Ancient Thought by Viola Grace (literature books to read txt) 📗

the hospital and saw what my husband of four months had done to me, he became my partner in my fight, and we set about rebuilding my life.”

“What happened to your husband?”

“My father helped me force him into bankruptcy, and my ex eventually drank himself to death.” She chuckled. “It was not a particularly fast death.”

“You sound like you enjoyed it.”

“The scared young woman I used to be enjoyed it immensely. The older and wiser woman I am now is just very amused by the fact that he ended his life with women around him who were only there to sedate him and clean him up. He had lost all of his power.”

Yelfon stroked her hair. “So, you are a vengeful goddess. Good to know.”

“I am no goddess; I just know when justice has truly been done. The experience early in my life taught me a few things that no one should learn, and I used that wisdom to ease the journeys of women in a similar situation. In my travels, I saw dozens of, if not over a hundred, societies, and I had to find the working logic in each one. Some were bound by weather, others by custom, and others by tradition. The tradition ones faded faster than other societies.”

He chuckled. “That is the way of things. The Dremarai were beginning to fade when I last checked on them.”

She snickered. “You have not looked recently, have you? They had a population surge twenty-four years ago.”

He paused, his hand on her hair. “They did?”

“Yeah. One of my kind is a healer, and she was assigned to the colony to help with the birth rate, and the survival rate shot up under her occupation. Oh, and she had at least six kids with the head of the colony. So, those kids are becoming adults, and she is very busy with the new arrivals, including her own.”

He was silent, and she turned to him, seeing the tears tracking down his face. “You thought they would be gone in a century or so?”

He nodded, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. He held her with an iron grip, and they remained quiet next to the fire.

“So, one of your kind had a herd of children with one of my kind?”

She chuckled against his neck. “According to the archive, she did. Does. She was found to have latent traces of Dremarai in her, and that made it easy for her to transform.”

“What is she?”

Libby leaned back. “I think she is a white phoenix. Her husband is a dragon.”

“Where did you get that information?”

“The data link at the monastery.”

“Can you show me?”

She sighed and moved off him. “Sure. We can go now.”

He shook his head. “No. Show me.” He cupped her skull with his hand and pressed his forehead to hers.

She focused and brought up the images of Myka and D’hai and all of the children. The images of the birth records climbing, the images and vids of the leading family, including the proud grandfather of the paler blue children.

She felt his memory sorting to him, leaving the Dremarai, and the same features as one of the new blended children was the same face as what appeared to be his child.

“How many children do you have?”

“I had thirty-five children in my lifetime. D’mot was the last of my children that I saw grow to be an adolescent. I left the colony when he was becoming a man. The elders had told me that they thought my power may have burned my other children out. When they ascended to power, they tried to take on my form, and it destroyed them.”

She winced. “Ouch. Why did they reach for that much power?”

He showed her the smug confidence in the children as they sought energy from the burning single moon. Libby stifled her shock. That was Earth’s moon.

They lifted their hands to the moon, and a wave of transformation buckled through. The young woman smiled back at Yelfon, and her eye’s widened in shock as she burst into flames and became a comet streaking away from the gathering.

She felt his loss as two more of the women blasted off in the same manner on different moons. The young men left to find them and never returned.

She inserted something that he didn’t know. She showed him that fourteen female Terrans with Dremarai genes had agreed to join the colony. The colony was growing stronger. Deaths in childbirth were decreasing, and the new colonists were giving the population boost that was needed.

He chuckled. “You are trying to make me feel better.”

“I am. All of those children of yours didn’t die. They weren’t cursed. They ran across the globe, and flew, and settled into different communities. They became part of the genetic makeup of Terra. They are still alive through the bloodlines that scattered over the world and then found their way home to be with the rest of the Dremarai.”

He stroked her cheek. “From bloodthirsty to consoling in two minutes.”

She smiled. “A lady needs her hobbies.”

He kissed her, and he murmured, “Thank you.”

“For the hobbies? It was no trouble.” She blushed.

“For the kindness and understanding. You have seen all the loves of my life, and I have seen yours, but not all women enjoy seeing their lover with someone else.”

“They were then. You loved them and lived with them, and they helped to make you into the man you are now. I am now. I get to reap the fruits of their efforts to tame you.” She chuckled.

He looked shocked, and then, he smiled. “How successful do you think they were?”

She smiled. “Fifty percent, which is how I like you. That half of you that’s wild speaks to something in me.”

To her horror, her stomach snarled, and she covered her mouth as she giggled. “Sorry about that. It was a long day where I had very little appetite. I guess I have relaxed now.”

He ran his hands over her hips and kissed her softly while she felt