28. Orla
28
ORLA
TWENTY-FOUR HOURS AGO...
Viktor’s brother was everything I expected.
Tall. Clever. Charming.
“Told you he was hot.” Juana claimed the seat beside me. “He didn’t have the beard when I last saw him, but I like it.”
“You’ve been around bikers too long.”
She didn’t deny it. Just winked and arranged herself so she could observe Jakov slotting into our family as easily as Viktor had.
The kids were all over him. He didn’t seem to mind, which gave him points with the dads. Despite inviting him, Saint ignored him, but he was done peopling and ignoring everyone, so I didn’t put much stake in that. And then I got so hot and bothered in the crowded room I stopped caring.
I excused myself, fanning my face, and waddled to the living room.
The couch called my name—big mistake. Once I was down, it was going to take a crane hoist to get me up. But I didn’t care. I loved this couch. The leather was cool against my heated skin and the cushions were already imprinted with my ever-expanding arse.
I let it suck me in, rubbing my belly. I’d eaten too much and my babies, though smaller than the doctors wanted, were running out of space. I felt their elbows in my goddamn ears and the constant fake contractions were getting on my nerves.
A strong one hit. I breathed through it, praying I didn’t need to roll myself to the bathroom again, grateful Cam had built a downstairs WC while he’d been on sick leave. I had my doubts he’d healed his PTSD with his one-man construction crusade, but he’d definitely made my life easier.
Ever my shadow, River ducked out of the kitchen and poured himself into an armchair, phone clutched in his hand instead of stuffed in a discarded pair of jeans and forgotten about.
“Who’ve you been grinning at all day?”
“Tam.” River held up his phone. “He’s getting married too.”
Like Folk and Decoy, but the photo on the screen was too far away for me to make out.
I beckoned River closer.
He huffed but got up anyway and snagged a bottle of lemon Fanta for me. Left to go flat and warm, it was the best and most disgusting thing ever, and I was shamelessly addicted.
“Show me this photo.”
River rolled his eyes but held up the phone again while I took an unhealthy swig of pure sugar and studied the image on the screen. Tam Dubois. I remembered him. Gorgeous, French, and the only good decision my little brother had ever made until he’d come home to live his happy ending with Rubi. “Remind me again why you stopped hooking up?”
“Why do you think?” River stomped back to his own seat. “He lives there, I live here, and he knew I was in love with Rubi.”
“You broke his heart?”
“Fuck, no. It just wasn’t meant to be.”
My brother went back to grinning at his phone. I squirmed through more Braxton Hicks and drank enough pop to wake up my little beans. They kicked the crap out of me in return, but I didn’t mind. It meant they were alive, and I gladly took every prod and thud, even if it felt like my ribs were becoming as cracked and dusty as Cam’s.
Six days.
That was how long we had left. Six days and nights of them safe inside me before they cut me open and?—
A hand skated over mine.
Saint . The touch brief as he passed through the room, there and gone before I even saw him. Have faith.
River’s voice came next. “You know it looks like you’re marrying Alexei with that rock on your finger, don’t you?”
I blinked, irrationally annoyed he’d ripped me from the horror show my imagination liked to spring on me when I wasn’t paying attention enough to shut it down. Irrational because he’d become unnervingly good at it, even though I knew he was distracted by some mischief I’d yet to figure out.
He’s got that look .
And... he was right. The ludicrous black diamond Alexei had bought me fit like a dream on my ring finger. So I’d left it there, glinting darkly against my pale skin, under the assumption my hands would soon follow the path of my ankles and pop that bitch right off. “You speak like I care how anything looks . But even if I did, Alexei’s a catch. I tell Cam he’s punching all the time.”
“You don’t tell Saint?”
“Eh. Would you?”
River shrugged. “They’re as lucky to have him as he is to have them.”
“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said.”
“No, it isn’t.”
