Part Six – Everyone has a type

"I don't like it!" Zara fumed at me in my study, even stamping her foot on the ground as she did so, her swollen belly giving her an odd appearance.

"I know you don't like it, but I can't say no." I try and plead with her.

Zara turns her nose up and makes a noise of irritation as she says, "And I guess you'll be expected to bed her too?"

I sigh and hang my head, rubbing the back of my head as I do so and say, "Probably."

Zara grabs a book at tosses it in my direction as she snaps, "Where is a frying pan when I need one!" I block the book and kind of laugh at that as I recall the last time we went through this and I had a frying pan thrown at my head, Zara puts her hands on her hips and snaps, "It's not funny!"

"It kind of is, my love." I say as I move closer to place my hands on her hips.

She glares at me with her golden eyes and takes my hands off of her hips as she says, "I hate it."

"I know." I say to her pausing before I add, "I don't like it either, but to get the Iron Blood truly on board with what I'm trying to build for Sofia, I need to do this."

She sighs and places her forehead against my chest and sighs out, "Fiiine. But I expect you to keep her out of our bed."

I lock my arms around her waist and kiss the top of her head as I say, "Yes, my love."

Zara sighs again before looking up and a forced smile as she said, "Then let us go and meet this, concubine you must take."

She slips out of my embrace and starts to walk towards my study's door, I can tell by how she's carrying herself this whole thing is bothering her deeply and I reach out to take her hand. As soon as my hand takes hers she stops and turns to look at me and I close the distance to kiss her before I cup her face with both hands and say to her, "I love you, Zara."

She looks off to the side and sighs out, "But for how long? I worry that once I give birth to Sofia, this Weser will become your chosen love."

I kiss her again before pressing my forehead against hers as I say to her, "Never."

"She better not." Zara says with a slight smile.

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As I step into the main hall, I see a tall woman with her back to me, she has a short bob of red hair and I can't tell much about her from behind, other than she has a long black cloak around her at the moment. I look to my right to see Zara's lips compress and her nostrils flare out as she mumbles, "Of course she'd have red hair."

I reach over and squeeze Zara's hand in a supportive way just as this Weser turns slightly, and I get an eye full of her figure from the side as she starts to appraise me with red eyes, I look quickly to Zara and I see the irritation all over her face. Looking back at Weser, I see that she sees the look on Zara's face as well, her red eyes return to me and she curtsies as she says, "Greetings from the Iron Blood, Your Imperial Majesties, I am Weser, escort carrier of the Iron Blood and now for the Empire."

"Greetings, Lady Weser." I say to her with a slight bow, Zara for her part simply doesn't give her an inch.

Weser brings herself upright and walks over to the two of us, her eyes on me as she says to Zara, "I have no intention of replacing you, Empress Zara, but I will do my duty for this alliance."

Duty for the alliance, that phrase makes my chest get tight. God, I never wanted to be involved with more than one woman at a time, it's so much damn work!

Zara folds her arms under her bust as she snaps at Weser, "You better not."

I turn my attention to Zara and plead with her, "Zara, please."

Zara sighs and looks off to the side as says, "It's almost like they think you have a type, Cristiano!" A moment after she said that, Zara gestures at Weser's body and says, "See what I mean?"

Weser looks off to the side, her cheeks turning slightly pink as she says, "I didn't have a say in what I look like, Your Imperial Majesty."

I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose with a heavy sigh as I say, "Just as you didn't have a say in it, Zara."

Zara presses her lips together and turns on her heels to start walking away before saying over her shoulder at me and Weser, "Remember Cristiano, not in our bed!"

My cheeks got hot at that, and the implications of it, looking at Weser I see her cheeks are bright red and she's looking down at the hem of her skirt as she tugs at it with both hands after a moment I clear my throat as I say, "I'm sorry about that, Zara is having a hard time accepting this reality."

Weser stops fiddling with her skirt and adjusts her jacket before taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly as she says, "If it is alright with you, Your Imperial Majesty, I would like to get to know you first before I become a conquest."

