by Renee George
His strong arms wrapped around her waist while she kicked and struck out at the air. He pulled her to the ground, both arms holding hers in place. As she squirmed to get out of his embrace, he looped his legs over Benie’s and locked them in place.
“No,” she roared. “No!”
The door opened, Ian, looking startled, gazed down at both of them. “What’s going on here?”
Ian’s presence helped Benie’s mind to clear.
“Get out,” Trace said, and Benie felt his muscles tighten like a coiled rubber band. “This is between Benie and me.”
Wheezes escaped Benie, along with the rage, in heavy exhalations. Ian raised a brow.
“Go, Ian.” It pained Benie to say it. Ian was her comfort, but if she was ever to get through to Trace, she’d have to do it alone. She closed her eyes as Ian stepped out, mostly to keep herself from begging him to come back. She waited until she heard the click of the closing latch.
She turned in Trace’s arms when he loosened his grip. She wanted to touch him, to run her hands over all his tightly bound muscles, but she resisted the impulse. “You’ve already left on an emotional level. Would you leave me physically? Would you really leave me alone?”
He wouldn’t make eye contact. Instead he stared at a space beyond Benie’s shoulder. “You have Ian. You won’t be alone.”
“I need Ian, true. But I need you too. You’re just as important to me.”
“Am I? I don’t think you can honestly say so.”
“You think I don’t want you, care for you, as much as I do Ian?” She’d attributed his personal distance strictly to the torture. It hadn’t dawned on her it could be something else altogether. “Is that why you avoid being alone with me?”
“You didn’t answer me.”
“Trace.” Benie touched his chin. “Look at me. I want you to believe me when I answer. You can’t do that unless you see me. Really see me.”
He met her eyes and blinked. It felt to Benie more like a flinch.
She held his gaze. “You’re not going to believe anything that comes out of my mouth. So take a peek inside my mind. The one place no one can lie to you.” Benie had given Trace permission to her inner most world. She opened her heart and let the emotions overwhelm her thoughts.
The hard lines around Trace’s eyes softened. “It’s too late for me, Benie.” His voice had lost its edge. “I have these thoughts... I can’t control.”
“I don’t care.”
“Neither do I.” He shrugged. “That’s the problem.”
He was doing his damnedest to push her away. She’d be fucked if she’d let him.
She leaned in and kissed him. “Care now?”
Trace shook his head. Benie licked the tip of his nose. “How about now?”
He chuckled, albeit reluctantly. “Stop,” Trace said.
“You have such a lovely laugh.” A glimmer of happiness? Maybe. Truth be told, Benie missed the joy that occasionally graced her life before she found out she had an alternate destiny.
The smile on his face faded. “Benie. It’s too hard.”
“I know.” She put her hand on his stiffening erection and smiled. “I can feel it.”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”
“Trace, I don’t know anything. That’s the problem. Tell me what you need from me, and I’ll do it. If you want me to crawl around on all fours, bark like a dog, lick your toes… anything, just ask.”
Trace smirked, and a spark of his humor returned. “Barking like a dog might be a start.”
“Ruff.”
“Kidding.”
“I know.”
His expression grew dark with memory. “It was awful.”
“I know. It kills me when I think about all the pain you went through. How bad my father hurt you.”
“I could have taken the pain, but... It hurts too much to think about it.”
“If not the pain of torture, than what?”
Trace looked away, covering his right brow with his hand. Shame. “I spent every day listening to Garrick’s deranged mind, and it was like a disease inside my head.” He met her gaze. “I’m not the same person you met and fell for. I’m not. And I don’t know if I can ever be him again.”
“You’re still you, Trace.” She stroked his hair. “You’re still here with me.”