All right. Probably not. These days, River was rolling through life as an absolute sweetheart and I lived to see it. To watch my babies grow up with him for their uncle when I’d been so sure he wouldn’t see thirty.
A scrunched ball of wrapping paper hit my cheek. “What are you crying about?”
I glared and hurled the paper right back. “I’m not fucking crying.”
River snorted. “Yeah, you are.”
“Shut your face.” I flipped him the bird and crowbarred myself from the sofa, needing a wee as much as I wanted to throat-punch him. “Or I’ll tell Rubi what you’re up to.”
“You don’t know what I’m up to.”
So he was up to something. If I hadn’t been sure before, I was now.
I stopped in the doorway and glanced back at my brother, scrutinising him for signs of stress, or worse. I’d been so caught up in my own life I hadn’t had time for other people—for my family—recently. But surely I’d have noticed if River had been struggling enough to relapse?
He’s not struggling. Look at him .
River was still sprawled in the armchair, hair loose around his face as he went back to his phone, hyper-focused on whatever had been making his eyes shine all day. He wore ripped jeans and a T-shirt that had once been Cam’s, his face filled out and colour in his cheeks. At dinner, I’d watched him demolish a plate of food almost as big as mine, and he hadn’t done that since we were kids.
He’s fine.
More than that, like Folk who’d also eaten more than me, he was happy. And I really needed that wee.
I waddled myself to the blessed downstairs bathroom, the full-to-bursting sensation in my pelvis enough to make me wince with each step and forever thankful for the giant shirts I’d stolen from Logan. In fact, the mere thought of my brother-in-law made me smile. Logan was as kind as Locke, but shyer. Sweeter , if such a thing was possible. I was addicted to his earnest smile and bolstering hugs, and the only imperfect thing about this day was that he wasn’t here with Remy and his beautiful boys.
Locke was, though, and I found my very own giant on the stairs, an iPad in his big hands, lost in thought as he swiped the screen.
“Whatcha doing there, handsome?”
“Murdering my soul.” Locke shifted, making room for me, but honestly, he had no chance. He was a big man and I was the size of a bungalow.
Conceding, he moved up a step and patted the one in front of him.
I perched between his legs, enjoying the cage of his strong thighs, optimistic heat pulsing in my blood. We hadn’t fucked in forever—not conventionally, anyway. Nash made me come with his devilish mouth whenever I asked him to, and Locke... Lord, what that man couldn’t do with his fingers wasn’t worth having. But missing the intimacy of real sex was the only thing I truly disliked about being this pregnant.
All right. Maybe not the only thing. My stomach tightened hard enough to take my breath away. I squirmed and grabbed Locke’s ankle for support, focusing on the warmth of his big hand as he squeezed my shoulder. “I literally just peed. Why do these things make me feel like I’m going to wet myself?”
“Sounds like someone’s sitting on your bladder.”
“Little bastard.”
“Might be the big one.”
Big . A term I’d come to learn was relative when it came to the tiny humans in my belly. We didn’t know the sex of either baby. Just that one was bigger than the other and both were smaller than we wanted them to be.
Small doesn’t mean weak .
I shifted my attention to the iPad in Locke’s hands as he draped his arms over my shoulders, the tablet so pristine and shiny it had to be Alexei’s.
The flash drive Viktor had gifted Locke was plugged into the bottom. “You’re looking at the photos?”
Locke took a shaky inhale. “I was going to wait. Then I came out to try FaceTiming Lo again, and now I’m here.”
“Your heart needed to see them.”
“My heart is a fuckin’ fool.”
The iPad screen had darkened since I’d interrupted him. At his nod, I activated it again and an image of a younger Willow filled the screen, skinny and blonde, her feet buried in the sand at the beach.
I swiped the screen.
More Willow. Nicky. Logan. Locke and Logan in their twenties. In their thirties, where it was easy to see the periods in time when they’d lived vastly different lives.
There was no chronological order to the pictures, as if whoever had collated them, Viktor or Jakov, hadn’t wanted to look too closely.
