doesn’t he?”

    “ Does he?”
Regis said with a frown.

    “ Down at the
cells he mentioned a deception and that someone had to explain
something. It must be this.”

    “ The cells.”
Regis looked pensive, as though he was having difficulty
remembering being there. “It is not clear. Perhaps he does.
Everything between leaving you here and seeing you there is a
blur.”

    “ The
bloodlust?” Sophia said and he nodded again. She stroked the back
of his hand and then the start of the marks running up his arm.
“You really are the emperor, aren’t you? You’re not going to
suddenly announce that the Count of Aeris is the
emperor?”

    He laughed, although it
sounded strained to her. “No. Van would make a terrible emperor. He
is a better tactician than politician. He is the commander of our
finest fleet.”

    “ And the other
one?”

    “ Sirus?” he
said and lowered his gaze to watch her hand. “He is my first
attendant and bodyguard. Although I do not need one.”

    She could believe that.
Having seen Regis fight, she couldn’t imagine anyone besting him if
he was in control of himself. Her fingers followed the marks up to
his elbow.

    “ Were you going
to tell me?” she said with a frown, hoping his answer would be yes.
She hoped that he had been intending to tell her sooner rather than
later. She hoped that he would have told her before she had found
out from her father.

    “ Were you going
to tell me?” he countered and her frown intensified.

    “ Tell you
what?” she said, unable to think of any secret she had withheld
from him.

    He lowered his hand to her
stomach. Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open.

    “ Varkans are
very sensitive to female times of needing and pregnancies. A Varkan
pregnancy develops quickly. A Varkan’s ability to see the future of
their family develops faster than that.” He smiled and she was
stunned to see the tenderness in it and the affection that filled
his eyes as he stroked her stomach. “There will be two.”

    “ How do you
know?” She placed her hand over his, shocked by how sure he had
sounded.

    “ I have seen
them. A boy and a girl. Playing under the Lyran sun with their
mother.”

    When he smiled at her, she
wondered how he could have ever said that Varkans couldn’t love.
There was so much affection and love in his expression and in his
voice.

    She hesitated and then
smiled. “Do they have red eyes?”

    He nodded.

    “ I think I
might be the first Varkan to ever say this.” He looked nervous for
a moment and cleared his throat. “I love you.”

    Sophia grinned and forgot
that she had been