CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE #2
I had expected him to want a son, an heir to carry on his name, his legacy. The Salvatore name demanded a male heir, didn’t it? That was how it worked in our world.
But Adrian seemed almost eager for a daughter. The thought unsettled me, confused me. Nothing about this man was as simple as I once believed.
“I do like the name Aurelia,” he added, and his voice was almost reverent as he spoke of the name.
Aurelia.
The name echoed in my mind, beautiful and melodic. I liked it.
Maybe our baby was a girl. A daughter.
Aurelia.
Another pain slid through me, and this time it wasn’t dull. It was sharp, a knife twisting deep in my abdomen. I flinched, my hand flying to my stomach.
“Serafina?” Adrian’s voice changed instantly, concern replacing the tenderness from moments before.
My stomach tightened again and this time I gasped, the sound sharp in the quiet kitchen. I gasped, doubling over as severe cramps seized my body.
He lurched to my side, gripping my arm to steady me. “Serafina!” Adrian said my name again, panicked.
I clutched at the counter, my knuckles turning white as another wave crashed through me.
“Something’s wrong,” I whispered, the words barely audible through my clenched teeth.
Adrian didn’t hesitate.
The world tilted as he swept me into his arms, rushing up the stairs. Each step jolted through me, intensifying the pain that has taken hold of my body.
“Hold on,” Adrian whispered, his voice cracking. “Hold on, Princess.”
I clung to his neck, my face pressed against his chest, breathing in his familiar scent as another contraction ripped through me.
He laid me gently on the bed and immediately reached for his phone. I heard the ringing as he waited for someone to pick up, his hand trembling as they hovered over me, uncertain where to touch, how to help.
I curled onto my side, arms wrapped protectively around my stomach as another cramp wrecked me. Each one stronger than the last, more violent, more terrifying.
“Dr. Patel,” Adrian said, controlled despite the panic I saw in his eyes. “It’s Adrian Salvatore. My wife is experiencing severe abdominal pain. She’s almost eleven weeks pregnant. Yes, right now. I need you here immediately.”
I watched him through a haze of pain as he paced the length of the bedroom, phone pressed to his ear, his free hand gripping his hair so tightly his knuckles turn white, a gesture of helpless frustration I had never seen from him before.
His eyes were dark and haunted, shadows of fear dancing across his features.
Adrian ended the call and dropped to his knees beside the bed, his hands hovering over mine before he gripped them, interlocking our fingers. “The doctor is coming. She said to try and stay calm,” he said, his voice softer now, trying to reassure me. “Just hold on. Everything will be fine.”
But I could see in his eyes that he didn’t believe himself.
The man who had faced down enemies without flinching, who had killed without hesitation, was utterly terrified.
I tried to nod, but another wave of pain crashed over me. I bit my lip to keep from crying out, tasting copper as my teeth break the skin.
Adrian’s face was ashen, his eyes never leaving mine.
I felt something warm and wet between my legs. I shifted, and the movement sent another spike of pain through my abdomen.
I shook my head, refusing to believe what was happening. I didn’t want to look down, I didn’t want to know.
But the warm wetness pooled between my thighs, more and more, spreading.
My body grew cold with dread.
I hiccupped back a sob.
Slowly, trembling, I looked down.
A crimson stain had spread across the white fabric of my nightgown, growing larger with each passing second. The sight of it—so vivid, so wrong—my chest shuddered with a broken sob.
“No,” I cried out, voice breaking. “No, no, no.”
Adrian followed my gaze, and the sound that tore from his throat was inhuman—a raw, guttural cry of anguish that I felt in my very bones.
I stared at the blood, at the evidence of what I was losing.
Our child.
The life we had created together, however unwillingly. The future that had begun to take shape in my mind, in my heart.
“Please,” Adrian begged, though I didn’t know who he was pleading with—me, God or himself. “Please, not this. Not again.”
The pain intensified, and I curled tighter into myself, my arms wrapped around my stomach as if I could keep our baby safe inside me through sheer force of will.
But the blood continued to spread, staining the sheets beneath me.
I felt the life inside me slipping away with each painful contraction, each warm rush of crimson. Our child—the boy I felt growing inside me; the daughter Adrian had already named.
Adrian’s hands gripped mine with desperate strength. His eyes were wild, hopeless, filled with a terror I had never seen in them before, not even when I poisoned him, not even when I held his life in my hands.
“It’s okay,” he whispered, bringing my hands to his lips, holding them there. “It’s going to be okay, Serafina.”
It wasn’t going to be okay.
He was lying again.
The agony was everywhere now, in my body, in my heart, in the space between us that had begun to fill with something that might had been hope.
I closed my eyes, letting the darkness take me, unable to bear the sight of Adrian’s face as he watched our future bleed away.