Missionary Impossible

"I wish I could stay," Ari said, and sighed. It was all she could do not to pick up the little boy and cuddle him some more.

"I wish you could, too. I'll probably be sick of company before long, though. Alicia and everyone else will sneak away every chance that they get."

"So will I."

The Duchess turned to her blonde friend, and drew her into a kiss. "Thank you, Ari. You couldn't have given me a better baby gift."

"You're welcome. No more hiding things from me. Promise?"

"Promise," Christi agreed. When the baby stirred, she whispered, "We'd better go. I guess I'm going to be praying for him to be asleep before long. Better take advantage of it while I can."

Feeling a little naughty, Ari leaned in to whisper in Christi's ear, "And I'll be taking advantage of you as soon as I can."

Christi let out a purr. "I can't wait."

****

Hope you've enjoyed this tale. I'm sure that there are more than a few of you jumping for joy to see Arilee again. I know that I loved writing her again. I hope she comes to visit my muse a lot more in the future.

I'll take a minute to give you a bit of chronology ( as it stands ) for the stories in the "Nobles by Deed" series. Lit is working on allowing authors to group stories into series, so I hope that I won't have to do this at some point in the future.

Casting off Convention

To Catch a Merchant Princess

( Lowborn - coming soon! )

Take Me Away

King Thakkorias

Blackhawk Hall

Queen Alicia

Missionary Impossible

The first three stories (including the upcoming history of Mindblind, "Lowborn" ) take place at about the same time. The rest of the stories in the series take place about a decade later, in the sequence listed. I'll fill in that history gap between the two groups, and the gap between Blackhawk and the last two in time.

All of these stories take place before "Danica" and "Sisters of the Mists". I'm working on SOTM, but I'm not going to start releasing chapters again until I can keep up with a reasonable posting schedule.

Please take a moment to vote. Comments are also much appreciated. The feedback is the fuel that keeps me writing. Without it, I never would have managed to climb back in the saddle and start writing again, after such a long dry spell.