Born for Silk (The Cradled Common)

Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

Rome

“Odio!” I roar before pinching my thumb and forefinger together, whistling for him to show himself. To guide me to her as is his damn duty. But he does not.

I’ll kill him. I’ll rip his head off and hang it next to his ancestors for this. She is not his!

I stalk across the gardens.

Her useless Watcher and the Guards field out, searching.

Inhaling the thick air, laced with sadness, I catch a hint of her—vulnerability.

The possessive parts inside me sigh, my muscles rolling, satiated that she is nearby.

Good, I need to calm down.

I scare her.

My temper is a problem.

My chin is dragged to the right, as though her presence can grapple me, draw me to her without a single touch. Effortless. She summons me.

I freeze when I step between rose hedges to find her sitting on a sparse patch of grass, hidden low among crowding wiry limbs. Looking sad, she strokes Odio’s feathers gently.

Jealousy stirs inside me.

Fuck me, she’s pretty.

My muscles jerk to go to her, but I force my feet backward to watch as a tear squeezes from the inside of her eye, escapes into the valley beside her nose, and drips from her trembling upper lip.

Fuck me.

Hate that fucking tear.

“Little creature.”

She shoots into the air in search of the voice, her gaze landing on me from over the top of the hedges.

I step into view. My eyes carve a path from her to Odio, who rises to his full height—almost the same as hers—and puffs his chest in obstinance.

I scowl at him.

I’ll deal with you later.

“You ran,” I grit out. “You ran in your condition.” Growling, I warn her. “ Fuck , the colour I want to turn your arse for that behaviour.”

She steps backward, shaking her head over and over. “You took her baby…” Her words tumble through sad lips like immature fruit from a rattling tree. “You—” She hiccups a sob.

I hate that sound.

“ I did not take anything,” I correct and claim another step toward her, only to watch her recoil. “Stop that now!”

She stiffens and digs her heels into the dirt. Jutting out her chin, she glares at me, flames of burning hatred targeting my soul.

Not love.

Not love…

I clench my teeth on a growl.

Sighing angrily, I strain to manage the rage building through my veins against the heated lick of her gaze. I have to stay in control.

Don’t scare her…

“What would you have me do?” I pose and take another step toward her. “Give me your orders, sweet creature. How would you rule The Cradle? Have infants born to women who cannot care for them, have them starving or worse? Have a lack of infrastructure, minerals, and Marshals because men do not want to work in their Trade anymore, seeking something brighter . Women want to stay at home with their children, and now we have starving citizens, laziness, under-nourished children, and men with far too much time on their hands creating havoc, aimless, without Purpose.”

Her lashes beat as she thinks; the question throws her and confuses her.

I take another step. “The silk gir?—”

“Ana!” she barks.

“ Ana ,” I comply, though I want that bark coming from her throat when I fuck her between these rose hedges. “Ana takes no ownership,” I continue, slowly edging closer to her. “The babe is the property of The Cradle. We do not operate in the best interest of the individual but of the Collective. Do you dispute that? Are we so unkind, little creature? So unfair.”

Another step.

Her eyes burn me.

“Don’t look at me like that. I will give you anything, everything. You once took a bloody heart from a box. It belonged to a usurper who tried to poison me. You claimed it. You became my personal brand of poison. My weakness. I am weak for you, Aster. Don’t do this.”

Another step.

I snatch her throat in one long movement, pulling a gasping little creature to my chest where I rock her against me as she struggles and hisses. “Stop fighting me.”

Sobbing, kitten-growling, punching, panting, she bashes my chest and kicks her little feet into my boots. “You took her baby!” she cries harder. “ Rome, ” she says my name, betrayal laced. “No. Why? Why?”

My heart squeezes. “Stop, little creature.”

She beats my chest and thrashes in my grip. “You took her baby!”

“Stop.”

“Are you going to take mine?” She gasps between words. “Are you going to… going to?—"

Her— my weakness—sinks in and nearly cripples me. I replace the pain, the hurt?—

With anger.

“Stop that! I will make amends,” I grit out, unleashed fury coiling around each syllable. Her sorrow grates strips from my veins, every inch of me that is human turning to bloody ribbons. “I will make amends.” It is all I have. A promise.

Desperate, she cries, “Am I yours?”

“Yes, dammit!”

“Not The Trade’s?”

“No!”

Then she looks up at me, tears streaming down her cheeks… And her eyes. I never want to see them like this ever again. Broken. Like my sister.

“Then we keep our baby, Rome,” she says. “We keep our baby.”

A growl wrenches from the base of my shadowed soul, rumbling against her tiny form, demanding and dominant.

“Yes!” That is my declaration; the only word I have, the only certainty in my life is that she is mine. The babies that grow in her womb are mine. I am keeping them all.

Whatever the dark deal, whatever I must sacrifice— whoeve r— I will make it happen through blood or bargain, I will not give them up!

My volatile muscles convulse, wanting her soft caress to tame them, but it doesn’t come...

Frowning, I stare down my lashes, cup her wet cheeks in my hands, and guide her chin upward.

A pooling violet gaze loses focus on me, reality sinking in. Her forgiveness drifting.

“That look in your eyes, little creature. Hurts more than I can handle. I can bear the bullets, but not your broken heart.”

Her head shakes over and over. “No.” She isn’t in her eyes as she whispers, “I cannot keep my baby and watch you take away my Collective’s… I cannot. I don’t… Can’t.”

She goes limp in my arms, the battle stripped from her, her words as defeated as her body feels against mine.

I want to roar. Feel it stirring. “I will take you to the Windmill Forest, Aster.” I will do anything. “You and Tuscany. I will make amends.”

Detached, she says, “And Ana,” but there is no hope, no pulse to her words.

It isn’t enough for her.

But she will take it.

Fuck.