Chapter 992

A few minutes later, mom sits up, taking me with her and clucking over me as she wipes the tears from my face and pushes my hair back behind my ears. "There's my beautiful Princess," mom murmurs, stroking her hand over my hair and getting me all in order. "So strong and brave!"

“Enemy armies I can face," I say with a sigh and a little laugh. “Pregnancy, a whole new thing."

She laughs at this, patting my cheek and smiling at me again. "As it always is," she says, giving a bit of a shrug. "Your first pregnancy...is always a bit of a terror, even if you're happy about it."noveldrama

"I don't want you to think I'm unhappy," I murmur. Then I look down at myself again, pressing my hands against my stomach, which is as flat now as it ever was. "I don't want them to think I'm unhappy."

"Well luckily they're just little cell bundles right now," mom murmurs with a shrug. "So, they probably can't feel anything yet."

"Is that true?" I ask, my face wrinkling as I look up at her. "At what point in conception does the bond form?"

"Oh, I don't know, I'm not a scientist," mom says, waving a hand at me and dismissing the question. I laugh a little, unable to help it. "We'll ask Cora in a couple of hours."

I sigh, nodding, looking back down, tentatively sending a little pulse of warmth and love down the bonds, wanting desperately for the babies to feel...I don't know. Welcome, I guess.

"You know, it's how I would have wanted it," mom says quietly.

I look up at her again, curious.

"If I had it my way?" she says, arching her brows at me. "I would have had it happen precisely like this. I'd have met your dad when I was twenty-two, and taken a good six months to get to know him and let our relationship develop, and then..." she snaps her fingers, grinning at me. “I'd have wanted to start popping out kids."

I laugh, harder now, starting to feel...I don't know. Abit more cheerful? Certainly less panicked. "Yeah, but you always wanted to be a mom, say, my shoulders slumping a little. "I just started thinking about being a mom like, literally yesterday

"Well, wish granted," she says with a little shrug that makes me laugh.

"I know," I say, twisting my mouth to the side, trying to parse my emotions. "I just...want other things too."

"You can have it all, Ariel," mom says

quietly. I study her, kind of

impressed with the assurance in her voice. Slowly, she nods to me. "Motherhood doesn't have to be limiting, especially when you have the help you have. A dad with lots of money, a mom very willing to spend it A whole extended family to help you with childcare. You can do this - be a mom of three, be a spy, be the sharpshooting Princess our nation needs."

A little smile comes to my lips as tears come to my eyes.

Because.....I have just the best mom. Always so supportive of our dreams, so optimistic.

But then again, I know a little about

her life and her trials. There were moments when she, too, felt

hopeless much worse than I'm feeling now. So she knows, far better than me, how important hope and determination is.

And family.

Family, more than all of it.

Because children, as she always says, are forever a blessing.

I sit a little straighter, studying my mom, proud and pleased to be her daughter.