by Skye Horn
“Why are you here, really?”
Kieran pushed at her restraints pointlessly. For once, she had control, even as she felt the blood trickling from her nose. She wasn’t balancing the power. She was only using the darkness. Only fueling her anger.
“You don’t look well,” Kieran said, eyeing her. She quickly wiped the blood away from her face.
“Trust me, I’m fine.”
“You should watch the amount of energy you use in your condition,” he said, looking concerned for the first time.
Thea tilted her head at him.
“Excuse me?”
His eyes searched hers and she felt them probing her mind, but she did everything in her power to block him out. That was something else she’d gotten better at.
“You don’t know…” he said, and for the first time, Thea saw emotion flash across his face.
“Thea, please let me through!” Adrian screamed, and Kieran’s eyes shifted over Thea to where Adrian stood with his sword drawn again.
“He’s an annoying one,” Kieran said slowly.
“I don’t know what?” Thea asked, ignoring Adrian.
And then Kieran said the one thing that Thea hadn’t expected, had never even dreamed of.
“You’re with child—my child.”
Chapter 15
No matter how hard Adrian fought, he couldn’t get to Thea. It hadn’t dawned on him that Kieran might know that Thea was pregnant, but when the words left the other man’s mouth he saw the magic fade out of Thea instantaneously. Suddenly, the restraints on Kieran were gone and he grabbed Thea as she stumbled backward.
“No!” Adrian screamed, but Thea wasn’t completely distracted. At Kieran’s touch, she lashed out, pulling a dagger from her cloak that Adrian had not even known she had and slicing it into Kieran’s side in the soft spot between the armor plating.
It was not enough to kill Kieran, but Adrian didn’t imagine that had been Thea’s intention. Instead, the barrier between them snapped away and Kieran gripped his side with a growl of pain. Adrian immediately lunged at Kieran, throwing the best punch of his life directly at the right side of Kieran’s face as Thea dropped her bloodied dagger and crumbled to her knees. Tears were streaming down her face as she stared at Kieran’s falling body. Adrian had caught him just in time to knock him unconscious, but who knew how long that would last?
“Thea—” he said, turning to her. Her hands were against her stomach, eyes wide with confusion and anger.
“That’s not possible,” she said, more to herself than to him. He wanted to help her off the ground and get her to the safety of the castle. Who knew how long Kieran would be out? He needed to get him to the dungeons before they lost their chance, but Thea didn’t look in any condition to move.
“Thea...” Adrian repeated, reaching for her. She flinched away.
“Tell me it’s impossible,” she said, looking up desperately. “I would know! I’d be able to tell…”
“Fae pregnancies are different…” Adrian said cautiously, realizing that he would never gain her trust again if she figured out he’d lied to her. But now that she knew about it, shouldn’t he tell her that using magic was affecting her baby’s chances of survival? She looked so young, and so scared. His anger disappeared and he saw his sister before him, or his mother. How could he have been so selfish?
Tears streamed down her face as she looked toward Kieran’s body, and Adrian could see her putting the pieces together, realizing she was alone in this pregnancy with the baby of a man she had once loved with every ounce of her soul. How could he tell her the truth now?
Instead of spilling his dark secret, he knelt in front of her and said, “You’re going to be okay. I’m going to take you to Haven.”
At Haven’s name she nodded, tearing her eyes away from Kieran.
“What are you going to do with him?” she choked out.
“I’m going to take him to the dungeons where we can question him about Ainé.”
“Won’t he break out?”
“We have our ways of dulling his magic.”
She nodded, as if not knowing anything else to say, and he lifted her slowly to her feet.
“How did I not know?” she asked again to herself. “How did he know?”
Adrian didn’t respond, not trusting himself. He needed to tell Morrigan what had happened. He needed to get Thea to safety. And he needed to deal with the suffocating guilt.
“Can you secure him until I get back?” Adrian said to her, nodding toward Kieran.
Thea nodded slowly and closed her eyes. He watched as the roots of the ground beneath Kieran reached out of the ground and wrapped around his limbs, binding him.
“You can cut them away,” she said quietly, looking back toward the ground as Adrian supported her weight and began leading her away. “Why are you being nice to me again?”
Her question made him hesitate. It seemed every time he convinced her he hated her something happened to make her see the truth, but he didn’t answer this time. He didn’t know what would come next, but he was sure if she found out the truth—when she found out the truth—she would hate him forever.
It surprised him how much that hurt.
“I need to get you back to the castle,” he said and quickened their pace down the path. “And to make sure the trainees are safe.”
She nodded, seeming to understand, and allowed him to lead her. She still had a hand pressed to her stomach as they walked, and he wondered what thoughts were racing through her mind. Was she happy to know she carried the child, even if she had lost the man she loved forever? Did it terrify her? He remembered the many emotions his mother had felt when she’d been pregnant with his sister. His father had been at war at that time. He’d never come home to meet his daughter. Was this similar?
Adrian couldn’t ask any of these questions. He had no right to ask them. And yet, he still wondered.
As they reached the castle, Thea stopped and turned to look at Adrian. He knew part of the tear stains on her cheeks were his fault and wanted to apologize, but it was too late for apologies. It was too late for a lot of things, he realized.
