Seventy-Six
Varius no longer sleeps in Maddox’s room.
He sleeps in ours while I watch him.
I thought he didn’t trust me, but in truth, he doesn’t trust himself, and he didn’t want to put his stuff on my shoulders. Not because he thinks I’m weak, but because he still sees his trauma as a burden – just like I do.
So I can’t join him in the bed. I have to sit in a chair across the room, or he can’t drift off. He moves too violently while he sleeps, kicking and lashing out. I want to wake him, but the times I tried just made it worse. Instead, I’ve learned to talk to him. He never seems to wake up knowing what I’ve said, but my voice seems to soothe him enough to calm.
At first, I only read books out loud. Fantasy or sci-fi with no smut at all. Then I started to talk about easy things like Lou being annoying because she wants to drop out of art school so she can become a demon summoner for the SCU. The fucking SCU. The secret agency that governs sups on Earth and has a prison underwater that makes Alcatraz look like it’s guarded by a rent-a-fence that got pushed down ages ago by a bunch of kids. Then I bring up the idea of moving out of this house. List the pros and cons. Pros being away from the place where so much of my trauma is rooted. Cons being away from his family. I know we both need them.
Even if I haven’t been to see Maddox in a therapist role since that first time three weeks ago, I like seeing him every day as a friend. I like hearing the twins bitch about random things to each other. I like seeing Khalid with – whatever his girl’s name is. Not kira but something close. Fuck.
I make a note to ask Lou what it is the next time I see her; for some reason, I don’t think Varius remembers either.
And then I talk about my dad. About how I’m avoiding his calls because I’m not the strong assassin he could be proud of. I’m the weakling he always told me I was when he tried to toughen me up so I wouldn’t be an embarrassment.
“When I see him again, I just want us to be on equal footing,”
I murmur. I tried so hard to gain his approval when I was a kid, and although I gave that up in my teens, for some stupid reason, I’m back to wanting it.
Almost needing it.
I don’t know why, but I’m sure Maddox would have an answer. Annoyed with that, I stand. “I don’t need therapy, but I do need to fucking pee.”
I feel like I have been peeing every fifteen minutes these last few days, and there’s this weird fluttering in my belly. Given it started when I began talking to Varius rather than reading to him, I thought it was just butterflies. But now it feels like I’m passing gas all the fucking time, so maybe I should see Sau. My intestines didn’t exactly get the VIP treatment while I was away.
I snort. Then ache. Dayne would’ve laughed at that.
Avoiding looking at myself in the mirror, I think about his card with a bittersweet pain. Black font with a smiling purple flame on it and the words: I’d ask you to cremate me, but I’m already smoking hot.
Another flutter passes through my stomach, and I frown as I wash up. That felt like something moved.
Then it hits me.
Panic.
Terror.
Crippling nausea.
I try to shout for Varius, but my mouth is too dry. My throat is too tight. I yank my shirt up in front of the sink and look down at my stomach. Is that a bump? I look in the mirror, then turn to get a better angle.
It can’t be a bump.
I haven’t had sex in –
I don’t know.
I don’t know.
I lost track of the time in there.
Too many days merged together.
“Varius,”
I croak, barely loud enough for even me to hear.
I lean against the sink, trembling.
My stomach twists so tight, I throw up. My skin is flush. My head is warm. My body doesn’t feel like mine.
It’s theirs.
I want it out.
I want it out!
I want it out!
If I can feel it kicking, that means it’s older than Bambi, and the thought of that is ripping my soul apart. It can’t be older than her. I would’ve noticed. Sau would’ve noticed when she healed me on the yacht. She would’ve told me so she could check up –
My skin runs cold. She’s been checking up on me every week. A brush of the fingers here when she passes me a cup, a hand on my back there as she moves past in the hall.
“You bitch,”
I hiss. She’s taken my choice away. Just like Antonio did. She’s been using me as an incubator to get her damn grandkids.
Fear tightens around my neck as I wonder if it’s even Varius’. I try to remember if Eduardo managed to rape me while Antonio was gone or if Antonio did it while I slept. Or maybe it is Sadist’s. Some Vs keep sperm tucked away to be used later; others allow you to get pregnant while you’re already pregnant.
So maybe it’s Bear’s.
I’m sick at that thought, throwing up in the sink. The smell of it reminds me of too many nights with Sadist, and I heave again. Panic claws its way across my mind. I can’t have conceived another monster. Another thing. And not on that night where I pretended to be a child to get a pedophile off just to score some V.
And even as I hate it, my body still craves the potion that smells of pomegranates and chocolate.
What is wrong with me?
Why can’t I stop even knowing what harm it brings?
What pain?
I have to get it out of me.
I need to get it out.
Get it out.
Get it out.
Get it out!
Dragging myself along the edge of the sink, I reach for the cabinet to the right of it. I open the door and quickly find the knife Varius keeps in here. He has them stashed everywhere around the house. Guns too. And wands now.