I swiped through more pictures, landing on one of the Halliwell brothers in full firefighter gear, their faces smeared with soot, grime, and blood. An old photo, grainy and blurred. For the first time ever, I couldn’t tell them apart. “Which one is you?”
Locke leaned over me, his chest skimming my hair. “I don’t know.”
“I thought it was just me.”
“Nah, if it’s this ancient, I haven’t got a fuckin’ clue either.”
“Is it weird to not know your own face?”
“Maybe, but I was used to it from when we were kids. Logan’s hair didn’t get that dark until we were pretty much grown.”
The photo entranced me. I stared and stared at it, trying to figure it out, but I couldn’t. All I knew was that I loved them.
Another Braxton Hicks contraction hit my stomach, lashing my back with wrenching discomfort, forcing me from my ample rear with Locke’s helping hands at my back, bearing most of my gargantuan weight.
I still clutched the iPad and something I couldn’t quite decipher compelled me to swipe the screen again, to face another grainy image from a past I could hardly stand to imagine.
Little hands.
The tiniest hands.
Grief punched my chest. “Oh, Locke. Is this Wren?”
Sadness flickered in Locke’s gaze, but he smiled. “The nurses took pictures of her for us. Not her face, just her hands and feet—they were smaller than my fingers, look.”
He tapped the screen without looking at it and I saw what he meant, those pixie hands and feet shrouded by his as if she’d been a soul too precious and pure for this one. “It’s been a decade since I saw any of these pictures. I don’t know how he knew how much I needed to see them now.”
Viktor . The reason Locke lived and breathed to feel the wistful pain still clouding his eyes. “He knows you.” In some ways better than I did, and I didn’t begrudge their bond. I’d grown to love Viktor. He was funny, clever, and kind, and everything Ranger deserved. “Where did he find these photos, though? They’re...”
“ Old ,” Locke finished for me, his sad smile turning wry. “Because I’m old, queenie. Some of these are snaps I took of paper photos with my flip phone.”
Sometimes the decade between us felt like nothing. Others, like now, I felt the years he’d survived to live for us in the most battered parts of me.
I passed him back the iPad. “I’m glad Viktor did this for you.”
“Me too...”
Another false contraction blew through me. I swayed on my feet, gripping the banister. “Mother of Christ .”
Locke rose to stand behind me, bracing me again. “You sound like Embry.”
“He has a fucking point.”
“You getting a lot of these today?”
“I’ve been getting them for the last three months.”
I didn’t mean to snap, but where I’d spent my second trimester, loving all my people so much I cried every time I saw them, these last few weeks had frayed me, and I was beyond grateful for the stoic, patient men who loved me.
Locke rubbed my back, his deft fingers and thumbs easing the strain away.
I blew out a breath, my brain already drifting towards more food, my heart sensing he wouldn’t follow me—that he needed a minute. Or two, or ten. “Are you still worried about Logan?”
Locke’s fingers stilled and his hands slipped from my back. “I shouldn’t be. I spoke to him three times today already.”
“That isn’t what I asked, sweetheart.”
“I know.”
I waited for Locke to elaborate.
He didn’t.
I turned to face him, absorbing the fretting he’d been plagued with since Logan had come home late from a night shift and stopped making or receiving video calls. “How did he sound when you spoke to him?”
“Tired, but he’s got twins and it’s Christmas.” Locke’s lips twitched with a wry smile. “He’s been knackered for the last eight years.”
“You can’t just ask Remy?”
“He broke his phone. I can only talk to him through Lo or that brick the boys use to walk down the hill and back.”
“What about Galen?”
Locke’s faint humour faded. “Can’t get hold of him.”
“And that’s weird, right? He’s always messaging you.”
“Jealous, queenie?”
I socked his arm. “I’m used to you texting hot Irish men, and Galen’s one of my favourites.”
