CW - some NSFW content in this chapter.
(Five weeks out of Bonna)
ALEX RUBBED DOWN Max with a soft cloth, clearing off most of the sweat from the day's activities. It had been over a week since she'd howled at Naevius, then later disappointed Verus by only knowing how to howl well, and how to warble two bird calls that weren't that good. An old trapper had taught her when she was a child, and she loved being able to do it so always practiced when she could.
Since that night on the Training Ground, Naevius had yet to come and speak to her again. It had been a rather pleasant week in that regard. Max had adjusted quickly the past couple of days when Alex had started wearing armor, as well. He was not, however, as forgiving when she'd mounted up this morning to ride him.
She'd stayed on him the entire day until he'd finally quieted, mostly because he was too tired to keep fighting with her, and it was now past dinner. Tonight, Alex was looking forward to a hot meal, a good wash, and a hard sleep. Marcus was waiting beside the fence as she saw to Max, ensuring that she had an escort back to Verus's tent while the First File took over the Training Ground for the evening's usual activities.
Alex grinned at the thought of the amount of men who now trained nightly. Her gigno would most likely just nod stiff approval that the troops were staying well within fighting trim, then lie awake at night snickering that they followed his daughter's routine and habits. She completely understood that the people here, who only ever saw her gigno in public, knew him as the efficient and heartless bastard he needed to be. It would be a confusing lesson for Ixillius once things got worked out to learn that her gigno was also just a man.
Max hung his head low as she started walking him around the perimeter of the pen to finish cooling off so he wouldn't get chilled. She coddled the big brute as much as he would let her while still wearing the offensive armor, eventually succumbing to chin scratches and loads of praise. When she left him for the night he was happily munching his own rations, after she'd shared most of her leftover biscuit from lunch with him. Alex didn't know what kind of abusive things Mark had done to make Max so full of hate and fear when it came to the armor, but she couldn't pretend to feel even slightly bad about the permanent way that Verus had taken care of the problem.
The last of her audience drifted away from the pen as Alex climbed through the fence to meet up with Marcus and head to Verus's tent. She momentarily wondered if she would ever not have an audience and an escort, then cast off the thought. She'd created the monster, the audience just came to see it and the escort made sure she wasn't caught alone if the audience became a mob. Marcus nodded politely.
"Lady," he greeted her.
He held out his arm and turned in the opposite direction to the way of the tent, and dinner. She cocked a single eyebrow at him.
"Apologies. The First File has ordered a quick stop before retiring for the evening."
Alex sighed heavily, her stomach rumbling, and took the offered arm as she tried to figure out just what Verus had planned for her tonight.
***
Ixillius scrubbed his hand over his face as he continued to wait. The woman in the small tent with him hadn't looked to him at all since he'd arrived, and she'd stayed in the farthest corner available that was away from him. Her actions toward him were making him uncomfortable, but he dare not leave the tent now. Two months ago, he wouldn't have noticed her nervous reaction as any different from any other time he was alone with a woman, and he tried to remember that instead of how his woman always seemed at ease.
When Alex finally stepped into the tent, she just looked tired. Ixillius could hear Marcus moving on to another tent further down the line, one with more interesting prospects for a man with time and money and little interest in gambling. Alex was surprised to see Ixillius there, but after a quick glance at the look on his face, and then around the tent and at the other occupant, an amused grin pulled at her mouth. The midwife looked even more unsettled once she turned and faced the new arrival, if such a thing were possible. Being confronted by Alexandria, who was still unwashed from the day's march, armed and in armor, was enough to have the midwife suddenly lose all color.
"This is the First File's order?" Alex asked, one eyebrow cocked at the midwife.
"Yes, Lady," the midwife bowed as she spoke, falling back on being formally polite as she seemed not to know what else to do. Ixillius would have laughed had he not been so unsettled.
"You have said to Celsus Calix and to her that I have no regular blood?" Alex asked him, pointing at her hips.
She completely missed his mixed look of hope and worry when his own gaze drifted to that level because she was still watching the midwife. He tore his eyes away, staring instead at his hands and swallowing hard.
"He just wishes to be certain," he replied quietly, his mouth feeling dry.
The what-if questions had been tearing him apart this past week. Verus had spoken to him privately the night she'd howled out on the Training Ground, giving voice to the concern that Alex hadn't had a monthly blood in the time she'd been with him. Ixillius had told him then that she had infrequent menstruations, but the thought ate at both the Centurion and First File. The time passed was now five weeks since the 1st had marched out of Bonna, and Verus wanted verification, if possible, that Alex wasn't with child.
Ixillius tried to listen closely to the questions the midwife asked, barely hearing her voice over the thoughts in his mind, registering only that Alex said 'no' to every question. Suddenly, Alex was standing in front of him. Oh gods, he could smell her. She handed him her sword and belt, then asked for his help with the fastenings on her armor. He couldn't stop his hands from shaking, trying to see if maybe the lines of her body were rounder than they should be. Another storm of what-if thinking whirled his thoughts as she pulled the armor off, removed her little bindings from under her tunics, and lay down on the cot across from where he was sitting.