That's fair.

I relax a little and rub the back of my head as I say to her, "Actually, that makes me feel a bit better, before anything like that were to occur, I'd rather know you as a person first."

"I like to read." She says as she brushes some red hair behind an ear and adds, "I also enjoyed playing chess with Peter Strasser, but she would usually beat me."

I nod as I say to her and extend an arm for her, "I think I saw a chess set in the library, would you care for a game?"

I see her shoulders relax and she nods, but doesn't take my arm as she says, "Lead the way."

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"Checkmate, Your Imperial Majesty." Weser says to me as she makes one last move to block me in.

"Cristiano," I say to her and pause before asking, "would you care for another game?"

Weser's cheeks go bright red and she says to me, "It feels strange to call you by name."

I nod and start to set up the board again as I say to her, "It is something we will need to get used to, otherwise things will be rather awkward down the road."

I watch as she moves one of her pawns forward two spaces and says to me, "Only if we are face to face."

I clear my throat and move a pawn forward two spaces as I say, "True."

Weser moves down a second pawn as she says to me, "Though I would prefer to have a connection with the man I am to bed."

I move my first pawn to take the second one she put down as I say to her, "I also prefer to have a connection with the woman I am with because having a harem isn't something I want."

She nods and moves a rook over to be in line with my pawn as she says, "I think you have one, consisting of two women now, as it is."

Moving one of my knights up I sigh out, "Yeah."

Weser bites her lower lip before saying to me, "To be honest with you, the Iron Blood want this alliance to work, there is a threat in the east that is being very expansionist and is a cause for concern to us."

I nod as I say to her, "And to be perfectly honest with you, I know I need this alliance too, as the Iron Blood will keep the French in check long enough for them to either rebuild or have a civil war."

Weser takes my pawn with her rook as she says to me, "I think the civil war is coming for them, Jean Bart is being rather vocal against her sister Richelieu and the questions surrounding the death of her lover."

I look off to the side as I say to her as I move another pawn up, "She saved my life, shooting my uncle after he said he was going to kill me, she even used his own gun."

"That must've been a sight to see." She says as she moves a bishop down.

"It was the icing on the cake of what had been a rough couple of months." I say as I move my bishop off to the side and add, "But how does my Empire help against this threat in the east?"

"The Sakura Empire are concerned about them as well, but alone none of our nations are enough to give them pause, but together, at least if we were to come to each other's defence." She says, pausing as she uses her bishop she moved down to take out my other pawn, "Would go a long way to building something longer-lasting."

"Long-lasting is good." I muse as I move out a pawn to take her bishop.

She moves her rook over and takes out a second pawn as she says, "But I understand the difficulties in planning something so grand, it takes time."

I nod as I move my rook up the empty space, in her back row as I say, "Check."

She smiles and moves her knight and takes out my rook as she says, "Good play, but keep your eyes on the prize."

"The prize is a stable and healthy Eagle Union." I counter as I move up a pawn.

"You'd think so," she pauses and uses her rook to take out my knight beside my king as she adds, "Checkmate."

It hit me then that I had no place for my king to go, I had been distracted and only used one side of the board. Pinching the bridge of my nose I say to her, "Good move."

She shrugs as she says, "I only tried to copy what Strasser would do." I yawn a little and blink my eyes a couple of times and Weser gives me this little smile as she says, "Go ahead and take a nap, I'll wake you if anyone comes looking for you."

I nod and go over to the soft couch and lay my head down as I say to her, "Thanks, the days in this job are long."

Weser comes over and strokes my head as she says, "Rest your eyes."

I nod slowly and drift into the black for a bit.

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I don't know how long I was out, but I feel myself being shaken awake as I hear Zara groaning in pain while Weser said, "You need to wake up!"

I blink a couple of times before looking around and see Zara holding the wall with one hand and a second on her belly, she looks at me and gets out between clenched teeth, "Get your head out of her lap and come on! Our daughter is coming now!"

