Surprise Arrivals

Rideten, Present Time

Aislen smiled as she drifted awake. She could hear the trickle of water from the river through the open window, the call of birds, and the fragile bleating of lambs. She’d been napping a lot recently, she thought as she tried to decide whether to slip back into sleep or wake, and that normally meant one thing. One of her men had slipped one past the keeper again.

Damn it. She’d only just weaned Julius and had been enjoying having her body and time back to herself again. But even as she thought it, she smiled and rubbed her hand over her belly. The more the merrier was the family theme, and her men would be excited about the new addition… If they didn’t already know from her scent.

She opened her eyes and looked up at the stained-glass windows set amongst the rafters of her turret room. It was a new addition to the house, part of the recent renovation to the river house that they’d all agreed was necessary. When the Triquetra had originally designed the renovati