Chapter 58
Startled, I drew my hand back. “W-what?”
“What’s going on?” Caden demanded.
“The soda doesn’t taste right,” Kalen said, placing it on the table. “What does it taste like to you, Brighton?”
Heart jumping, I placed my damp hands against my stomach. There had to be a fist in there, clenching my insides. “I don’t know. I thought it kind of tasted like diet.”
“Like artificial sweetener?” Luce pushed from her seat, her pale eyes wide. “Maybe a little minty?”
“Yeah.” I nodded as Caden knelt beside me. “I mean, I didn’t taste mint, but…” But now that I thought about it, that could’ve been what I was tasting but couldn’t place.
“Shit.” Kalen gasped as Fabian picked up his bottle, sniffing it.
“What the hell is going on?” Ren asked as Luce hurried around the table.
“I second that question,” Caden said. “And I want to know what the fuck is happening.”
Luce slipped into the space between Ren’s and my chairs. “Are you feeling sick?” She placed her hand against my forehead. “Nauseous? Cramps?”
“I…” I found it hard to swallow. “Yes.”
Her features tightened and then smoothed out as she looked over at Caden. “I need you to get her to the infirmary.”
“What…what is happening?” I whispered as Ren rose, giving us space.
Luce didn’t answer. “Let me examine you—”
“I swear,” Caden growled, “If I have to ask one more time what is going on, no one in this room is going to like it.”
“I know you have questions, but right now, what’s important is that we get her to a place where I can monitor her.” Luce straightened, calm and collected as her gaze met mine. When she spoke next, there was a world of meaning in what she didn’t say. “I need to examine you, Brighton. Privately.”
Privately.
I looked at Caden, whose features had become stark. Privately. Understanding surfaced, and my heart kicked into overdrive.
The baby.
Panic sank its icy claws into me. I gripped the arms of the chair, and then it hit me—the strange sensation of wet warmth.
Standing abruptly, I pushed the chair back. Someone was speaking. It was Caden. His hand was on my arm, worry filling his golden eyes.
My stomach seized. There was no other warning. No stopping what came next. All I was able to do was turn away before my upper digestive system revolted. I doubled over, eyes and throat stinging as everything I’d consumed in the last day made a painful reappearance.
Caden was there, his hand on my shoulder. I tried to wave him away, but the clenching motion swept through me once more. I squeezed my eyes shut.
“I’m sorry—” I gagged.
“It’s okay, sunshine.” His voice sounded all wrong—panicked. “Luce.”
I opened my eyes and then tore my gaze away from the vomit. Staring at that wasn’t going to help. But suddenly, I was in Caden’s arms, and I was staring up at the ceiling. There were voices—shouts, and then I heard Caden.
“She’s bleeding,” he said, running his hand down my stomach and then around my back. “I don’t know from where, but she’s bleeding.”
In a daze, I saw it. It was small, just a few smudges of red, right where I’d been sitting. I knew what it was even as my legs and arms seemed to no longer be attached to my body.
Blood.
There was blood on the chair.
How much blood did it take for it to soak through clothing? I knew where that sensation of wet warmth had come from—where the blood had come from.
The baby.
Another series of cramps seized me, and I twisted in Caden’s arms, gagging.
He lifted me off the floor. I must’ve checked out because the next thing I knew, I was being laid down on a thin mattress.
Luce was at my side, my arm in her hand as another fae wrapped a blood pressure cuff around my biceps.
Caden’s face was above mine, his hand warm against my cheek as he smoothed the hair back from my face. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s going to be okay. I promise you. Everything is going to be just fine.”
But it wasn’t.
You didn’t bleed like that when you were pregnant. You didn’t have pain like this. You didn’t vomit like that.
Something was wrong—very wrong as the fae called out numbers that didn’t sound right. There was a pinch in my arm. My head lolled to the side. Luce was inserting a needle. Dark red blood filled a collection tube.
“I need activated charcoal,” Luce called out, rattling off milligrams and then fluids as hands lifted up my shirt. I jerked at the cool touch of ECG leads. There was beeping, and I thought it sounded too fast.
“Has she been poisoned?” Caden demanded, and it felt like the temperature of the room had increased. “Has someone poisoned her?”
“I’m not sure.” Luce hooked up an IV as she looked over her shoulder. “But you should pull all the drinks you got from the cafeteria, Tanner.”
“On it,” came the quick reply from somewhere in the room.