For good reason. Before Logan had taken his place, Galen McCarthy had kept Nash alive while he’d been crushed beneath the wheels of an HGV, an image I absolutely did not need to revisit right now.
I fought to scrub my brain clean and focused on Locke, on his gaze as it strayed to the iPad he still clutched.
He’s not done .
I stretched my neck and kissed his cheek. “I’m going to pee again and get someone to make me a sandwich. If you’re still worried about Logan tomorrow, we’ll drive up there and see him with our own eyes.”
Locke’s fair brows rose, but I shuffled away before he could tell me I was in no fit state for a six hour round trip and took myself back to the bathroom, leaving Locke alone with his thoughts, but he wasn’t alone when I emerged sometime later.
Nash had found him, their blond heads bent over the tablet, shoulders pressed together.
Lord, my heart.
I backed up, leaving them to it, and slipped into the kitchen, finding it almost deserted—the party had moved to the living room.
Only Mateo remained, doing something with bread and turkey that had me all up in his business. “Who’s that for?”
His scarred and beautiful face twisted in a grin. “Er. You?”
“Right answer, boyo.”
Mateo grinned and stacked the sandwich the way I liked without having to ask me a single thing. I leaned against him, squishing him with affection that wasn’t our norm.
He laughed again. “You all right there, mate?”
“Yeah, I’m just glad you’re here.”
“Me?”
“You make the best sandwiches.”
Mateo snorted and slid me the plate.
My mouth watered, but I let it be a moment and pull him into a real hug. “Sorry I was salty to you about Juana. I know you only want the best for her.”
“I love her.”
“I know that too. She’s lucky to have you—we all are.”
Mateo’s only response was an unconvinced hum, but he knew I meant it. Life was too short for bullshit.
I took my sandwich to the table and demolished it while he made another. For Embry, I realised. If there was anyone more doted on than me, it was the good father. “Don’t give him the last green olives. I need them for my next snack.”
“Wouldn’t dare, sister.”
Mateo saluted me and exited the kitchen, leaving me alone with my thoughts, but it was a solitary moment I didn’t want. I left my plate for Cam to clear up and hauled myself into the living room, wedging myself onto the couch again and dozing off against the nearest solid body.
I woke sometime later to find it was Ranger, and he wasn’t as spiky as he looked. He smelled good too—like incense sticks. “When did you stop smelling of smoke and rage?”
He shot me a dark look. “When did you get interested enough to find out?”
I extracted myself from under his arm. “Since I needed to nap every ten minutes. Did I squash you?”
“Nah, you’re all right, luv.”
Just as well. Moving away from him entirely was a bridge too far, so I stayed where I was, scanning the room for my people—all of them, finding them all where they needed to be. Only Viktor and his brother were missing, taking another moment for themselves, perhaps, but only a few minutes had passed when Viktor returned.
Lida came to me and sniffed my belly before curling up at Ranger’s feet, an assessment that always made Nash feel better.
I caught his eye across the room. He held one of River’s old guitars, strumming softly while Rubi sang and used Cam’s head as a bongo drum. His smile blinded me, and it was the best thing I’d seen all day. How Locke was napping through it, I had no idea.
The sofa shifted.
Viktor. He’d come to perch on the arm, giving me space.
I rolled my eyes and tugged him into a proper seat. “Where’s your brother?”
“He went to clean up. Has been a long day for him.”
I didn’t have the first clue where Jakov might’ve travelled from to get here. His tan said it might’ve been Viktor’s fabled island, but I knew better than to ask. So I went with the obvious instead. “Your brother’s a smokeshow.”
Viktor grinned. “Yours are not difficult to look at.”
“Oi.”
Ranger reached around me and poked Viktor.
Viktor laughed and I sensed another gaze on us.
Alexei . He seemed to like it when Viktor was happy. Or maybe his eyes were smiling because he lounged against the wall with Saint’s head in his lap, the most relaxed I’d seen either of them all day. Either way, for a moment so simple, it was one I’d never forget.
