Chapter 4 Ivy
Ivy
Iwoke, breaths coming hard as I tried to fight through the remnants of my nightmare.
All I remembered was blood and pain. The burn of a knife in my back.
The smell of blood as the crack of a whip sounded in the air.
Whimpers from shifters as they took my punishments, their cries as soldiers filled the prison…
My hand went to my belly as I struggled to sit up. Through the hazy darkness of the bedroom, I counted to ten, trying to get my breathing back in control.
I wasn’t in Dante’s prison. I wasn’t wearing the collar anymore. The marks on my back had healed, leaving only slightly raised scars as reminders.
But I was safe. We were safe.
Hands moved to my back, rubbing gentle circles over my spine.
On one side of me, Hawk sat up as he whispered through the bond, You’re okay.
We have you. On my other, Orion shifted to sit in front of me, hands cupping either side of my cheeks, guiding me through some breathing techniques I learned for my anxiety and night terrors.
It really shouldn’t be surprising that I finally escaped the horrifying nightmares that plagued me when my mates first found me, only to fall right back into them. Not even their bonds could protect me from the dark reminders of Dante and the days I’d spent trapped in his cages.
That didn’t stop them from trying, though.
“That’s it, flower,” Ry murmured, “just breathe.”
My heart rate slowed, each breath easier to suck in, no longer burning in my lungs or scraping my throat.
By the time the worst of the panic eased, I was exhausted again, but too awake to go back to sleep.
The nightmares were a mixture of pregnancy-related fears and the literal reminders of what happened, so there really was no escape from them now.
We’d been warned this would likely be the case once we settled into a new normal life.
My midwife said I shouldn’t expect it to be easy now that it was over.
In my head, I was still in fight-or-flight mode. Probably would be until after I gave birth. Fear didn’t know logic—it just knew the threat.
And the threat was alive.
Imprisoned, but alive.
I closed my eyes and leaned into Hawk, who moved to sit behind me. “Same nightmare?” he asked quietly, curling his arms around me.
I nodded once as I felt Orion drop his hands down to my thighs. “Yeah,” I murmured, flinching from the images that replayed in my head.
The sadistic smile of the creature holding the whip.
The pain demon who gloated about having abused Elias.
The female I’d trusted with my baby sisters glaring at me while standing over my mate.
I scrubbed a hand down my face before opening my eyes again. “It’s hard to forget.”
Hawk dropped a kiss to my temple. “I know.”
Sometimes, he had memory fog. Even though the snapping of our bond had brought all his stolen memories back, it’d only been a band aid in reality.
Sometimes, there were days where he looked at me and I could tell he recognised me, but not as someone he knew intimately.
It was only brief, and then it would disappear, and he’d be Hawk again.
Blythe and a few other mind witches were coming together not just to help Hawk, but others who’d been tortured in the same way. There were a lot of soldiers, and two of them had been Cato and his brother.
They hadn’t always been Dante’s followers.
At some point, they’d had other lives, and they’d forgotten it all.
The memory wipes had completely altered their minds, and they’d acclimated to the new lives Dante had curated for them.
They hadn’t been the only ones, and they still struggled with the knowledge they had pasts before Dante took them.
Orion eyed my belly before lifting his stare to meet mine. “Sleep is irrelevant, anyway.”
The corners of my lips twitched into a smile. “Sleep is for normal, functioning people.”
He shrugged, also smiling. “It’s a good thing you don’t necessarily need it. You could tap into your bond with Maeve and simply run on reserves.”
“Except,” Hawk growled, “we were told not to encourage that.”
It was true, but Orion wasn’t much for rules, anyway. Unless he knew it would explicitly harm me in any sort of way. Then he was a little better at listening to what the midwife had to say.
I huffed, shifting uncomfortably as pain flared in my hips. “Okay. Well, there’s no point trying to go back to sleep. Please help me up.”
I felt their concern through the bond, but neither fought me on it. It wasn’t their first rodeo dealing with my awful sleep schedule.
And they were about to get a rude awakening once the twins were born.
Both males got out of bed with me, though thankfully, neither joined me in the bathroom. Yay for boundaries. Now, if Maisie could understand why I needed some privacy while I peed, that would be fantastic.
When I left the bathroom, I found Hawk pulling a sweater over his head and Orion sitting on the edge of the bed.
Both looked at me when I entered the room, and through the bonds, I got the sense neither were planning on sleeping.
Part of it was concern for me; the other part knowing they wouldn’t be able to sleep without me, anyway.
Bonds were a double-edged sword sometimes, and so was trauma.
Once the pair were clothed, they guided me onto the balcony overlooking the front of the house. In the months since calling this our home, we’d set it up with comfortable patio furniture that could withstand the summer storms. Thank the Goddess for magic.
Hawk kept one arm around me as I sat, while Orion grabbed the accompanying stool for my feet. “Thank you,” I murmured, leaning back against the cushion.
“Don’t worry about it, Princess,” Hawk grunted, dropping onto a chair beside me and taking my hand as Orion took up a seat on my other side. “We have maybe an hour and a half before the sun rises.”
