18. Almost Unmade #2
"Push, child," one murmured, her tone calm and practiced, like she was reciting lines from a script she'd memorized decades ago. "You must push."
Allora's chest heaved, lungs burning as she tried to drag in air that felt too thick to breathe. Her voice cracked when she spoke, desperate and breaking. "It's too early. My body isn't ready—where is Kalemon? She knows what's happening to me, she needs to be here?—"
But the door was barred.
Beyond it, the sound of fists hammering against heavy oak echoed through the chamber. Each blow reverberated in her bones, violent and desperate.
"You think your ancient rites apply here?" Kalemon's voice snarled through the gap, deep and furious as thunder. "She's not Awyan! That child is draining her life force! You've forced her into labor too early—her body can't handle this!"
Relief flooded through Allora for one precious heartbeat. Kalemon was there. She was fighting for her.
"She is not your patient," a guard's voice snapped back, cold and final. "You are forbidden from interfering, Canariae."
"You fools!" Kalemon's shout turned ragged, desperate. The sound of her shoulder slamming into the door shook the walls. "The child is fighting to protect her! It's stronger than any of you understand. If you cut her open, if you give her anything binding, you'll kill them both!"
The Awyan soldiers did not falter. Allora couldn't see them, but she could feel their presence like statues guarding the doorway. The weight of their impassivity pressed against her screams.
To them she was a vessel. Flesh to carve. Not a woman, not a person, not even a soul in torment.
Another contraction seized her, and this one was worse. So much worse. The drugs tearing through her system, forcing her body to betray her. Her nails clawed into the sheets, shredding fabric as her back arched off the bed.
A sob tore from her chest. Tears slipped hot down her temples, pooling in her ears. Her lips formed Kalemon's name again and again, a prayer that went unanswered.
The baby thrashed inside her, movements frantic and terrified. She could feel its panic like a second heartbeat pounding against her ribs, rapid and desperate. It wasn't ready either. Too small. Too early.
Then a scalpel flew off the instrument tray.
It shot across the room like it had been thrown, blade glinting in the candlelight, and embedded itself in the wall with a sharp thunk.
The midwives froze.
One of them gasped, hand flying to her throat as the scarf wrapped around her neck suddenly tightened. Her gray eyes went wide, fingers scrabbling at the fabric as it constricted, cutting off her air. She stumbled backward, choking, until another midwife rushed forward and tore the scarf loose.
They all looked around, confusion and fear flaring across their serene faces.
"What—" one began in Awyan.
Another basin rattled violently on its stand, water sloshing over the rim. The baby kicked again inside Allora, harder this time. Protective and furious.
I'm sorry, she thought, the words dissolving into pain before she could finish them. I'm so sorry. They're making me do this.
One of the midwives murmured words in Awyan too low to catch, making a warding gesture with her hand. Another retrieved the scalpel from the wall, gripping it tighter this time, her knuckles white.
They exchanged glances, uncertain now, but they did not stop.
Another cup appeared at her lips. More bitter liquid. She turned her head away violently, but hands caught her jaw, forcing her face forward.
"No more," she gasped. "Please, no more?—"
They poured it down her throat anyway. The taste clung to her tongue, coating her mouth in a thick, vile layer. Her stomach cramped instantly, the pain intensifying until it became unbearable.
Hands moved over her belly, pressing down with clinical precision. She screamed, the sound high and ragged, stripped of anything human.
They wouldn't listen because they didn't know the truth and Allora knew that if she told them they would never believe her.
Only she and Kalemon knew that the child was Awyan and that their precious Commander Talandros was its father. That its blood was ancient, royal and dangerous.
And she was surrounded by enemies.
The midwives murmured to each other in their lilting tongue, adjusting instruments with calm efficiency. One of them held a blade, the metal gleaming in the candlelight. She wiped it with a cloth soaked in something pungent, the smell making Allora's stomach heave.
"No," Allora gasped, trying to pull away, but hands held her firm. "Don't, please don't?—"
They ignored her.
Another wave of agony rolled through her body, stronger than before. Her vision whited out. She couldn't think, breathe or do anything except exist inside this endless, shattering pain that the drugs had forced upon her.
Time fractured into pieces.
Seconds felt like hours. Or maybe hours had passed and she'd lost track. The room spun. Too bright. Too hot. The steam from the basins made the air thick and suffocating, coating her throat with moisture that wouldn't swallow.