It grew late enough that the dads started talking about taking the kids home.
Locke carried Hope to the car.
Ivy demanded Jakov carry her.
He took his cue from Folk and obliged.
By then, Cam and Rubi had passed out drunk and he came back inside to catch me with a marker in my hands, considering what to draw on their faces.
“Viktor would draw a cock on me.”
I pursed my lips, considering. “I did that last year.”
“This is an annual thing?”
“Christmas is a new concept for you?”
“Like this?” Jakov took in the carnage around us, then crouched to greet Lida as she followed him inside, his love for her as clear as Viktor’s. “No. My family never had this much fun whatever time of year it was.”
“What about your family now?”
“I am grateful they exist.”
Okay. I was beginning to like this man beyond his dark eyes and chiselled good looks. “Viktor calls you Jake. Do you prefer it to Jakov?”
Jakov regarded me with a slow nod. “Is what my mother called me.”
I didn’t get the chance to ask if she was still alive. Nash and Locke came back inside, and I saw the moment I laid eyes on Locke that he’d snapped into full daddy mode.
Time to go . All of us were sober enough to drive, but Locke took the wheel and chauffeured us home. The stairs were a bitch, but the promise of my bed, and the front seat of whatever naughtiness I could talk my boys into kept me going. Too pregnant to fuck, but a gold-star voyeur to the bone.
The innuendo made me grin. I hauled one of my pilfered shirts over my head and settled on the bed, watching as Locke and Nash moved through the flat, checking locks and security cameras, shedding clothes as they went.
Nash was bare chested by the time he joined me in the bedroom. He’d lost his jeans too and caught me looking. “You want something, babe?”
“I want a show,” I retorted, only half joking. “Bought my ticket this morning.”
Nash crawled onto the bed, biceps rippling, his sweet gaze earnest as he took my face in his hand. “You don’t have to just watch. I’ll do anything you want.”
Story of our lives. But I was happy to watch. I was happy to sleep through it. I was happy to be somewhere else while my men loved each other the way they deserved.
The way they loved me . “Make him feel good,” I whispered. “Whatever that means for him right now. It’s been a long day.”
Nash caught my drift as Locke reached the bedroom, his footsteps heavier than usual as he frowned at his phone.
Intercepting him, Nash took the phone, checked it was on loud , and set it aside, guiding him to the bed. As much as Locke ever let us guide him, at least. He was the wise one in our trifecta. The teacher. The calm one, unless Nash had his unholy way with him.
Locke sat on the edge of the bed. Nash stepped between his legs and kissed him before he could wonder what the fuck was going on. And I knew that kiss. I’d survived it, barely, over and over, and watching Nash inflict it on Locke never got old.
My men were made for each other. Nash bore down on Locke and as Locke tipped back onto the bed, they became a mass of ink and strength, every tattooed limb entwined, even as Locke reached for me.
I made myself available enough that his head landed in what little of my lap wasn’t taken up by my giant stomach. Locke stared up at me, those sea-green eyes crinkling at the side as he smiled.
Then his eyes rolled , and I knew Nash hadn’t wasted any time getting busy with his mouth.
Locke had stamina for days when he set his mind to it. But Nash loved to learn, and by now he knew every one of Locke’s sweet spots as well as he knew mine. And Lord, though I lacked the mobility for participation, watching him turn Locke into a shivering wreck was the hottest thing I’d ever seen.
I claimed Locke’s mouth as he came, smirking against his lips. “You like that?”
Locke groaned, his big hands sliding around my throat to cup my skull. “I like most things you put him up to.”
A dirty laugh escaped me, and I sank into a messy kiss with him, prepared to endure the pulsing between my legs. The heat. The want . The view as Locke broke away to beckon Nash into his mouth.