Alex still looked simply amused, confirming his own knowledge that she was not pregnant. He knew she wasn't. But if, what if, she was...
He closed his eyes and prayed.
***
Alex withstood the squishing, poking, prodding, and general personal space invasion without complaint. The midwife was gentler than the majority of doctors she'd seen back in her own time, which said a lot as nearly all of them had been excellent, and the checking seemed more thorough as this woman didn't have the benefit of ultrasounds and x-rays to help figure out what was going on inside Alex's belly.
Alex could have told her easily that there was absolutely nothing going on in her belly aside from a gnawing hunger after a day of very hard riding. She knew Verus would be waiting for an official word, though, so she simply waited as the midwife did her inspections. Alex tried a couple of times to share the joke with Ixillius, but he sat stiffly, eyes turned away and jaw locked throughout what she assumed he must consider some kind of indecency that he was present for. She figured it must be something like the first time she'd fastened his armor, she wasn't going to understand why it was weird for him to be here when she was being checked like this – the father of the children she would have – until later when someone explained it to her.
When the midwife finished and Alex sat up, he didn't move. When the midwife quietly announced her findings and left, his shoulders slumped in... relief? He heaved a sigh and his whole body sagged. He wouldn't even look at her. The realization crept into her thoughts and the amusement she'd been feeling slipped away like sand in her fingers.
Alex tried to stop her reaction, but her legs pulled up seemingly by themselves and she wrapped her arms around them. She'd wanted kids when she was younger, and had been taking all the fertility treatments to be able to with Jeremy. She'd done all the doctor appointments and follow-ups, sitting in clinics with other women who were trying just as hard or finally got that good news... Then that shambled marriage had ended and she'd stopped all the doctors and treatments. Most men she met after the divorce were losers, already married, or just thought she was odd. Then she'd gotten into survivalist training and hadn't really met anyone new since that had held her attention. Until now. And she'd thought, well, no, she knew from her own tomb what her family would be with Ixillius as her husband...
So that's why he was fine with her infertility, she understood it now. She thought of the three coffins in the room beside her tomb that bore her name beside his as their parents – a strange honor as usually only fathers were listed – and buried her forehead into her knees. She'd finally met the man who would give her the children she wanted – really do it, no specialty doctors or hormone prescriptions back in the now – and he didn't actually want any of them.
***
Ixillius could finally move a few moments after the midwife left. He had known Alex wasn't pregnant, he fully expected her to disappear in a wisp of smoke the moment she was, but gods, he'd hoped...
He scrubbed both his hands over his face again, pulling himself together so that he could try to help Alex re-arm for her walk back to Verus. Marcus would be a bit longer with whatever prostitute he'd bought for the time he had, so Ixillius hoped to have time to just... just be here with Alex. He could hear her moving, so she was probably ready to go and just waiting for him. Her fool. Doubly so tonight, he thought, for hoping she would bear his child so quickly. He dropped his hands and braced for the sarcastic and chiding comments she would surely throw out about Verus, and possibly about him, for having her brought here and checked.
All his thoughts ground to a halt when he looked at her. She was curled on herself, turned as far away from him as the small cot allowed, her arms wrapped tightly around her legs and her face buried in her knees. She looked so small and—
"Did she hurt you?" he demanded, falling to his knees beside the cot and gathering her into his arms. He tried to lift her head and she shook off his hands, so he wrapped her tightly to his chest and stroked her hair. "Did she hurt you, Alex?" he asked, softer this time. "I swear, Alexandria, if she hurt you—"
"No," Alex finally answered, her voice sounding as small as she'd looked. She sniffled a few times, lifting her head, and he leaned back enough to see her face. "She did not hurt me. She is gentle and good at her work."
She only held his gaze for a moment and then turned her face away from him. A single tear slipped from the edge of her eye that he wiped away with his thumb, kissing that spot on her cheek. She was acting as though—
A jolt ran through his body. She was acting as though she'd wanted his child.
"Would that be so bad for you if I am to grow your child?" she asked, her voice shaking, barely above a whisper.
His thoughts spun around at her words, trying to grab the meaning... she thought he didn't want children. How could she think that? She tried to pull away from him and he held her tighter. Could she really believe that? That he'd chosen to stay married to her because she likely couldn't have them? How could he even start? Where could he even start?
"Look at me," he said, pulling her body square to his, but she still turned her face away. "Alexandria, look at me," he pleaded, gently turning her gaze back to his. "I want many children, and I want all of them to grow inside you," he affirmed, but the wariness in her eyes stayed. "I would have a hundred children with you. If I knew that all of them would look at me with your eyes I would have a thousand."
"But you were just right now..." her voice trailed off and her brow furrowed. She didn't know the word she wanted to say, so instead asked with something close. "Relaxed and happy?"
"Happy?" he sat back further from her, shocked that she could believe that.
"This is you right now," she said, then sighed and sagged as he had, but appearing relieved. Her voice was small, and she looked away from him again. "You look like happy."