I sit up and notice that my feet were by the arm of the couch and Weser was still sitting where my head had been, she gives me a shy smile before I move to help Zara. As soon as I touch Zara's hand I see for an instant she wants to pull it away as she whispers to me, "Did you sleep with her already?"

"No. We played chess for what felt like hours." I whisper back and I see Zara stop trying to pull her hand away.

Zara leans her weight against me as she says, "Good, at least not on our daughter's birthday."

"Zara, I love you." I try to affirm my affection for her.

Zara snorts as she starts to waddle down the hall and says, "I would hope so."

I take out my mobile and send a message to Angelo to get a car ready as well as to go ahead and secure the hospital. With that done I help Zara down to the motor pool after grabbing her go-bag.

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I look at Zara's scrunched-up face as she grunts moments after the doctor told her to push, the crushing pain in my hand as she squeezes it. When she relaxes from that push, her yellow eyes look at me and she says, "Why did I let you talk me into this?!"

I smile at her and stroke her cheek with my free hand as I say to her, "Because you love me."

She gives me a tired, but playful smirk as she teases, "I'm starting to have second thoughts."

I kiss her forehead, the taste of sweat on her brow before I say to her, "Too late, you married me."

Zara gives a weak laugh just as the doctor says, "I can see the head, I need you to push again."

Zara squeezes my hand tightly again and pushes, grunting the entire way, nearly screaming in the process. But I see it in her face, the look of surprise and happiness just as the little cry echoed around the room right before the doctor waved me over and asked, "Would you like to cut the cord?"

I slip my hand out of Zara's and come over to see my daughter being wrapped in a blanket, her belly still exposed and the umbilical cord still attached, it had been pinched at two ends and the nurse had a pair of medical scissors at the ready. I look at my daughter for a moment as my gloved fingers take hold of the scissors, my grey eyes locking with my little girl's grey orbs and it strikes me how much she looks like Zara, but with my eyes. With a quick bit of pressure, the cord snips, and the nurses go into a flurry of activity, checking over my daughter to make sure everything is good. I do my best to watch what's going on and I see one of her little hands poke up as she keeps crying, from behind me I hear Zara ask, "What's going on? Is she okay?"

Before I can respond I see my daughter get lifted and carried over to Zara, they placed her down on Zara's chest as a nurse says to me, "Congratulations, a healthy baby girl of fifty-six centimeters tall and four kilograms."

Looking at Zara, I can see tears in her eyes as she looks at the little baby girl and says to her, "Welcome to the world Sofia."

I move to sit beside them and kiss Zara and carefully touch Sofia's little back as I whisper, "Hello my little princess."

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A couple of days later, late at night I was walking around the palace with Sofia in one arm and a bottle in the other hand, doing a nighttime feed. As I walked into the Library with her, I spoke to her, "I'll do my best to be a good father to you, but I'll be honest, our family dynamics are going to be strange. I'll do what I can to make it as normal for you as possible, but I can't be sure it will be."

I see her grey eyes just looking at me as she sucks on the bottle and I can't help but smile at her and start to walk towards the book where I found her namesake, resting the bottle between a shoulder and my chin, I start to look for a book to read while I deal with this nighttime feeding. Once I have something I take us both to the couch and sit down, resting the book beside me, and start reading on the history of my nation; I can't move it towards the right future if I don't know all of the histories of it.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Sofia finishes her bottle, so I lift her to rub her back and get her to burp before I go back to holding her and letting her sleep on me as I read, as I felt my eyelids get heavy, I moved to the floor and placed Sofia on the couch cushion, in such a way that she couldn't fall off the couch and I closed my eyes for a few moments.

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Hours went by before I noticed Sofia start to cry again, looking around I see at some point Zara had joined us, her redhead resting on my lap. I see her golden eyes flutter open before she smiles at me and whispers, "I'll get her, you get some sleep, my love."

I nod slowly and shut my eyes again as I feel Zara get off of my lap and I hear her starting to sing to Sofia, I honestly didn't pay any attention to the words, but I let the melody carry me off to the black again.

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A/N: I know it was a short chapter this time, but things are going to be moving forward in jumps now.