“Do you think Morrigan knows?” Thea’s voice was a whisper. He knew she was worried about spies, but apparently she trusted him enough to not tell the Goddess of her suspicions. He wished he deserved that trust. “If Kieran knows… Ainé must know… and if Ainé knows—”
“Thea, you need to rest. You’ve been through a lot.” Adrian kept his voice as stable as possible, but he saw her searching his expression so carefully that he thought she’d see right through his lies.
“I’ll be fine from here…” she said finally, seeming satisfied that he knew nothing. He felt himself exhale in relief as she slipped through the castle gates. “Go deal with him before he wakes up.”
The way she said “deal with him” made Adrian think Thea didn’t want to know what would happen to Kieran, and yet, her eyes gave away her worry. Despite everything this man had done to her, she still loved him—still cared. Adrian didn’t know why that bothered him. He knew it wasn’t Kieran’s fault that he did the things he did, at least, not fully. However, part of him had enjoyed Thea looking at him with that same concern.
You have to stop, he told himself, pushing the feelings away. She would never forgive him once the truth came out, and eventually, it would.
“I’m trusting you to not run off,” Adrian said, trying to lighten his tone with their usual banter, but the words were empty and Thea didn’t smile.
“I’ll see you later, Adrian,” she said with a frown as she turned toward the castle. He watched until she was gone, knowing without a doubt that she would return to her chamber where Haven would comfort her. Her whole world had just tipped on its axis, and all he wanted to do was stand by her side, but he couldn’t. He had duties to attend to—duties that included getting information out of the father of her child.
“I’m so sorry,” he said after she was long gone, and then turned
to attend to the duties that kept him from what he told himself he didn’t want to do anyway.
The walk back to her bed chamber felt longer than usual, but eventually, Thea arrived, hesitating at the door.
What was she going to do?
She knew that she needed to tell Haven what had happened. Her friend would understand. She’d know what the right thing to say was. Maybe she’d even help Thea understand what was happening.
But if she said the words out loud, then they’d be true, wouldn’t they? And then what would she do? She couldn’t be pregnant. She was preparing for war. If she carried a child, how could she take that child to war?
She stroked her fingers over her stomach, wondering if it would look like him. She’d left her dagger at the cliffs and hoped that Adrian would return it to her the next time she saw him, but the memory of Kieran’s face when she’d stabbed him made her stomach twist into knots.
Feeling as if she might be sick, she rushed into her chamber to find Haven with her head bent over a book at the desk.
As soon as she walked in, Haven jumped up in surprise.
“You’re back early!” she said, but her smile faltered when she saw Thea’s face. The door clicked shut behind Thea as she rushed to the empty bucket that she used for trash in the corner of the room and slumped over it, heaving every bit of food she’d eaten that day into it.
Haven immediately came to pull Thea’s hair away from her face, maneuvering herself skillfully around Thea’s wings to rub her upper back gently.
Thea’s heaving was mixed with uncontrollable sobs. She didn’t want to break down in front of Haven. She didn’t want to be sick. She just wanted to curl up and forget that today had even happened. Everything she’d been feeling after her fight with Adrian felt heightened, and then seeing Kieran had thrown her over the edge. He looked the same as he did in her nightmares, like a warrior angel coming to strike her down. The problem was, every feeling she’d had for him had returned in an instant of seeing him. Soul bond or not, she loved him. Soulless or not, she cared about his wellbeing. And yet, she’d stabbed him to escape those feelings. She had needed to let Adrian in so that they could find out information about Ainé’s plans. If they had Kieran, her top soldier, they had a chance.
But he was supposedly the father of her child.
If she was pregnant, there was no doubt it was his baby, even if she still didn’t understand how nearly nine months after they’d been together she didn’t know she was pregnant. Adrian had mentioned things were different for Fae, but how different exactly could they be that a mother wouldn’t even know she carried a child?
Of course, she’d heard stories of this happening, even to humans, but to her? With Kieran’s child?
She heaved again, although this time there was nothing to release.
Her heart raced against her chest as she finally pulled herself back into a sitting position and met Haven’s concerned gaze.
The other girl didn’t say a word, waiting for Thea to be ready to speak, as she usually did.
“Kieran crashed training…” Thea said slowly, watching Haven’s eyes widen in surprised concern. “And I... I stabbed…”
She broke into another fit of sobs and Haven pulled her into a tight embrace, steadying her shaking shoulders.
“Shh,” Haven said, resting her cheek against the top of Thea’s head. “Tell me slowly what happened. Are you okay?”
Thea shook her head no, and Haven began examining her for injury immediately. When her hands grazed over Thea’s stomach she curled in on herself hiding herself from Haven.
“Thea,” she said slowly. “What happened?”
“Adrian is taking him to the dungeons. I didn’t kill him. I couldn’t kill him.”
Thea’s words were rushed. Haven reached out to brush away the hair that was stuck to her lips.
“Of course you couldn’t.” Haven’s words were not cruel, but understanding. “No one expects you to kill him.”