It was a sight I’d once seen in my filthiest dreams. Now, it was my reality, and desire swept through my tired body, eclipsing the aches and strains, hooked on how well Locke knew Nash too. How deep he took Nash down his throat, and how viscerally Nash reacted.
His rough moan.
His unhinged jaw.
Locke wasn’t in my lap anymore. My legs widened, the shirt I wore riding up my thighs. He noticed and found my pussy with his thick fingers, my clit with his laser-accurate thumb, and my head tipped back with a groan.
So good . And he was still so hard too.
You’re not old, honey, you’re in your prime.
And I was at his mercy. We both were—me and Nash. We’d come at him with a plan, but he’d pulled us in for the ride, and it was the easiest thing in the world to sink into it, grinding against his hand while I wrapped my fingers around his cock. Satin over steel, Locke was big . Too big for me right now, but I craved it anyway. Imagined it, pictured it. Opened my eyes to a whole new world as Nash and Locke shifted around, and I found myself guiding Locke inside Nash.
Oh holy hell. I hadn’t seen this in a while, and it was every bit as hypnotic as it had always been.
Made for each other, remember?
As if I could forget.
Locke and Nash rocked together for as long as Nash’s damaged leg held him up. Then Locke put Nash on his belly, between my legs, his mouth picking up where Locke’s fingers had left off, and Locke slid into him from behind.
Nash was less delicate than me. He took it hard, but his mouth never faltered, working me up into a frenzy that made my skin shine with sweat and my breath come in short, sharp pants, sweet relief washing over me as I came long before Nash and Locke did.
Not pregnant, I’d have hung on for more, but I didn’t want my men distracted by my wellbeing. Not when they needed this as much as I did.
I simmered down and threaded my fingers into Nash’s hair, tugging him up for air. His hooded gaze met mine, and I saw the love shining beneath the pleasure Locke drove into him, and when I lost him to it.
Watching Nash come, I loved it, especially like this. The way he gave himself up to it, any inhibitions long healed. The way he found my hands in the dark and twined his fingers with mine, like he had sixteen years ago.
Our love for Locke was newer but every bit as potent. I watched him shudder and release inside Nash, and everything was as perfect as it was going to get while we waited out the next six days.
Six days.
Nerves threatened the haze we’d cocooned ourselves in.
I shoved them away with Saint’s unspoken words wrapping around my heart.
Have faith.
Nash left the bed to clean up.
Locke checked in with my comfort, then sprawled beside me. “You two are gonna be the fuckin’ death of me.”
“I’m not sorry and you’re not dying.”
He chuckled, but he was already half asleep, so I hustled him into bed, leaving room for Nash on his other side—whether Locke knew it or not, he needed us around him tonight. Didn’t stop him taking a breath to say otherwise, but I silenced him with a kiss. “Shh. Sleep.”
No chance, not until Nash was safe beside him, but then he was gone, breathing slow and deep with one hand on me, the other entwined with Nash. My sweet boys. For a while, me and Nash stared at each other in the dark, those nerves dancing between us, battling the excitement we feared so much.
Then fatigue got the better of me and I slipped into the kind of doze that was nothing like the blissful nap I’d squished Ranger with.
Sometime later, I woke to a full bladder and a blistering Braxton Hicks contraction, tension eviscerating any post-orgasm bliss lingering in my body. Jesus Christ , if there was anything to look forward to about a looming C-section, it was kissing goodbye to these bastards.
The contraction faded, but I was awake now. Wide awake, and the need to move was irrepressible.
I cinched my knees together and swung my legs out of bed, careful not to jostle Locke, though I knew I had little chance of being up for long before he noticed. Deep sleep— safe sleep—continued to elude him, and I had to accept it probably always would.
Clutching my cumbersome belly, I slipped out of bed and crept from the room, shutting the door behind me in the faint hope that Nash dead asleep beside him might keep Locke down a little while longer.
I staggered to the bathroom I kept at my place for boys , all of them knowing better than to leave it anything but pristine. I peed. Immediately needed to pee again. Fuck my life.