That was slowly becoming one of my favourite things to do here on the island; just watching the sun rise over the water in the distance as it called in a new day of peace and safety. No one to run from. No need to hide. Just us against the world.
“Have you and Kingsley finished those charms yet?” Orion asked, leaning forward and pressing his elbows into his knees. “We only have a month and a half before…” His eyes dropped to my stomach, a small smile pulling at his lips.
I released a slow breath and ran my hand over my belly.
Both twins were thankfully asleep. At least, I was pretty sure they were.
No tumbling or punching me in the lungs.
Sometimes, after an awful nightmare, they were as awake as I was.
Almost as if they could sense the internal danger and it had them in fight mode.
There was a night last month where I couldn’t seem to escape the dream, where I felt caged in, and it was a strong kick from one of the babies that finally got me out. A literal shock to the system.
“They should be done soon,” I replied. “No chance anyone will get me pregnant again.”
Beside me, Hawk snorted. “Tying it to your magic—and your magic alone—should definitely have the desired effect, then.”
I nodded, settling back as Orion rested a hand on my thigh almost possessively. “Adrian is still working out the potential kinks in the charm,” I explained quietly. “Obviously, it’s not like we can test it. But it should withstand even a meddling Seer.”
We hadn’t seen or heard anything from Sable since before the battle with Dante. Hadn’t even found her body. There was a chance she wasn’t even dead, though that might have been Rowan’s grief talking more than anything. With no sign of her, we had to wonder if she was still out there.
And because of that, the birth control charm Adrian and I were building for once the twins were born would apply strongly to my male mates—and myself—with only one way to turn it off: my magic. And it had to be a two—or ten—yes situation.
It would ensure the biological children Orion was scared to have wouldn’t happen. It would mean not accidentally getting knocked up again for me. And it didn’t put our future in the hands of anyone but our own.
Deep down, I was a planner at heart. And not being in control of this thing I knew I wanted, this thing I should have been excited about, terrified me.
At least next time, it would all be ours to plan. To discuss and work towards.
Orion gave my thigh a squeeze, offering me a small smile. “It’ll work.”
I rested my hand over his, eyes still locked on the dark sky. “I hope so.”
When the sun finally rose above the water, I felt like I could finally breathe again.
It wasn’t even five in the morning, but the balcony door opened silently, and the patter of small feet sounded behind us.
I could barely shift to take in my little sister, but she came around the sitting area and gently threw herself at me—well, more the babies.
Maisie couldn’t wait.
I’d worried—more after getting them home than before—they wouldn’t cope with an even bigger change. Bringing them home to more mates was one thing, but having them learn I was pregnant?
Yeah, we’d had no idea how they’d handle it.
But Maisie was more than just excited. She was ready to finally be a big sister, and it shouldn’t make me want to cry as much as it was.
Ginny was a little more hesitant, but the more she got to help—like with going out shopping with Maeve to secretly get baby clothes or picking stuffed animals out with Arthur—the more she opened up about her thoughts.
Eloise, to my utter shock, was happy. Then, of course, she’d state it would help keep me busy so I wouldn’t mother her too much.
Little sisters.
Maisie rubbed her cheek into my belly, splaying her fingers over my bump. “Good morning, babies,” she whispered.
I smoothed a hand over her inky dark curls, feeling the knots I’d need to gently brush out later. “How’d you sleep, nugget?”
“I had a dream about a giant sea monster,” she murmured, looking up at me with wide, blue eyes. “It had eight tentacles, blue skin, and it sparkled.”
“Must have been scary,” Hawk said from beside me.
The girls weren’t nearly as cautious around him as they used to be, and had in fact warmed up to him after a few weeks under the same roof.
It turned out, without the looming influence of Sable’s warning and hidden memories, Hawk had less of a stick up his ass and wasn’t nearly as grumpy as initially perceived.
And to all our shock, he could tell some really, really good stories.
Maisie shook her head where it still rested against my belly. “Nope, not at all.”
I frowned, glancing over at my mate, who just stared down at her with worry.
Through the bond, I could tell he was shielding some of his thoughts, probably not to stress me out, but I still prodded the bond.
They’d all been doing that more, enough so that I knew they were hiding something from me.
But I was learning not to push too much in that area.
What is it? I asked.
Hawk met my stare and shook his head. Nothing. She’s just full of surprises.
Before I could ask more, I felt a tug down another bond. You okay, Angel? Elias asked, likely from his room further down the hall. Is Maisie with you? She’s not in her bed.
I smiled. She’s with me on the balcony. Telling us all about her dream last night.
“And then,” Maisie continued, pulling back, both hands now on my stomach, “the sea monster disappeared.”
“Oh?” I raised a brow. “What happened next?”
“There was an island. Not like our island. It had lots of trees and a mountain and sand and…”
I was more than grateful to have these kinds of mornings again, especially without the added weight of something terrible coming my way. It was unbelievably peaceful, getting to spend the sunrise with my mates, listening to my sister chatter about her dreams.
And I wouldn’t change it for the world.