But a wand isn’t going to help me. I’m not a healer, don’t know much about the human body.
But I know this thing needs a womb, and I don’t want it in me anymore. I lost the chance for kids when I lost Bambi. I can’t go through this again. Can’t let some fucking disease experience all the milestones she should have had
I step into the bathtub and tear off my shirt. My hands shake, so I take a deep breath, readying myself for the pain. I’m not going to have long before the shock kicks in and makes me pass out, but it will only take half a second to cut my belly open if I don’t hesitate. Then another second to push my hand inside, grab it, and rip it out.
Tears clog my throat as I think about Antonio doing this to me. I force the memories to rise, visualize where he hit me to rip Bambi away.
Fuck.
I don’t want to do this.
I don’t want to do this alone.
I want Dayne here.
He would’ve helped me. He would’ve made this safe and bearable, and he would’ve been there for me after as I fell apart on his shoulder.
I press a hand to my stomach, feeling the damn thing kick.
What if it’s Varius’ though?
What if it’s a new start?
I tremble.
Fight back the urge to sob. To think about that.
Because that would be worse than it being Bear’s.
I don’t want just any baby of ours. I want Bambi, and this isn’t her.
I can’t be a mother to this thing.
I can’t.
If it’s Bear’s, at least I’ll be happy killing it. But if it’s his…
It can’t be.
It can’t.
Moving in a panic, I slice a line across my belly, drop the knife, and then push my hand inside. The agony is fucking insane. My heart rate is screaming at me. My blood pressure is dropping. I’m losing consciousness faster than I expected.
I dig my hand around, trying to remember where he hit me. Where he pulled out all my hopes and dreams.
And then I find it.
The thing kicks against me as if it’s trying to get me to stop. As if it’s fighting for its life.
Tears in my eyes, I grab hold of the sac and start to rip it out.
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry.
I just can’t be a mother to you.
I wake up to the smell of blood.
The Craving hits me hard, demanding and needy, and I stumble out of bed as my fangs ache with a desire to feed. It starts to take over me, but I know that smell. I know that person, and so I fight it back.
My wife is hurt.
She needs me.
I shout for Mother as I race into the bathroom, following my nose and heart and the wild panic inside of me. That’s a lot of blood I can smell.
I bang into the door, smashing it in even though a simple twist of the knob would’ve done. Seeing her in the bathtub, passed out and pale, I scream for Mother again as I turn to grab the healing wand out of one of the cupboards.
The door to my room opens before I can even get it out. Mother enters, her heartbeat high from cardio, having taken the stairs multiple at a time. Her stress factors are low. She’s in full healer mode. “Don’t get in my way,” she says.
She kneels down beside the tub, and I sag against the sink. The smell of vomit assaults my nose, and I turn to clean it up, to do something helpful, regardless of how small of a help it is.
“Tell me she’s going to be okay,”
I croak as I spill water across the sink.
“What’s going –”
I turn towards Maddox as he and my other brothers come skidding into the room, crowding the bathroom door. Lou tries to push through, but my youngest brother pivots on his feet and tackles her back past Enoch and Khalid.
“You don’t need to see this,”
I hear him murmur.
“That’s my sister!”
she screeches.
“Calm down,”
he says. “She needs to concentrate.”
“Sau!”
I snap. Or perhaps it’s more of a plea. A ripping of the soul out through my teeth.
“Khalid,”
she says, not answering me. “Come here. I need your blood. Enoch, call Aleric.”
Enoch doesn’t even groan this time. He just pulls out his phone and steps back to call him. Khalid moves forward and holds out his arm.
“How is she?”
I demand, even though I already know it’s serious. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be calling the person she hates the most.
She picks up the knife Micha used to cut herself and slashes it sideways across Khalid’s palm. She makes another cut on Micha’s shoulder. Knowing what to do without being told, he presses his hand to her wound, and Mother uses her magic to tie their blood vessels together. Thankfully, he’s a universal donor; if he wasn’t, she’d have to use her magic to constantly fight Micha’s rejection of his blood, and she’s already low on energy.
Too close to developing loka.
But I can’t think about that right now. Can’t weigh the risk of losing my mother to save my wife.
“I can’t lose her,”
I rasp as I lean against the bathroom sink, my heart falling down the drain.
“Even at the risk of the child?”
she asks. “He’s yours.”
A boy.
My boy.
I want to scream. Love and guilt, hope and shame, joy and grief – they all battle it out inside of me at hearing the news from the first time. That I’m a father, and I have a son.
But I had a wife first. My wife.
“She lives,” I rasp.
“She won’t be able to conceive another,”
she says. “There has been too much damage this past year, and even I can’t fix it.”
Those words slam into me. Shove me against a wall, and shake me. I clench my fists as the rage pummels into me. Then I spit out my answer – the only fucking answer there will ever be.
“I don’t care if you have to sacrifice the child in a fucking ritual, Mother. She lives.”
Gods, just let her live.