He snarled. “Do you know how many times I’ve had to stop myself from tearing Ian apart? How many times I’ve wanted to shift into my wolf to hunt and kill? I am not the same man. Yes, I’m here. Barely. I’m here because you need me. I’m here because you’re my mate, and you’re carrying my child. But Marta and Dar were Garrick’s mates and look what he did to them.” He poked a finger to his temple. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You are not Garrick.” Benie pulled Trace’s face toward her and placed a gentle kiss on his lips. “His thoughts are not your thoughts. He is evil, Trace. Pure and simple. That will never be you.”
“I wish that were true…” His expression was so bleak as he turned away that it broke her heart.
“Look at me, Trace,” Benie insisted. She wanted to add, “Don’t make me hurt you,” but under the circumstances, maybe it wasn’t so funny.
When he turned back his face seemed gaunt, eyes a little sunken, like a man who’d spent too many days in the desert without water. And then he showed her. Not everything, but glimpses of what Garrick’s thoughts had been like, what lived in the insanity the mad king called a conscience.
Trace’s hands went to his ears. He began to rock back and forth. “I can’t... No more...”
“Trace?” She wrapped her arms around him. “You saved me every day. You protected me from Garrick. All the pain, all the mental and physical games my father played. He’d poisoned you every day, and still, you protected me. You didn’t tell him where I was. You could have ended all the pain they inflicted on you, if you’d just given me up, but you didn’t. You held strong. You were brave. Braver than I might have been. You protected me. A man who would do that is a man who would never harm the people given to his care.” She kissed him soundly, inhaling the heady scent of his musk. “You would never harm me.”
Chapter Sixteen
Trace held Benie on his lap as she stared down into his eyes. The missing piece, it no longer felt missing. The void inside no longer empty. “I will never hurt you, Benie.”
“I know,” she said. Her green eyes, electric, fantastic, held his face in view.
He smiled.
“Oh my God, Trace.”
“What?” he asked.
“Your smile.” She kissed him. “It went to your eyes. It actually went to your eyes. Your lovely, brown eyes.”
I love you, he projected into her mind.
I love you too.
Trace heard her thought loud and clear. He’d built so many walls around his telepathy, he’d forgotten how good it felt to be inside her mind. He wrapped his arms around her back. Lacing his fingers in her thick, red hair, Trace plunged his tongue between Benie’s lips, his cock painfully swollen and mashed against her stomach.
Yes! Benie’s mind rang out as Trace pulled her close enough that they could share the same skin. Her hand slipped between them, and her fingertips brushed across the tip of his cock smearing the slick of pre-come. She brought it to her mouth, and he leaned back from the kiss to watch as she slipped her finger between her lips.
“Mmm,” she hummed. “So good.”
Her lips mashed against his once more with fired passion. The combination of saliva and his own secretions heated Trace’s appetite to boiling. He hadn’t come earlier when they’d been on the couch, and now he felt like he’d explode any second. “God, I want you. I want you so bad I ache.”
Nips and bites flitted along his throat, chest, abdomen, as Benie worked her lower body over Trace’s erection. He froze, afraid to move, afraid not to move. Air whooshed from him when she seated herself on his cock. A throaty hum of delight escaped from Benie as she rocked
her body over his rigid shaft, milking the length with her tight, slick sex. Trace growled with a passion he hadn’t allowed himself to feel for a very long time.
Benie’s mouth met his, a fresh, hungry desire filling her eyes. Her mind was open to him, and he knew she wanted to weep her joy at being in Trace’s arms.
Every stroke of his cock inside drew heat to his groin. He let her in to his mind as he joined with hers so they could share in their mutual pleasure. The strain on her engorged clit felt wonderful and painful at the same time. He lifted her from the floor and flipped her onto her back. He pushed her knees up so he could angle himself deeper and thrust harder. She bit her lip, keeping her gaze fixed on him, a difficult task, he knew, with every plunge of his rigid length, and he was relentless.
“Yes, yes,” she mumbled, along with other grunts and moans of pleasure. “Shit.” Her eyes started to droop. He gave her hair a sharp tug, because he liked the way the small pain brought her pleasure to a bright point. “Shit, this feels so good.”