Poisoned? Oh God. Panic overshadowed the deep contractions, giving way to terror as my gaze found Luce’s. There was only one thought occupying my mind as I tried to drag in air, but the corners of my vision darkened. “Is the baby okay?”
Luce momentarily froze as she stared down at me.
“The baby?” Caden’s voice was low, barely above a whisper. “What baby?”
Blinking rapidly, Luce’s chin jerked up, and then her gaze shot back to mine. Her lips moved, but the beeping from the machines was rapid, and then darkness spread out. The room was suddenly shaking, the gurney creaking—
“She’s having a seizure,” Luce grabbed my shoulders. “No. Not the Ativan. I need—”
Whatever she said was lost in a roar and a burst of a hundred stars. The last thing I saw was Caden staring down at me in shock.
And then I saw nothing.
The first thing I became aware of was the steady beep of a machine. My head felt as if it were full of cotton balls so I focused on the sound and followed it out of the nothingness. It took a small eternity for me to open my eyes.
A light from somewhere behind me cast a soft, buttery-yellow glow over the room. I thought this was the same room I’d been brought into it, but it was…quieter. Calmer. On the small table was my iron cuff, blade disengaged.
The baby.
I moved my hand to my stomach, wincing at the pull of the IV.
I had no idea what I was feeling for. The act seemed instinctual, but it told me nothing.
Was the baby okay? My heart turned over heavily as fear hit my veins.
It was strange how quickly I’d gone from being shocked and overwhelmed by the idea of having a baby, to desperately wanting that child.
Now it could be all over—gone before I even had a chance to share the news with Caden. And how could it have survived? I had a vague memory of Kalen yelling at me to not drink any more soda. Had I been poisoned? Grief and confusion swirled through me.
“Brighton.”
Slowly, I turned my head to the left. Caden was sitting there, his chin propped on his joined hands.
He looked…terrible. His normally smooth hair looked as if he’d dragged his fingers through the strands a hundred times.
There were shadows under his eyes, and tension to the set of his lips.
A wicked sense of deja vu hit me. It wasn’t all that long ago that we’d found ourselves in a similar situation, but this time was different.
The way he looked at me was…. It wasn’t right.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
My lips felt dry as I considered his question. My stomach didn’t hurt, and I wasn’t vomiting. “Okay.” My voice was hoarse. “I think.”
He reached over, picking up a pitcher and pouring a glass of water. “You should drink this.”
I took the water, welcoming the cool rush against my scratchy throat. It helped clear some of the fog that seemed to still fill my brain. I would’ve drunk the entire cup if Caden hadn’t caught the bottom of the glass, tugging it away.
“I think that’s enough for right now.” He placed the cup on the table. “Luce warned that your stomach might be sensitive.”
“What…what happened?”
“You were poisoned.”
I tensed. The baby. “So hearing that said wasn’t a figment of my imagination?”
“No.” He sat forward, hands falling to the space between his knees. “It was done with a flower similar to Pennyroyal found in the Otherworld. Fae often use it as a powder for inflammation or bruises. We believe it was placed in the sodas.”
I tried to process what he was saying. “All of them?”
He nodded. “The rest of the drinks have been pulled and are being tested, but the ones Fabian and Kalen had, also had traces of it.”
“Are they okay?”
“They won’t be affected by such a substance.”
“Because they’re fae?”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. “Because you’re pregnant.”
I drew in a shallow breath, but it went nowhere.
“The flower, when consumed in large quantities, can cause expectant mothers to miscarry,” he continued, his voice strangely flat.
“Luce believes it affected you more because you’re mostly human, causing the vomiting and the seizure.
” He inhaled deeply. “And she believes that is also why you survived. Someone fully human wouldn’t have.
You’ll be weak for a while. You may have more seizures, but she believes that you will recover fully. ”
It connected in the back of my mind that he must’ve told Luce about the Summer Kiss, but that didn’t matter at the moment.
His features blurred as tears filled my eyes.
My brain wasn’t working right. A part of me knew that this wasn’t how I’d wanted Caden to find out.
How I’d planned on any conversation about the baby going, but I had to know.
Even though I was terrified, I had to know.
“Is the…am I still pregnant?” I whispered.
His eyes closed briefly. “The poison caused you to have contractions, which created a tear and then the bleeding. Luce was able to get the poison out of your system quickly.”
I could feel myself trembling as I tried to brace for the inevitable.