Chapter 37 – ROwan
ROWAN
Idon’t bother getting back into bed. Instead, I break all the rules, get in a car by myself, and drive to Tourin to the hospital.
I park in the garage like a normal human and make my way up and through the hospital.
They try to stop me at the entrance of the labor and delivery ward, but I simply lift my head and let the nurse see my face, and that’s all it takes.
But the pitying twist of her mouth she tries to hide tells me just how rough I look.
I walk down the hall, keeping my head low and my arms heavy. It’s quiet and dark on this end, and I don’t want to go into Bellamy’s room. That feels like an invasion. I don’t know why I’m here other than I had to leave the palace and have nowhere else to go.
I lean against the wall and sag to the floor, drawing my knees up. My forearms fall across them, and I bury my face. I can still smell her everywhere on me. Can still taste her. I thought there was good in her. I thought whatever she was there to do, she was losing faith in it. I was wrong.
I have two guards on her room, and the tracking on her phone is turned on.
Sunday is her day off, but if she’s not gone by the end of it, I’ll have her fired and thrown out.
Or thrown in jail. I can’t be stupid anymore.
I have to protect my family. No more fighting her and the curse together.
Or maybe she’s its weapon. Maybe that’s how the curse sinks its talons into me. Through her.
I must doze off because the next thing I know, there’s a scream and a flurry of footsteps and shouts. I jolt awake, my head slamming back against the wall. Dazed, I shoot up to my feet, nearly toppling over as nurses and doctors rush past me into Bellamy’s room.
Sebastian is shouting, Bellamy is screaming, and my heart takes flight.
“What’s happening?” I ask, but no one spares me a glance. There’s a team of doctors and nurses in her room. Words like placental abruption and fetal distress fly around. Things like crash C-section and propofol.
A half-second later, Bellamy is wheeled out of her room, an oxygen mask on her face, and tears all over her. Sebastian is right beside her, his expression harried. Our eyes briefly meet, but he doesn’t stop. He stays with the gurney, holding Bellamy’s hand as they run her down the hall.
I follow after them, unsure what to do, my legs shaky, barely able to keep me upright.
Fuck you! You don’t get to take them. Not any of them. They’re not yours to claim.
I pick up my pace to a run, chasing after the gurney, but I’m stopped by a hand in my face as I approach the OR.
“I’m sorry, Your Highness, you can’t go in there.”
The nurse goes to the OR, and that’s when I see Sebastian standing by the door, trying to peer in. Silently, I walk over and stand beside him, my hand on his shoulder, and my heart in my throat.
“Your Majesty, you shouldn’t be—”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he clips, and the nurse nods. He’s the king and Bellamy’s husband, and good luck trying to fight him.
She enters the OR, leaving us here alone in the hall.
“It came out of nowhere,” he mumbles. “She was asleep. The babies’ heartbeats were fine. Then her back arched and she tensed, and a second later, she screamed. It was like something went into her body and ripped her apart, and now she’s in there, and I can’t be with her. I can’t be with them.”
I hiccup a silent sob, tears tracking down my cheeks.
“They’re putting her under, and she won’t get to see them. What if she never wakes up? What if she dies on that table and she never gets to meet them?”
“She won’t,” I tell him emphatically. “That’s Bellamy on that table.”
He doesn’t reply, and I don’t blame him.
“How…” I gulp. “How far along are the twins again?”
“Thirty-one weeks. They’ll be small. One baby would be small at that age. Twins will be even smaller.”
“But they gave them steroids,” I persist, though I don’t know why. There is no comfort right now.
“They told us yesterday that they wanted at least twenty-four hours for their lungs to mature. It hasn’t been that.”
I swallow and hold still as they cut into Bellamy’s stomach. She’s unconscious on the table, a mask still on her face to help her breathing. Sebastian is shaking and turns around, putting his back to the door.
“I can’t watch them cut her. Can you…can you?”
“I’m here.”
“What are you doing here, Rowan?”
I would laugh at that question if I had an ounce of humor in me. “That’s a discussion for later.”
“Tell me now. Distract me.”