“Say my name,” he rasped, his thrusts solid and deep. “Say my name and make it real.”
“Yes,” she cried out as her back bowed. “Trace!”
He opened himself to the sensation of her orgasm as wave of spasms wracked her and a frenzied euphoria danced through her body. Grinding herself onto him, she milked his cock for every ounce of pleasure, riding the ecstasy as Trace’s orgasm tore through him and a roar ripped from his throat. He held her tightly, almost vise-like, until the last of his climax ebbed, and he softened inside her.
They held each other for a long moment, neither of them saying a word, just pure, unadulterated and silent happiness.
The door opened.
Benie and Trace looked up, Trace feeling just a smidgen of guilt.
Ian brushed his fingers through his curly locks and pursed his lips. “Glad to see nobody’s dead.” He closed the door behind him.
Trace and Benie turned back to each other. Trace was the first to sputter then laugh. Benie followed soon after. It was like air had been vented into a vacuum and, for the first time in a long time, he could breathe easily. He felt good, and he wanted the feeling to last forever.
Chapter Seventeen
“Interesting.” Helen Downing, midwife extraordinaire, well versed in other reproduction, tapped her lower lip with the bell end of her stethoscope. Benie was four months into her pregnancy now, and the midwife had insisted she get an ultrasound. Especially since her frequent bouts of fever when Trace and Ian weren’t near kept reoccurring. But getting an ultrasound meant Benie had to leave the safe house and go to the midwife’s office. It was the first time she’d been out in the world in two months. She’d jumped at the chance.
Helen the midwife had a round face with gray hair and gray eyes, which made her pale, nearly white skin almost pasty-looking. Needless to say, she gave Benie the jitters. It was hard to trust someone who didn’t register on the color scale. But Helen had been attentive and kind, and Benie felt a little bad for judging her based on appearance alone.
Ty Wasape and Eustan waited out in the hall at Gray’s insistence that they take extra security. As Benie’s pregnancy developed, he worried Garrick would grow desperate in his plan to get rid of her.
Benie suffered through the cold gel and the even colder roller ball Helen pressed into her stomach without even the hint of a sigh.
The midwife’s eyes narrowed at she looked at the screen just out of Benie’s view.
“Interesting,” Helen said.
Trace and Ian stood beside her, looking at the ultrasound picture as if it were some ancient text no one could decipher.
“Interesting?” Benie rubbed her slightly bulging tummy. The cold gel for the ultrasound was still tacky to the touch. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
The midwife blinked rapidly and worried her lower lip. “Not sure.”
“Is there something wrong with the baby?” As if cued, a fluttering movement tickled her abdomen.
Benie’s lovers said nothing, and there was more blinking from the midwife.
“Is there some kind of weird abnormality?” Benie groaned and closed her eyes. “Please don’t tell me it has two heads.” She was only partially joking. The way they were all looking worried her.
“Sorta.”
“Holy shit! I have a two-headed baby?”
“Not exactly.” The midwife pulled the ultrasound monitor into Benie’s line of sight. “You have a triple uterus.”
“A what?”
“Triple uterus. It’s like you have three uteruses in one. Sort of looks like a fleur de lis. But that’s not the unusual part…”
Irritated, Benie yanked her gown down and sat up. “Of course, having three wombs isn’t unusual enough. There has to be more.”
“I don’t know how to tell you this, but you have two fetuses.”
“Twins?” The room started spinning. “I feel sick.”
“Not twins. I’d say the fetus in the middle is about four months, while the one on the right is approximately two months.”
Covering her eyes, Benie lay back on the exam table. “This is not happening.”
“I recommend we terminate the younger fetus.”
“Well, I recommend you stop calling it a fetus.” Benie sat up again. Her balled fists clenched and unclenched. She narrowed her eyes at Helen. “It sounds like you’re talking about a pickled pig ready for dissection. Get the fuck out of here before I figure out the most efficient way to terminate your stupid ass.”
