Adrasteia (Eternelles: A Prequel, Book 0) Read Free

the mythical bird when the child had come to her.
    She slanted a glance onto the sleeping baby.
    The child of a mystical Gypsy and a phoenix? Another aberration, like her—a child that shouldn’t have been born? What the hell had those damn White Witches gotten her involved in?
    “ Bon sang, Madame! Vous auriez dû nous dire que vous accouchiez! ”
    Marie rushed into the bedroom. She stopped in her tracks at the sight of the immobile baby on the bed. “It is....”
    “She is sleeping. I just fed her,” Adri said.
    The other woman sighed and did the sign of the cross. “I asked for water to be boiled and linens to be brought up.”
    A knock came, and the maid answered, coming back into the bedchamber with a large basin of water and a stack of linens. “Let me clean this little treasure up.”
    Pain, of a different kind, lanced through Adri as Marie took the baby away from her. Suddenly, her heart beat so fast all she could hear was the pounding of blood inside her head. She needed her baby....
    Adri blinked. Her baby? Since when had the infant become hers?
    You fed her milk from your breast.
    Did that make the baby hers? All she knew was that she yearned for the warm, soft bundle that had been close to her for all the time she had had the child.
    Marie, please hurry!
    The compulsion would not work, though. Not on a single person. She needed crowds to work her magic. So she could do nothing except bide her time. Another maid came in. Colette, Marie’s daughter. Over by the basin, Marie sang lilting lullabies to the baby.
    Had she awoken? Adri tried to peer from her position on the bed, but extreme fatigue kept her flat on her back.
    Marie came back to her, nothing in her arms. Where ...she started to think in panic, until she saw Colette cradling the swaddled baby in her arms.
    Give her to me. I need her.
    For the first time in her life, Adri wanted to beg, shamelessly show her weakness to another. But she bit her lip. Too much happening too fast. What was going on?
    “ Madame Adri , it is time to take care of you, d’accord ?”
    She nodded without a word, too tired to make sense of anything. Marie clucked and fussed over her as she divested her of her stained garments and bathed her with a sponge and warm water.
    “Your bleeding is slowing already. I cannot understand how that is possible, but it is a good thing,” the maid said.
    Once she was in a linen shift, Adri forced the words out. “Bring her to me. Please.”
    The last request came on a whisper, the soft sound not dulling any note of begging in the plea.
    “ La voilà, Madame .” Marie placed the now clean and sweet-smelling bundle in her arms. “Look, she is searching for her Maman .”
    The baby had indeed opened her eyes. Her irises gleamed a deep blue grey. Now that her hair no longer lay matted, Adri could see the color tended toward flaming red.
    Fitting, for the daughter of a phoenix.
    “She has your eyes,” Marie said.
    Strange, but true. Adri could be staring at her own gaze when she glimpsed the baby’s.
    “How are you going to name her, Madame ?”
    “Séraphine.” The name burned itself into her consciousness without more need of a prompt. Seraphim —the burning ones, and most powerful angels.
    “A beautiful name. You should rest now, Madame. She needs to sleep, too.”
    She turned toward the maid. “Send my brother in, please.”
    Marie nodded, and as soon as she left, Ares came back into the room.
    He came to sit on the edge of her bed, didn’t say a word.
    “I’m keeping her,” Adri said.
    “I know.”
    She frowned. “How—”
    He chuckled. “It’s written all over your face. I see a mother now when I look at you. Not the flighty woman who has been trudging the world for the past centuries.”
    Did he now? She was too tired to ponder that revelation.
    “Her name is Séraphine.”
    “Sera.” He reached out and touched the soft red curls. “It suits her.”
    “Ares,” she started. “You’re the only one who knows