Chapter 18
AXEL
“Everything’s okay, right?” Axel asked, leaning against the wall with his hands behind his back.
It was taking all of his self-control not to snarl and shove the Witch away from Kat, despite knowing she wasn’t harming her.
The Witch knew Cienna, and she ran the Apothecary District.
She was on their side, and yet watching her hands hovering over Kat’s rounded belly with faint light flowing made him want to do incredibly violent things.
“Stop talking,” Miara said, her tone as harsh and cold as all the other Witches Axel had ever encountered.
Her long dark hair hung in loose waves around her shoulders, stark against her pale skin, and her violet eyes were closed as she worked, tilting her head as though listening for something.
“Everything is fine, Axel,” Kat said softly, her hands resting at her sides.
“She’s taking longer than usual,” he argued.
And she was. They’ve been coming to see Miara every week now, and the Witch never took this long to tell them everything was fine and progressing as normal. This wasn’t some few minute delay either. It’d been nearly fifteen minutes of them sitting in utter, anxiety-inducing silence.
“Axel, let her work,” Kat said, her eyes closing. She could try to hide it, but he heard it. The thread of worry she was trying so hard to gloss over, and it was all he needed to push off the wall and step forward.
He bent over her head where she lay on the exam table, smoothing his hand over her hair.
Pressing a kiss to her brow, he looked at Miara, not caring that she was still trying to focus.
Katya being worried and stressed couldn’t be good for the babe, but Axel just didn’t like seeing Kat distraught about anything.
She was the logical and sensible one. If she was worried, then everyone in the godsdamn realm should be worried.
“She’s been more tired lately,” he said to Miara, his hand slipping over Kat’s and interlacing their fingers.
“I’m sure she has,” Miara said, finally straightening and lowering her hands.
“Fae babes grow rapidly, but the last months are the most taxing. She’s managing her own power, which I’m told is vast, and now the babe’s as well.
That eats through her magic reserves rather quickly. It will not get better.”
“It’s going to get worse,” Axel clarified unnecessarily, but he wanted all the facts laid out.
“She needs to rest. And eat,” Miara added, moving to her worktable and sifting through vials of liquids and baskets of plants. “She also needs to be siphoning off that power. It will be exhausting.”
“But the babe is fine?” Kat asked, pushing onto her elbows to watch Miara.
“He is well,” Miara said, mashing some leaves with a pestle.
“But?” Kat pushed, and Axel’s brow furrowed as he helped her sit up.
“But what?” he asked.
“She took a long time to examine him today, and now she won’t look at us,” Kat said, embers sparking in her eyes. “She’s not telling us something.”
He looked at Miara, finding the Witch’s features pinched in annoyance. “I find you too clever for your own good.”
“You do not keep things from me when it involves my son,” Katya retorted, shadows appearing and drifting around her like an aura. “If you know something, you will tell us.”
Axel blinked at her fierceness. She rarely displayed it, but gods when she did?
He slid his hands into his pockets, leveling Miara with a dark look. “You heard her. Tell us what you know.”
“I don’t know anything,” Miara replied, dumping the ground plants from the mortar into a larger bowl. She reached for a few vials, adding their contents as she added, “The future is ever-changing.”
“But you’ve seen something?” Axel demanded.
“All Witches have that gift. Some more than others. My premonitions are not nearly what Cienna’s are. You should seek her out.”
“Cienna is not here,” Axel said sharply. “You are.”
“We cannot tempt Fate. I cannot risk it.”
“Then you are risking your life, and I will not be the one to end it,” he said, with a pointed look at Katya.
The shadows had thickened around her, bright embers floating among the dark. Those same embers were in her dark hair, trickles of flames winding among the tight curls. A female who would stand between the world and her child. What a mother was supposed to be and do.
“Just say it, Miara,” Axel said, bringing his hand to Kat’s lower back.
“The babe cannot come before the sixth month,” she finally said. “That is all I will tell you.”
“But he is not due until the seventh month,” Kat said, confusion replacing the menacing notes.
“He will not make the seventh month,” Miara said, using a dropper to fill several vials with whatever she’d just created. “But if he does not make the sixth, you will not meet him until the After.”
Katya lurched back. If his hand hadn’t been there, she may very well have gone over the side of the small exam table.