Her own sweat soaked into the sheets beneath her. The scratch of linen against her oversensitive skin felt like sandpaper dragging across raw flesh.
Kalemon's voice came again from beyond the door, quieter now. Pleading. "Please. Let me help her. You're killing her with this. Her body wasn't ready?—"
No answer.
Just the soft rustle of fabric as the midwives moved around her, preparing for the next stage.
Allora's mind splintered.
Fragments of memory bled through the pain. Her mother's voice. You're stronger than you know, baby girl. Kalemon teaching her to fight. Always protect your center. Earth. Home. The smell of coffee. Streetlights. Freedom.
All of it so far away it might as well have been fiction.
The baby kicked again, desperate and frantic. She pressed her trembling hands to her belly, trying to offer comfort she didn't have.
Stay with me, she begged silently. Just stay with me. We'll survive this.
But she didn't believe it. Her body was tearing itself apart on command, drugs forcing labor that should have come weeks from now.
Another contraction tore through her, and this time she felt a shift deep inside her body. Deep and wrong. A tearing sensation that made her whole body convulse. She screamed. Not words. Just sound. Pure and primal, stripped down to nothing but agony.
The midwives moved faster now, speaking in rapid Awyan. One of them positioned the blade.
Terror flooded through her, cold and absolute. They were going to cut her open.
Malec.
The thought arrived like a lifeline thrown into drowning water.
Malec, please. Please find me.
She hated herself for thinking it. Hated that she was praying for the one who had imprisoned her, claimed her, driven her to this. But he was the only one who could stop this. The only one who would tear through walls and cut down anyone who stood between them.
She gathered every shred of strength she had left and pushed one final desperate cry across the tether.
Not words.
Just feeling.
Pain. Fear. Anguish. Help me. Please. I'm dying.
The tether pulsed in her chest, thin and fragile as spider silk.
The blade descended. And she screamed.
Then—
BOOM.
The door jolted.
BOOM.
Wood splintered, hinges screaming against the force.
With a thunderous roar, it blew inward. Shards of oak exploded across the stone floor as the door slammed off its frame and crashed against the wall.
Malec filled the threshold like a storm made flesh.
His fist still smoked with power, the skin glowing faintly where magic had poured through him.
Rain clung to him, dripping from his soaked black leathers, his silver-blond hair plastered in wet strands against his cheekbones.
His pale tan eyes, rimmed with shadow and burning with fury, held a feral intensity.
The midwives gasped, stumbling back from the birthing bed as though the force of his presence alone had struck them.
But Malec didn't see them.
He saw her.
Allora.
His Allora.
Her body writhed against bloodstained sheets, her dark skin slick with sweat, her curls wild and damp across her face. Her belly tightened in violent spasms, her thighs trembling, streaked in blood. She was crying out, gasping, broken sounds tearing from her throat.
The tether slammed into his chest like a battering ram. Her pain flooded through him, white-hot and devastating, stealing his breath. His knees nearly buckled.
Then he saw their hands on her. Pale fingers pressing into her flesh, holding her down, positioning her like livestock.
Rage detonated.
"GET AWAY FROM HER!"
His magic erupted outward in a violent wave. Three midwives flew backward, bodies slamming into the stone walls with sickening thuds. Instruments clattered to the floor. Basins overturned, water flooding across the stones.
He moved like lightning. His hand shot out and caught one midwife by the throat, lifting her off the ground. Her sand-worn earth colored eyes widen, mouth opening in a silent scream as his fingers crushed her windpipe. Magic crackled across his knuckles, blue-white and lethal.
"You dare touch her?" His voice was a snarl, barely sane. "You DARE?"
The Awyan's face turned purple. Her hands scrabbled uselessly at his wrist.
He dropped her. She crumpled to the floor, unconscious.
Another midwife tried to back away. His hand cracked across her face, the slap echoing through the chamber. She fell hard, blood streaming from her split lip.
Malec turned on the rest of them, his entire body trembling with barely leashed violence. His hands crackled with raw power, magic sparking and hissing across his skin. His eyes blazed brilliant blue, so bright they cast shadows across the walls.
"Get the fuck away from her," he said, his voice dropping to a cold and deadly cadence, "or I will kill every single one of you."