Beauty and His Beast [MxM] (UNEDITED)

Ares POV

Miserable.

If I could some up how I felt in one word, that'd be it.

Physically and emotionally.

It didn't help that Aven was big ball of sunshine either. He was the perfect person anyone could have ever asked for, and yet I couldn't find it in myself to open up to him more than what my duties demanded of me.

He was the perfect husband, always thinking about me before himself even when all I did was look at him when he spoke to me. The perfect king, always ready to see to the needs of his kingdom. He had set out a special time during his day to listen to all the grievances those who came to see him had.

In the month that I had been back, I had seen a side to him that I had never seen before. He had become so much more mature than the young boy I knew, and at times I caught myself looking at him and wondering why I couldn't feel anything towards him as I did before. And in those times he would tell me that it would come within time. That we had spent so long without each other, we had grown to live without each other.

But was that really the case?

"Well Your Majesty. It is splendid news. You are with child." My healer uttered, causing me to stare back at him in shock as he smiled at me.

With child??

I looked at him, not having any words to reply even as my mother grabbed me in a bone crushing hug, crying and telling me how proud she was of me. I nodded and looked at her, my eyes traveling to where Aven had been sitting next to me and holding my hand. A smile spread across his face as he leaned toward me and pressed a kiss against my forehead.

"We're going to be parents." He said as he placed his hand on my stomach and smiled down at it.

I looked down at his hand on my stomach, narrowing my eyes hoping that I would feel something, anything at all at the father of my child placing his hand against my stomach, and yet, even after a month of being back here, with him, I still felt nothing.

"You'll need to get plenty of rest and stay off your feet. Fae pregnancies aren't like normal ones. The little ones tend to grow rapidly during the two months which are also the most dangerous ones." He said, a silence falling the room.

I didn't have to be a genius to understand what he had meant. It had been a curse that plagued our people for centuries. Our babies would just die within the first few months without and logical explanation. A curse that had been broken with my birth, and yet, it was still something that we feared.

"He'a right. You cannot stress at all. You'll have to stay in bed most of the time." Urion uttered earning himself a glare from me.

"I will not be some damsel and stay away locked up. I'm a damn king." I told him and watched as he smirked at me, causing me narrow my eyes at him challenging me.

"And I have no doubt about that. But right now, our child comes first." He said in a soft voice as he leaned down and pressed a kiss to my lips.

"Given the strong power radiating off him, I'd say he is carrying a boy though only time will tell for certain." My healer announced as he went through the different type of herbs I was meant to take in order to reduce the nausea I had begun to feel. A few more to help with the fatigue and dizziness.

I nodded through everything he had said, taking mental notes on what I should avoid, and thankfully sexual activity was one of them. Now that I was pregnant with an heir, there wasn't really a need to engage in anything sexual with Aevn anymore.

Aevn had bid me farewell saying he had to meet with the army troops and that he would be back within a month, not that I minded in the least. Somehow I found it easier to think when I was alone, however something told me that I was not going to be alone for this moment.

"You don't look happy" I heard my mother say as she poured some hot water into a cup and added a few of the herbs, stirring it into a tea form.

"Why would you think that?" I asked I looked down at my fingers and twisted them into the hem of my garment.

"I know what it's like to find out you're with child. For us the Fae, that is most ecstatic feeling. To be able to carry life within us and bring it forth. And yet, you look as though a dark cloud has passed over you." She said in a quiet voice as she held out the tea to me.

I smiled at her and took the cup. Raising it to my lips as I blew into it for a few seconds before I took a long sip, hoping that would give her the indication that I did not want to speak about it.

"I'm just tired is all." I said and smiled at her.

"I wish that were the truth my sweet boy." She murmured causing me to narrow my eyes at her in confusion.

"I don't know what it is, but you have been different since you returned to us. In some ways you seem a lot older than when you were taken. Sometimes I look at you when you're staring off, your mind allowing you to wander freely, and I catch a glimpse of what you hide from us. I cannot shake this feeling that for some reason you don't want to be here." She said in a soft voice as she took the cup from my hands and placed it on the stand, taking my hands in hers and stared into my eyes.

"I cannot begin to imagine what you went through in that realm. How they must have hurt you for you to close yourself off like that." She said, and for some reason, the gentle tone in which she was speaking, only succeeded in tearing down every last wall I had built around me.

I looked down as my eyes welled up, unable to contain my tears anymore as they slipped past my eyes and down my cheeks. I felt my throat clog up as my sobs broke free. I felt my mother pull me against her, cradling my head to her chest as if I was boy once again.

"Shhh. I'm so sorry for what they did to you" she whispered as she rocked me while I held onto her robes, spilling forth everything I had tried to hold back.

"It..it..it wasn't like that." I managed to say as I sniffed and choked on my sobs.

She lifted her head, taking my face into her hands as she looked at me. Her blue eyes searching mine as she narrowed her eyes, not understanding what I was saying.

"He was different. Different from all of them. He protected me and sheltered me. Taught me things I knew not. He lo..he l-"

I couldn't bring myself to say what I so much wanted to say. I had convinced myself that if I had said out loud, that would make it true to some degree.

"I don't understand what you're saying." She whispered as she wiped away my tears.

"Fortis. He was different mother and I loved him. I loved him so much that it hurts now. It hurts so much to think about it." I added as I sobbed once again, seeing her look at me with that look of confusion before she widened her eyes, seeming to understand what I was saying.

"The one who let us in?" She asked to which I nodded and tried to wipe away more of my tears.

"I don't know what I did wrong mother. He always told me he loved me and I felt it. It was real. So why did he do that? Why did he send me away like that?" I asked as more tears rolled down my face.

I watched as pain crossed her features as she placed her warm delicate hands on the sides of my face. Smiling at me as tears began to form in her own blue eyes.

"That I fear I know not my sweet one. Love is a very complex emotion that makes us do thing we ourself do not understand. For it something that does rule with rationalism, but rather it rules with this" she replied as she placed her hand on my heart.

"It's not something that we can force or even begin to control. It has a mind of it's own and once it has found it's beacon my dear Ares, you will never love another alike." She said in her sweet motherly voice as she wiped away my tears and smiled at me.

"Though I fear we may be too late." She added, causing me to frown at her when she sighed as she got up and took my cup from the tray, returning it to my hands.

"Your Father and Aven has ridden North to retrieve our armies there intent on destroying the Orcs once for all. Now that they know how to open the portal, they can and will kill every last one."