"Not happy, my love," he said, hooking his hands behind her knees and pulling her legs out from her body so she wasn't curled so protectively, careful to turn her sideways so she wasn't pressed fully to him as he leaned close to her. "I wanted so much..." his voice died in his throat. "That was not happiness," he added, then touched her jaw. Her head tilted to rest in his hand, but her eyes still didn't turn up to him, so he dropped to sit on the ground and be in her line of sight. "This thought tore at me all week that you may carry a child for me. I prayed every hour for this to be true, even though I knew... I want only you as a mother for my children."
He dropped his hand to her waist and leaned into her, letting her smell fill his head and resting his ear against her breast so he could listen to her heart as he had the night she'd told him of her father. Her hands slowly stroked his hair.
"Why do you to send me to Verus?" she asked.
His arms tightened on her reflexively at the thought that she would be going again. Soon. He needed to let her go. He needed to stand up and walk out. He turned his head to rest his eyes against her shoulder, blocking out the light from the few lamps as the sounds of the night's work rose up from the surrounding tents.
"Because I love you. Because you're so far above me, I insult you by loving you," he finally answered. "And because your father—"
"Gigno is just a man," she interrupted, her voice gentle.
"No, Alex," he replied, shaking his head and sitting back so he could look her in the eye, needing her to understand. "He is a man who carries death as easily as a washer woman carries water."
Alex turned in his arms and cupped his face in her hands. She wished she could explain that the way he'd just described her gigno, how simply he'd just related how everyone viewed her gigno, was the same thing she saw every day with him. She'd watched both men stride through a crowd, oblivious to – and often confused by – the intimidating effect their strong personalities had on people. Close friends adored them, acquaintances respected them, and strangers typically shied away from them.
It was a protection she'd missed when her gigno had disappeared, and an invisible armor that she'd put on herself after he'd gone. She'd worn it every day before coming to this time, strengthened it when she'd been a prisoner in the village outside Bonna, and then set it aside for the short time with her husband. Then he'd sent her to Verus and she was wearing it all day, every day again. She hadn't noticed the weight until just now, when she took it off.
"He is just a man," she answered gently again, a smile at her lips. "He is married to my mother for eleven years in love. He has no other woman since, Quintus says. So why do you send me to Verus? You love me. You want a child with me. We can have that family, husband."
Ixillius felt his heart pound faster as the echo her saying he could have a family with her destroyed all the other thoughts in his mind. The desire for that family, for that child they both wanted, left him acutely aware that her legs were straddled loosely around him and if he pulled her close—
She was kissing him. Her arms and legs wrapped around him, pressing her body tight against his. Her hips started urging at his stomach in a delicious rhythm that his own body immediately responded to. With the last touch of wisdom clinging to his wits, he broke the kiss.
"Don't, Alex, please," he begged. "I swore—"
"Give me your sex, husband. Plant a child for us," she whispered in his ear, her breath soft.
She wanted his child. Throwing his sworn word to the wind, he yanked their clothes out of the way and claimed her sex for his own.
She'd wanted to mother his child before coming here, still wanted his child to grow inside her. Had told him many times that her father would accept him. Against any better judgment or the tiniest mote of wisdom, he pushed her down onto the cot and pressed his whole body against hers as he stroked deeply, reaping his own pleasure as she arched against him. She fought hard against crying out, biting his tunic as her body peaked for him. What should have been screams escaped her throat as moans, indistinguishable from the whore slaves in the tents to either side. He spilled his seed before he could try to recover any semblance of wisdom, smugly coveting that her body shuddered through another, immediate orgasm in response to his own.
"Bear my child, my beautiful Alexandria," he whispered, his voice thick, holding her steady gaze. "My wife."
"My husband," was all she replied.
It was the loveliest thing he had ever heard. He smiled down at her, then kissed her as thoroughly as he could. She stroked her fingers through his hair, her lips dissolving any thoughts he might have tried to have. Her body under him, her arms and legs wrapped around him, her mouth playing against his lips, and knowing that in a few more minutes all this would be torn away from him again. He lavished nips and little kisses at her throat and ears.
"Give me a child to grow for you," she whispered.
Ixillius kept their bodies locked together, his dick starting to harden again inside her. Her kisses paused at the sensation.
"You see?" he said, nipping at her ear. "You speak of love and I come to you like a dog. But ask me for children?"
He answered his own question with a thrust, making her gasp. Her thighs tightened on his hips and her fingers closed into fists, gripping his tunic tightly.
He buried his shame at wanting her so badly, so blindly that he would sex her like this now, basking in the heat of her body. She wanted his child. He gave her his sex freely, holding her body in place and driving toward his own orgasm as she peaked. As he planted his seed a second time, her body shuddered for him again.
He panted as he tried to recover, her smell and taste filling his mouth and nose. The curves of her body fit his hands perfectly and the sounds of her breathing blocked everything else from his ears. He closed his eyes and prayed hard to the gods to forgive his weakness, to give him strength to be alone again, and seeing in his thoughts the curve of her hip and breast and already feeling his will to stay away from her crumbling against the thought of her asking him to sex her again. To speak of giving him a child. To look at him with understanding, and without fear.
He thought he'd been silent, but must've spoken out loud. Alexandria forgave him.