“You just said yourself, the future is always changing,” Axel said.
“And you insisted I tell you what may or may not happen,” Miara said simply, striding forward while extending the vials she’d just prepared. “These will make your sleep more restorative. I will prepare more for next week when I see you again.”
Kat took them from her. The tinkle of the vials was loud as they shook in her trembling hands.
“What are we supposed to do in the meantime?” Axel asked, immediately taking the vials from Kat and slipping them into his pockets before retrieving her shoes from the nearby chair. He dropped to a knee, sliding them onto her feet.
“The same thing you’ve been doing. Don’t try to figure out fate. It will only lead to madness,” Miara warned. “The Fates are crafty beings, keeping their secrets close. They wander about unknown and unseen. It is why we do not meddle. They are everywhere and nowhere.”
“Now you sound like Cienna,” Axel grumbled, pushing back to his feet and helping Kat from the exam table. “Or maybe Tessa and her nonsensical ramblings.”
“Do not try to unravel their secrets,” Miara warned again. “It is valuable time you will never regain.”
Neither Kat nor Axel spoke as they left her place, located in the southernmost part of the Apothecary District.
The District completely separated the Dispensary District from the rest of the Underground.
He held Kat’s hand as they passed the walls of her home, larger than the rest of the shops and homes in the District since she ruled over it the same way the Alpha and Beta did the Leisure District.
The same way Bree, Cade, and Rayell ruled over the Dispensary District.
The thought alone had his throat suddenly too dry.
He forced his mind to Kat, moving silently at his side, her other hand rubbing along her stomach.
“She’s wrong,” he said in determination.
But Kat just nodded, and he fell silent once more. He knew her well enough by now to know she needed to think this through. Needed logic and her books. She’d talk to him, but not yet. Not until she’d gone through all her knowledge and theories. So much like Theon in that way.
Shadows still clung to her, trailing her footsteps and drifting in the air between them.
Axel swiped his fingers through the dark, suppressing a shudder as he remembered what it had been like to wield them.
When they’d been an extension of him. When he’d been more than…
this. When he hadn’t been so utterly helpless to spare her from such worry and fear.
Now his wife and son would have something that he would only ever have memories of.
They were nearing the central road that ran from one end of the Underground to the other, and Axel was about to suggest they stop to rest when Kat spoke first.
“I need to talk to Theon.”
Axel came to a sudden halt, forcing her to stop too. “What? Why?”
And why couldn’t she talk to him? Why did she need to talk to Theon?
“Because Theon is the one who can get to Tessa, and Tessa has visions,” she said.
His heart sank at her words. At her utter desperation.
He stepped forward, reaching to tuck her hair behind her ear as he said gently, “Kitten, I—”
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said, stepping out of his reach. “Tessa has visions, and she will tell me what the Witches won’t. She doesn’t care about the Fates or the gods.”
“Tessa doesn’t care about anyone but herself, Kat,” Axel said, his voice hardening. “We are not letting her near our son.”
“We have to try, Axel,” she pleaded.
He shook his head, not knowing what to say. “None of what you are saying is logical.”
Flames flickered in her eyes again, but tears glimmered there too, along with an unwavering resolve. “Find a way to get me in touch with Theon or Luka. Someone who can get me to Tessa. Or I’ll do it myself.”
His throat was on fire.
No, he was on fire.
That was all he could think as he thrashed.
His arms, his legs.
His godsdamn throat.
It took him a minute to register someone was holding him down. Or attempting to.
He snarled, throwing all his strength into his burning muscles as he flipped the person off him, pinning them down. Everything was a blur. A haze that he couldn’t see through.
But he could touch and taste and smell.
He could smell the blood now squirming beneath him. As if it could get away from him.
It was fire and shadows and power.
And it was his.
His fingers skimmed warm flesh, and it stilled beneath his touch.
But he could hear the ragged breathing. The panting.
Could feel a chest heaving as he walked his fingertips higher, along the hollow of a throat.
The column of a neck. Until they stopped on a pulse, beating rapidly.
Thrumming with something he’d been craving for days and days. Weeks. Months. Maybe his entire life.
He leaned in, inhaling deeply. Let his fangs drag along that pulse point. He inhaled again, ready to feast.