Chapter Thirty-Two
Lenora
The lie is poison settling along the back of my throat.
Not a lie, I pacify myself.
I was on the pill, but only because Mrs. Pym brought it to me with breakfast every morning.
I haven’t seen Mrs. Pym in days. I haven’t taken my medication in just as long.
Not that it makes a difference.
I may not be experienced in the ways of the world, but I am fully aware of how babies are created. Even if I am pregnant, I would not be this far along. It would not be this obvious.
The taut flesh of my belly glides beneath my palms. A smooth bump, low at my midsection. I would need a book to assess the possible timeframe, but at least a month. Maybe more.
My brain sparks with the possibility that it could be my boys’. Maybe the pill didn’t work that one time they were playing their game. It shouldn’t, but my heart leaps in my chest and a wild pulse of excitement races up my spine.
What if this is their baby?
What if this is God’s way of giving them back to me?
I stroke the skin again. Lighter. Gentler. Letting the overwhelming delight pool in my belly.
It’s the only explanation, so it has to be true.
Or it’s gas. Maybe too much cum. Marcus had been relentless. I lost count of how many times he came inside me.
“What are you thinking?”
I turn to the mirror and the heavy dance of smoke pressing across the glass.
“Am I?” I ask Veyn.
The tendrils sweep and spin like he’s considering my question. But rather than respond, the mirror ripples and the demon himself emerges in full form, minus the blades.
“Would it bother you?”
I release a shaky exhale and lower my gaze to the new bump. “I don’t know. No? Maybe?” I touch it again. “It can’t be Marcus’s, can it?” I peer up into his steady expression. “Would it be yours?”
“Demons can’t reproduce with humans, contrary to popular fiction.”
At least one question is answered.
But the bigger one I really want to ask remains, the one cutting serrated edges into the soft tissues of my esophagus, refusing to be asked. The probabilities are too fast. The outcome too uncertain, but I have to know.
“Is it my boys’?”
“Is that what you want?”
I nod without even considering it because it’s all I want. It’s all I can hope for. A piece of them, alive with me.
Without a word, he scoops me up into his arms. I’m lifted like a child against his chest and moved to the bed.
The sore, exhausted part of my brain is already hoping he isn’t going to try getting intimate. I already know I will need several days before I can have him or Marcus inside me again.
“Relax,” he murmurs as if reading my thoughts. “That isn’t my intention.”
I say nothing as I’m placed gently on the cool sheets. He claims the place at my hip, and to my surprise, he settles his hand across my stomach. Heel to fingertip, he practically covers the entire surface. It’s gentle. A tender cradling that steals my breath.
“This baby will be deeply cherished,” he tells me quietly. “Cared for. They will want for nothing and wield unimaginable power.”
I feel the prickle.
That faint flutter at the back of my brain urging me to delve deeper, to ask more questions.
“So, I am?” I verify, needing him to say it.
“Yes,” he answers softly.
Even braced, the confirmation hits me in the chest.
“It has to be my boys’ right? I’m too far along for it to be Marcus’s.”
He’s quiet for a long moment, too long for such a simple question. Or maybe, he doesn’t know. He’s not a mind reader. He can’t possibly know…
“According to your human medicine, that would be the answer.”
The odd play of words does not go unnoticed, but he’s also correct. All medical facts would suggest this baby was conceived by Eliah and Ames.
I laugh.
Excitement bubbling up my throat with the first surge of happiness I’ve felt in weeks.
“Our baby,” I breathe, touching the curve. “I have to tell them.”
Veyn doesn’t stop me when I roll off the bed and pad quickly to the closet. I locate a loose, burgundy slip and a loosely knitted sweater to pull over top. Veyn is still where I left him when I emerge, but the solemness in his face has me pausing.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, hooking my hair from my collar and freeing the strands around my shoulders.
The edges of his mouth lift in a faint quirk. “Nothing. You’re just so beautiful.”
Heat prickles my cheeks. “Thank you. I’ll be back.”
I considered asking him to come with me, but this is a private moment between me and my boys. Something personal. Even if they won’t understand and aren’t here to celebrate with me, this is between us.
The chapel is still.
A dark chamber, guarded by the cross fixed to the wall. Part of me finds it amusing that Ames and Eliah would tease each other about venturing inside as children. They would shove each other over the threshold and run, laughing hysterically.
Now, it’s their final resting place.
“I have news,” I tell them before I have even crossed through the doors.
I pad quickly to stand between them as I have from the day I was born.
My palms settle on each of their lids. “We’re going to have a baby.
” I pause like maybe that news is enough to wake them.
To have them pushing out of their caskets.
When nothing happens, some of my joy flickers even while I fight to cling to it. “I don’t know how or when, but…”
I glide my palm down my front and over the incline, molding my dress to my skin as if to let them see the bump.
At the back of my mind, the nagging questions persist. They claw at all my happiness as if trying to drag me back into that darkness I’d been living in since my boys died. That annoying voice begging me to see reason, to consider useless things that don’t matter.
Maybe this is a normal rate. I’ve never been pregnant.
I haven’t been around anyone who was pregnant.
Aside from what I learned during my lessons, I am very unfamiliar with the processes, except that we had wanted a family.
Ames, Eliah and I. We wanted so many babies.
If I hadn’t been weak and pathetic, we probably would have had a house full by now.
It’s because of me that they will never get to see the life we created.
So, no, I don’t care that it happened so suddenly.
I don’t care that nothing else about me has changed.
I don’t care that none of it makes sense.
This baby is all that matters.
All I want.
This part of the two people I love more than my own life.
It will be beautiful and loved.
So loved.
And I will protect it from all the dangers in the world.
Starting by finishing what I started — eradicating the Duval Family. They all have to die before my baby is born. I can’t bring this life into a world where those monsters exist. I won’t let them take anyone else from me, especially not this gift I’ve been given.
Fueled by a purpose, by a fresh surge of hatred, I start to turn. To head out and find Marcus.
But the door is gone.