The Alpha and the Omega: Act II | Chapter 7
31 Aug 2018User1355
ACT II - WHEELCHAPTER 7
With a final cry and agonizing push, Sola Morgana’s third child entered the world. It was a girl, with matted dark hair and a shriveled face, tiny fists clenched in protest at the sudden chill after nine comfortable months in her mother’s womb.
The woman collapsed, spent from the ef ort of delivery. Her latest pregnancy had been a difficult one. Though her features retained their youthfulness, Sola wasn’t as young as she once was. The Matriarch was not an overly vain woman, but she was a woman. Motherhood was taking its toll on her body, even with all the cosmetics of the day and age. Her breasts were slack from months of nursing baby Cadfael, and were now tasked with providing nourishment for her newborn daughter. Her hips were wider than they’d been when she carried before, not to bounce back to their previous narrowness without considerable effort. So too would her belly forever be a little thicker, marring her slim, girlish figure- at least in her eyes.
Yet she was still Sola Morgana, and even in the aftermath of childbirth the wheels of her mind turned. She had three children by three warrior mates. They were- in the order of their births- the products of exploitation, love, and expedience. Maximilian had absented himself from the delivery, disinterested as he was in watching his heir enter the world and caring only that she did. He knew that his was the third in line for succession, and barring treachery or tragedy would never inherit significant power. Yet to him such concerns were secondary at best.
The man who was worthy of mating in Sola’s eyes was found to be such for the opposite reasons as Cassian had; where Cassian was bold, Maximilian was cautious. Where Cassian willingly put himself in danger, Maximilian shrewdly played the chessmaster from a place of safety. And where Cassian took Sola in his arms with great throes of passion, Maximilian was content to perform the bare minimum necessary to further their lines. He was a man advancing in years, when the pleasures of the flesh were eclipsed by those of the mind. It had been his lifelong ambition to turn his clan’s scattered holdings into something akin to an empire; marriage to Sola was the key to seeing those ambitions fulfilled. That his was now the Morgana clan and not the Rosach was a small price to pay for lordship over multiple systems.
Maximilian entered the delivery room, priests and doctors parting to make room for the aging Patriarch. In many ways he was the balance between Jyrron and Cassian; he treated Sola with neither gushing affection nor sadistic cruelty, and she was content to make a life with a man whom she neither adored nor despised- yet whose union meant multiplying her assets. He kissed his warrior mate upon her forehead and took his daughter in his arms.
The head priestess of the Crone stepped forward, the sect favored by Sola. With a wizened voice she asked what name for the newborn should be entered for the clan records.
It was with maternal pride that Sola looked upon her daughter and considered, thanking all the gods for a girl this time. The babe was placed back into her arms, the Matriarch of ering a breast to the squirming bundle in her arms. With the greed typical of the newly-born the babe suckled, its belly filling with her mother’s milk. Sola looked up to the priestess, conviction in her tone.
“Auron,” she said. “Auron Maelona Morgana.”
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