The midwife took several steps back, but didn’t leave the room. “But your majesty, terminating the second fet… baby may be the only way to make certain the heir conceived of the Triune will survive.”
Up until this point, Ian and Trace had been smart enough to keep their mouths shut, but now they were gaping. “Two kids?” Trace asked.
Ian leaned forward, examining the ultrasound picture again. “If the second isn’t part of the Triune, does that mean it has only one father?”
Trace and Benie both turned to stare at him.
“Either way, I think we should consider Helen’s recommendation.”
“Oh, shut up, Ian!” There was no way she’d do that. It might have been irrational, but Benie loved Ian and Trace, and she couldn’t imagine any circumstance where she’d willingly kill a little person they’d created together.
Waving his hand, Trace said, “It doesn’t matter. I don’t care if you’re the father, or I am, I’m with Benie.”
A bad rendition of “Papa Don’t Preach” ran through Benie’s head as she channeled all her anger and determination into four little words. “I’m keeping my babies.” Then added, to make her point, “Both of them.”
The colorless midwife shuffled her feet. “As you wish, but I’m afraid your turns of fever will get worse.”
Benie put her hands on her hips. “I don’t understand. What does that have to do with having two pregnancies?” Holy-fuck. Two babies!
Helen tapped her notes. Irritatingly, it reminded Benie of her Uncle Myron. “The Triune is not only nourished by the mother, but the father’s as well, and with two pregnancies, it’s going to be double duty. I’ve only seen this happen once before, and neither the mother nor the infants survived to full term.”
“You’ve got to be kidd… oh.” The baby...one of the babies, kicked. She assumed it was the older.
“I’m afraid the second child has put your system out of balance.”
“Oish. Okay, so Ian and Trace are fucking handcuffed to me. Is that what you’re saying?” That had been happening before everything went out of whack. “But I don’t understand why I’m getting so sick, especially when Trace and Ian are away from me for only short periods of time.”
“This is only speculation, but think of this imbalance as a pressure cooker. As the double pregnancy hormones are secreted in your system, it builds up and spills over into the rest of your body like steam in a sealed pot. Now, if that steam has nowhere to go, then the p
ot explodes.”
“Are you calling Trace and Ian release valves?”
The midwife blinked a whole bunch more. “I wouldn’t call them that, but apparently your children seem to think they are. It appears that the Triune, in an effort to protect herself from the hormone’s toxicity, is doing her level best to keep her fathers nearby as protection.”
Trace patted Benie’s stomach. “Smart girl.”
Benie swatted him away. “Stop that.”
He smiled. “Well, she is.”
Ian’s expression was more thoughtful, but he nodded his head in agreement.
Helen sighed heavily. “There’s another problem.”
“Of course there is.” Benie had just about had enough. “A father trying to kill me, three uteruses, two babies, overactive and apparently toxic pregnancy hormones… what’s one more problem?”
“It’s another reason for termination of the second… child. While proximity will relieve some of the toxicity, the stress will put a strain on the second pregnancy, which could cause a miscarriage, and in turn cause the Triune fet--” The midwife caught herself. “Infant to go into distress, and you could lose both. That’s what I was trying to tell you before.”
“Sort of sounds lose-lose.” Benie rubbed her eyes, suddenly tired, weary, and sad. Could she really terminate a pregnancy? On the other hand, how could she not? She wanted a second to breathe. “I need a minute alone.”
Helen placed a tentative pat on Benie’s shoulder. “Yes, of course. I’ll be out in the hall.”
Ian wrapped his arms around Benie first. Trace joined their tiny circle. “Whatever you decide…”
The air became thick and Benie felt claustrophobic. “Can you guys wait out in the hall too? I need a minute to gather myself. Then we’ll talk. Okay? We’ll make this decision together.”
They each kissed her, murmured comforting words, but in the end, Benie sat on the exam table in an unflattering hospital gown feeling utterly alone. Her breath quickened, and it felt harder to get air in. Stupid anxiety attack. She’d had them before.