Chapter 33
Balthazar
At the prestigious McMont College, Scarlett’s eyes widened in alarm as she watched me stagger toward Jack James like a man possessed.
I had spent weeks trying—and failing—to get close to Alina.
Now, driven by desperation, I clung to Scarlett’s suggestion like a lifeline—Get to Jack, and Alina will follow.
The sea of students parted around me, oblivious to my mission. I moved through them like a blade through water, every step sharp with purpose. My gaze locked on Jack—he was the axis around which everything turned. If I could just reach him…
Sweat beaded on my brow as pain prickled down my spine, familiar and cruel. The same torment that punished me every time I neared Alina now returned with a vengeance. My lungs tightened. My limbs trembled. It had to be him. The gray-eyed specter. That godless wraith who haunted my every move.
I growled low in my throat, and a nearby girl let out a startled shriek before skittering away.
Good. Let them fear me.
But just as Jack came into reach, blinding pain exploded in my ears. My vision fractured. My stomach twisted into knots. I doubled over, nearly retching onto the concrete.
Scarlett rushed to my side, her breath heavy, her face flushed—but her grip was iron. Despite the swell of her belly, she yanked me upright with terrifying force.
“We need to take you home,” she hissed.
I could barely stand. My legs were jelly beneath me, my body drenched in sweat. I stumbled beside her, each step a war, until we reached the safety of my home.
As soon as the door closed behind us, I collapsed to the floor, gasping, defeated, furious, and no closer to Alina than I had ever been.
Scarlett rushed to fetch water and medicine, but the pain didn’t fade. It ate at my insides, a vicious reminder of my failure, of how far Alina still was. My screams echoed through the walls, raw and animalistic, as rage and helplessness consumed me.
That charlatan Jack James—her pathetic excuse for a husband—was about as compelling as soggy toast. And yet he had her. He had her. While I lay here crippled, unable to touch her without agony.
Scarlett returned, huffing through her ninth month of pregnancy, her belly stretching farther than my patience could imagine. She handed me the pills with a sigh heavy enough to crush stone.
I took them without a word and staggered into our bedroom, collapsing onto the mattress like a fallen titan.
I yanked a pillow over my head, groaning as Scarlett moved about the room with mechanical care, closing curtains and muttering in her breezy voice.
I had no strength to bark at her. I slipped instead into unconsciousness, into a void where I chased Alina through endless darkness, my hands always inches from her throat before she vanished again.
Then it hit.
A scream—high, shrill, inhuman.
I jolted upright, breath ragged, eyes wild. “Good God, what was that?”
Scarlett stood at the dresser, clutching it like it was the last tether to her sanity. Her face was pale, contorted in pain and terror.
“Balthazar!” she shrieked, voice breaking. “The baby—the—baby’s coming!”
“What?” I blinked, still caught between dream and nightmare. “Well then, lie down! March in place—do something! At least let me wake up first!”
I threw off the sheets she’d tucked around me in her endless doting and shot to my feet, panic thundering through my chest.
My child.
It was coming.
With fumbling hands, I grabbed Scarlett’s wrists and pulled her toward the bed. “Take my spot! Lie down now!”
I pounded the silk sheets in frustration. This wasn’t how I’d imagined the arrival of my child—not in chaos and blood, not in this godforsaken century. But it was happening whether I was ready or not.
Scarlett doubled over as another contraction ripped through her, her face contorting in agony. She collapsed onto the bed, clutching her belly as if it were trying to tear itself apart.
I raced through the room, grabbing towels, blankets, anything resembling preparedness. My heart thundered in my chest. I hadn’t been there for Zara’s labors; a midwife had handled everything. I’d considered it beneath me. Now I understood what a fool I’d been.
But this… this I would make different for Scarlett. For the child she was bringing into this world for me.
Another contraction came minutes later. Scarlett cried out, sweat beading on her brow. “I need to go to the hospital,” she gasped, panic lacing her words.
“What? No!” I barked, my voice ricocheting off the walls. “You’ll have the baby here.”
“No one does that anymore!” she sobbed. “People don’t have babies at home!”
“They did for centuries,” I growled, grabbing her hand and yanking her closer. “You will do it here. This is my child—and it will be born in my house.”
Scarlett stared up at me, wide-eyed, trembling, with fear in her eyes.