“I told Marcella I knew who she was. I told her I love her and that I was safe. I asked her to choose me because I’m a fool. She didn’t. I was inside of her and begging her, and then she left.”
“Rowan—”
“I have two armed attendants on her room, and tracking on her phone is turned on. I don’t care if it’s a violation of her employee rights or whatever. She can sue me over it.”
“Anything else?”
“Sunday is her day off. If she’s still in the palace by nightfall, I’ll have her detained.”
“If she’s not?”
“The guards will follow her from a distance, and I’ll track her like a bloodhound until I learn each of her secrets. No one will hurt us, Sebastian. Not ever again. Not even now.” I suck in a rush of air and blink twice. “Jesus, the first twin.”
He spins around and races over, his hands planted on the door.
“Coming through.” We jump out of the way as a team of doctors and nurses with two incubators come bustling in. The moment the doors swing shut again, we’re back at the glass.
“There’s the second one. Aleah.”
“What?”
He smiles, his eyes sparkling with tears. “Aleah. Our little girl. I can’t see Joseph.”
“You never told me that’s what you were going to name her, only him.”
“Joseph is for her father. Aleah is after Althea.”
A smile lights up my face. “Does she know?”
He shakes his head. “Not yet. It was going to be a surprise.”
“She’ll love that.”
“They’re working on them. They’re helping them breathe.” His breath hitches high in his throat. “My god, they’re not breathing on their own.”
The doctors are putting tubes down the twins’ throats and pumping air into their lungs while they hook them up to tubes and wires, and what the fuck?
“Rowan…”
“I know. I’m here. They’re alive, Sebastian. Look at them. Your son and daughter were just born.”
He breaks down, grabbing for me and hugging me against him. I hug him back, both of us weeping and not giving a fuck about it. It’s just us out here, somewhere in the darkest depths of the wee hours of the night.
A few minutes later, just as we’re getting our shit back together and wiping our faces, the doors open and there are the twins, tiny little things in incubators. Sebastian sucks in a rush of air.
“They’re doing okay,” the doctor tells him.
“They’re a little over one point five kilos each, and the steroids helped their lung function.
We need to keep them intubated for at least the next twenty-four hours, but then we’ll evaluate extubating to BiPAPP.
They will have trouble controlling their body temperature and functions, so we’ll do that for them. ”
Sebastian shakes his head, and the doctor chuckles.
“My apologies, Your Majesty. Your twins need a bit of help from us at the moment, and I can’t guarantee anything, but right now, for thirty-one weekers, they’re looking good, and all appears very promising.”
Sebastian blows out a strained breath, his body sagging. “What about my wife?”
“She’s in good hands, Your Majesty, and her doctor or a nurse will be out shortly to update you.”
He looks utterly lost. “Where should I go? Who should I be with?”
“Go with the twins,” I tell him. “Bellamy will hand you your ass if you don’t. I’ll stay with her, and the moment she opens her eyes, I’ll text you.”
Sebastian gives me a brief hug, slams his fist into my back, then leaves with the twins, a hand on each of their incubators.
I’m back at the window when the door practically opens in my face. I stumble back a step, and the nurse apologizes profusely.
“It’s fine. How’s my sister-in-law? How’s the queen?”
“Her placenta tore away from her uterine wall, and she lost a lot of blood. Part of her condition thinned it, so we had to give her a transfusion, and she’ll also get platelets to help.”
“All right. But she’s okay?”
“Yes, Your Highness. We’re moving her to the PACU, and she’ll be groggy and in some pain when she wakes up, but she should be just fine.”
Relief as I’ve never known shakes through me. “Can I see her?”
“Of course. I’ll bring you to her. They’re moving her now.”
I follow the nurse but send Althea a text letting her know where I am and what’s going on.
My phone informs me it’s three in the morning, so I don’t expect her to reply, even though she doesn’t have her do-not-disturb on.
I also text Gabe, asking him not to kill me for leaving on my own.
I need to talk to him more about Marcella.
I haven’t done that because she felt like mine to look into and no one else’s, but that was the possessive caveman in me talking.
Javier never found anything on Ella, and he knows the situation because he put the tracking on her face. Everyone has held back because of me, but no more.