“I do!” Thea gasped at the intensity of her own words. “He’s a monster now. He killed Ethel! How can I let him live like this? He wouldn’t want to live like this, Haven.”
Haven watched her with growing concern, but Thea didn’t even pause to breathe. The words were bubbling out of her, unable to be contained.
“He said I’m with child.”
“What??” Haven looked more shocked than Thea had ever seen her. She wondered if that was how she’d looked when Kieran said it, and imagined she’d looked even more surprised.
“Adrian said it’s possible—”
“Well, of course it’s possible, but how would Kieran even know that?” Haven looked skeptical, but the words “of course it’s possible” echoed through Thea’s head.
Kieran hadn’t been lying. Even without a soul, she could tell when he was telling the truth. She’d seen the concern in his eyes as she used dark magic and she’d thought that concern had been for her, but was it possible his concern was for their baby? She swallowed that thought with difficulty, because if he didn’t care about her or Ethel, how could he care about his baby?
A loophole.
She hadn’t wanted to hear her conscience anymore—not since Ethel’s death—but now it chimed in to remind her that she’d wanted to save Kieran from this fate. What if this baby was the key? And if Kieran was worried about the magic harming the baby and Morrigan knew…
Anger flared inside her so strong that she shot to her feet.
Haven immediately jumped up. “Wait, where are you going?” She reached to grab Thea by the arm.
“I’m going to find out the truth.”
“What do you mean?”
“Kieran knew I was pregnant!” Thea tore her arm out of Haven’s grip. “Kieran knew, and I didn’t. I need to know who else knows.”
“You actually believe him?”
Thea hesitated and then nodded. “He wasn’t lying, Haven. I’ve known something was happening to me for weeks, but I just kept blaming the excess magic. What if it was this? What if this baby is why I’m losing control, not the Goddesses?”
“I suppose that’s possible… but what do you mean by ‘the truth’?”
“I mean that Kieran had to have found out from someone—and I can only think of one person who would know something like that: Ainé.”
“You cannot see Ainé!” Haven looked panicked, but Thea immediately shook her head.
“If Ainé knows something like that about me without even seeing me, how likely is it that Morrigan doesn’t know?”
The anger was sharp in Thea’s voice, and Haven’s face finally registered understanding.
“I’m coming with you,” she said quickly, and Thea didn’t argue. Instead, she pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders and headed for the door, wiping her mouth in the process. She felt disgusting for getting sick, but she wasn’t about to waste any more time with this madness. She was so tired of being lied to, of being toyed with constantly.
She was not a pawn to be controlled by either Goddess, and one of them was about to get that message.
It took asking multiple servants, but eventually Thea and Haven found out where Morrigan was—in a meeting with the king and the head guards regarding the first move their army would make against Ainé, a meeting Thea unsurprisingly hadn’t been invited to. It infuriated her even further to find out they were making plans without her, but what else could she expect? They hadn’t trusted her a single moment since arriving.
When they reached the wing of the castle where the servants had told a frighteningly persuasive Haven that Morrigan was, Thea pushed through the doors without announcement, interrupting one of the guards who stood at a long table of individuals Thea didn’t recognize.
He stopped speaking immediately, looking toward her with pure annoyance, but her eyes moved right past him toward the end of the table where Morrigan and King Rayan sat. The king’s eyes looked like they might bulge out of his head and a dark shade of crimson crept up his neck into his f
ace as he began to stand. Morrigan looked passive at the intrusion, but placed her hand on the king’s arm to silence his upcoming outburst.
“Queen Thea,” the Goddess said, sounding bored. “I do not recall inviting you to this meeting.”
“Obviously,” Thea spat, anger bubbling to the surface. Haven placed a hand on her shoulder to steady her, but seeing Morrigan with that bored, all-knowing look sent her spiraling. Thea shook out of Haven’s grip and strode toward the end of the table opposite to the Goddess and king. The two guards who sat there nearly toppled over as a gust of wind erupted from Thea. They scurried out of the way and Morrigan lifted an eyebrow at Thea’s outburst.
The king jumped to his feet, ripping out of Morrigan’s grip, and screamed, “How dare you!”
But Thea slammed her hands into the table, sending a shockwave through the wood into the ground beneath it and knocking the king immediately from his feet back into his chair.
“ARREST HER!” he screeched as his guards reached for their swords, but Thea was prepared and Haven had her sword drawn, standing protectively at her side.
“What is it that you are so angry about?” Morrigan asked, not bothering to stand. However, Thea noticed immediately that her fingers were curled into the arms of the chair she sat in and her eyes glowed with the danger that lurked beyond.
It was stupid to attack, Thea knew that, and yet, she didn’t care.
“Thea!” someone rushed into the room just as Thea was about to respond—Adrian. He’d apparently returned from retrieving Kieran and she wondered how he’d found out so quickly where she’d gone, but perhaps he’d known all along what she would do next. He’d been paying attention well enough.
“Not now, Adrian,” Haven growled at him, standing between Thea and Adrian protectively. She didn’t fear he would attack her, not after everything he’d done to make sure she was safe, but she was thankful for Haven regardless. This was between her and Morrigan.