“Okay,” she whispered, broken. “Okay… we’ll do it here. But what happens after, Balthazar? When the baby’s born, are you just going to toss me aside like I never mattered? Like I was nothing more than—”
Her voice broke into a scream as another contraction tore through her. She clutched my wrist, her fingers digging in deep, like she was trying to anchor herself to this world.
I gritted my teeth against the pain, jaw clenched, every muscle coiled. “Of course you matter. You’re the vessel carrying our child, aren’t you?”
The words hung in the air like poison.
Even I could hear the hollowness behind them. I tried to smile, to soften the blow, but it twisted on my face like a mask I couldn’t keep straight.
Scarlett’s eyes widened—her disbelief cutting sharper than any blade. “Vessel?” she whispered, the word like a wound.
Another contraction hit her like a wave. She gasped, voice breaking. “Please… we need a nurse. A doctor—someone.”
“I’ll deliver the baby,” I snapped, too quickly, too proud.
Her voice trembled. “Do you even know how?”
“Yes,” I lied. “I know exactly what to do.”
I had no idea what I was doing.
But this child was mine.
And I would bring it into the world with my own hands—no matter the cost.
As the hours passed, I watched Scarlett’s face contort with each contraction, her brow slick with sweat, her jaw clenched tight. She gripped my hand like a vice, her damp palm in mine. The room was suffocating—thick with the scent of blood, breath, and fear.
Then, finally, it happened.
A beam of light from the window flickered across Scarlett’s skin as she let out a guttural cry and pushed with every ounce of strength left in her battered body. I saw the crown of a tiny head, then limbs, slick and flailing, sliding into the world.
My heart thundered. Awe and terror warred inside me as I reached down and caught the child in my hands.
Around the infant’s neck shimmered a delicate chain, etched with the unmistakable insignia of the Timebound.
I forced my gaze away. Now wasn’t the time.
Because Scarlett was bleeding fast. Too fast.
“Balthazar!” she gasped, her voice barely more than a rasp. “I need a hospital. I need help now!”
Panic slammed into me.
Without a word, I summoned a storm—dark, howling, and alive. Thunder cracked as a swirling void wrapped around us and ripped us through time and space.
Scarlett screamed, cradling the baby to her chest. “What’s happening?”
“Shh.” I held her close. “It’s nothing you’ll remember.”
Wind whipped around us as we crash-landed inside a sterile hospital hallway, the fluorescent lights blinking like we’d disrupted reality itself. Scarlett clung to me, pale and weak.
“Promise me…” she whispered, her lips barely moving. “Promise me you’ll name him Tristan. After my grandfather.”
My breath hitched. “Don’t say that. You’re talking like you’re going to—”
“I might not,” she murmured. Her skin had gone ghost-white, her eyes fluttering like dying candlelight.
“No.” The word tore from my throat, clenched between my teeth. “You’re going to live, Scarlett. I won’t let death touch you. Not today.”
I insisted on following her into the emergency room, looming protectively, clutching our newborn as if sheer will could hold her to this world.
“You’re going to make it,” I said, more to myself than her. “The doctors will take good care of you.”
A nurse entered, brisk and purposeful. “Mr., uh…” She glanced at the chart in her hand.
“Call me Balthazar. That will suffice.”
She nodded quickly. “Balthazar. Would you mind waiting in the waiting room while we perform some tests and give her blood? Just protocol.”
Would I mind? Of course I did. Every instinct screamed to stay by her side.
“It’s just temporary,” she added gently. “We’ll come get you soon.”
Reluctantly, I left, the baby nestled against my chest—so small, warm, and alive.
I looked down at him, and for a fleeting moment, the world narrowed to just us.
My son. A miracle in my arms. He filled a hollow space in my heart that I hadn’t known but ached.
After so much solitude… so much loss… here he was—pure, perfect, mine.
But then, as I passed the bathroom, something stopped me cold.
The door was ajar—just slightly open.
An eye—just one—stared back at me from the shadowed slit. And then it vanished. The door clicked shut.
A chill shot up my spine.
I barely had time to process the fear before it hit—the baby’s scream, sharp and sudden, cutting through the air like a blade.
“Shhh,” I whispered, gently rocking him, trying to calm us both. But the dread was relentless, coiling tight around my ribs, whispering something was wrong.
Smoke without fire. Footsteps without sound. Danger without form.
I moved faster, clutching my son closer, every step shadowed by the certainty that something malevolent had just set its sights on us.