Days later, I was finally done, and I shuffled to the living room, swiping my phone from the coffee table. Group chats let me know everyone was home safe, even Viktor and Ranger with Jake in tow. Even Rubi who’d been out for the count when we’d left Cam’s house, without me drawing anything rude on him or my comatose older brother.
I put the phone down. A spec of dust marred the table beside it. I blew it away, but more mess caught my eye, a streak on the window, the barest hint of a foot imprint on the rug.
It had to go, all of it. Before I knew it, I was up to my elbows in bleach, terrorising the kitchen—the counters, the fridge, the sink.
The goddamn floor .
Locke found me there, filling the doorway, tracking my every move with zero fatigue in his gaze. “Whatcha doing there, queenie?”
“Cleaning,” I snapped, irritation eclipsing any fondness for him repeating my earlier words to me. Wasn’t it fucking obvious? “It’s a shithole round here.”
“Is it?”
“ Yes .” I sloshed a cloth in the bowl, the scent of bleach so strong my eyes watered, and scrubbed another floor tile. “This whole flat needs sorting out. We don’t even have cots.”
“You want cots? We can go get them tomorrow.”
“ No .”
Locke said nothing. Just watched as I crawled forward a few inches, the hard floor harsh on my knees but worth it for the relief in my back as a false contraction seized me. A big one that had me rocking with my head bowed like a wild animal.
Six days.
Six days.
Six days.
Or was it five now?
I glanced at the window as the contraction faded. The sky was faded indigo and growing lighter.
Five days.
Fuck it. I’d survived months like this. Five more days was nothing.
Locke crouched as I found peace in that, rescuing my hands from where I’d submerged them in bleach-laden water. “I know you want everything to be perfect. If you come back to bed for a few hours, or at least kick it on the couch, I’ll help you bleach every inch of this place in the morning.”
A reasonable offer, but as the devil stirred in me again, I felt anything but reasonable.
I let him tug me, slowly, to my feet. Then I shoved his hands away. “The only way I’m parking my arse on that couch is if this kitchen is spotless first. So you can help now or fuck off back to bed.”
“Orls—”
“ What ?”
“How often are those Braxton Hicks coming?”
I glared, hating that he was looking at me the same way he had the day he’d told me I was pregnant. As if he knew my body better than I did. As if he knew more about life than I did. Hating everything from the invisible dirt on the floor to the patience he regarded me with. “I don’t want to wait until?—”
Pain cut me off.
Searing, corkscrewing pain.
I bowed to it, doubling over, clutching Locke’s arm, a flood of liquid gushing down my legs, agony swelling across my abdomen, tight and twisting, before retreating the tiniest bit. “What the—” But my words snarled again, eaten up by the pain resurging, stronger this time, driving a vicious groan from my lungs, more liquid pouring out of me. “Oh shit. Did I wet myself?”
Brilliant. Just fucking brilliant.
I waited for Locke to give me the good news, but he didn’t look down. He waited for the contraction to fade, but the respite was so brief he didn’t get the chance to speak before another was on me, lashing and lashing my belly, my back, my legs.
My knees gave out.
Locke held me up, shouting for Nash, and I heard the commotion behind me as Nash stumbled from the bedroom and snapped a light on, revealing that I’d been cleaning like a psychopath in the dark.
Unlike Locke, his eyes were thick with sleep, messy gold hair sticking up in every direction. And he was naked, a fact that seemed so distant as the gnarly band gripping my belly eased up again, a kernel of common sense returning to me.
Wet.
My thighs.
My feet.
“Did my waters break?”
By chance, I was still looking at Nash. Dazed, he glanced down and colour leeched from his face, leaving him whiter than anything I’d ever seen.
Paper.
Clouds.
Death .
My heart thudded a slowed beat, fear-fuelled calm stealing over me.
I looked down and the world stopped.
My waters hadn’t broken.
It was blood.