The PACU is blindly white and startlingly empty. Nurses and aides curtsy as I pass, but I can’t remove my eyes from Bellamy. She’s as white as the walls, her chestnut hair sweaty and tangled around her, and she has deep purple bruises beneath her eyes, along with a nasal cannula in her nose.
I snap a picture of her that I’ll no doubt get hell for later from her and send it to Sebastian, letting him know what the nurse told me about her condition. She has a blanket over her lower half, her belly still large and protruding, but empty now.
I lower my forehead to the side of her bed and close my eyes.
She’s still here, and the twins are fighting.
“Your Majesty, you’re fierce,” I murmur to her.
“And you look like shit,” she whispers in English. The sound of her gravelly voice has me sitting up, laughing.
“I look like shit?” I parrot in English.
She blinks at me, her pretty blue eyes glazed, her expression sober. “Where are they?”
“Upstairs in the NICU with Sebastian.”
She starts to cry, and I run my hand over her cheek. “Don’t cry, Your Majesty. They’re doing okay. That’s what the doctor told us. They’re just over one point five kilos and—”
“Kilos? Rowan, my brain can only comprehend English right now. What is that in pounds?”
I do some quick mental math. “Somewhere above three pounds, I think.”
“So small.”
“But mighty. Like their mother.”
More tears fall. I can’t tell if she’s in pain. I imagine they gave her something for that in the OR before they cut, but I have no clue.
“I want to see them.”
“I don’t think you can yet. Let me ring your nurse—” Before the words are fully out, the curtain is drawn back, and two nurses are there.
They kick me out so they can examine her, and I text Sebastian.
He tells me to come to the NICU so we can swap places, and I head upstairs.
I’m handed a gown and mask to wear and told to scrub my hands, which I vigorously do.
Sebastian is standing over the twins, who are side by side with each other.
“Bellamy wouldn’t stand for them to be alone,” he says as if he had to explain himself.
“I’m happy to stay with them.”
“They’re so tiny, Rowan. Look at them. Tubes in their mouths and noses and through their umbilical cords. I’ve been talking to them so they hear my voice.”
“They’re hanging in there.”
“Yes,” he agrees before he looks up at me, sincerity dripping from him. “Thank you for being here.”
“I’m glad I was.”
I sit in the rocking chair by their incubators, and Sebastian leaves to be with Bellamy.
I must fall asleep once again because when I wake, it’s daylight, and the NICU is buzzing with life.
I sit up in the chair and get treated to the best sight ever, Bellamy holding one of the babies and Sebastian holding the other.
Except. “Oh fuck,” I hiss and turn away, my eyes closing.
Bellamy laughs, then whimpers. “Don’t make me laugh, Rowan. I had my stomach cut open not long ago.”
“You could have warned me you were…what the hell are you doing?”
“Pumping. I can’t feed them yet as they still have tubes in their mouths, but they encouraged me to hold the baby against my skin and pump, as it’ll help stimulate my milk production.”
“Keep your eyes off my wife’s breasts.”
I hold up a hand. “Gladly. Jesus.” I sit up a little straighter and scrub my hands up my face. “What time is it?”
“A little after six,” Sebastian tells me. He has one of the twins on his bare chest with a blanket over them. “Althea got your text, and so did Javier and Gabe.”
“Good. How are you feeling?” I ask Bellamy in English since that’s all she’s speaking right now.
“Like I’ve been cut open and had my insides ripped out of me. But I’m okay. Better now that I can hold them.”
“You’re a natural. And how are you?” I ask my brother.
“Exactly as Bellamy said.”
I nod, not the least bit shocked by that. “What can I do?”
“Go home and shower,” Bellamy teases. “You look like crap.”
I smile. “I see we’re careful with our colorful language now that we’re around the twins.”
“Yes, we are,” she asserts.
“Good luck with that, Your Majesty.”
“No making me laugh, Rowan!”
“Right.” I hold up a hand. “Sorry. Apologies.”
“Why don’t you stay a bit longer, at least through rounds, then go home? The children will have a lot of questions. And so will Gabe and Javier.”