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“It’s here!” He pointed, and I was running toward it.
“We’re going now, sir. Get in!” Wolfgang already held the door open for me.
Odette. Odette, you better not fucking die. “Please don’t. Please.”
He hadn’t moved in an hour. He stood like he was held to the ground by invisible roots. His head down, his arms wrapped around himself, barely breathing as we waited in the private wing of the ER—just him, Thelma, and me. Iskandar was outside the ER with the other guards, speaking to the palace. It was just like when Prince Arthur had died. No one wanted to believe it had happened. Everyone was kicking themselves as they tried to think about what they could have done better.
The truth was I did not know Prince Arthur. I was sad, but I’d never spoken to him or had any of the deep connections that other people did. Everyone had some story about Prince Arthur, but he was just the Adelaar to me, my future king, whom I respected and wished well. So I was upset he was gone, but it didn’t gut me. Iskandar pretended as if nothing bothered him, but Prince Arthur’s death had hit him hard. He was much stricter with everyone, even himself.
I tried to think of how I would feel if Odette died, but I couldn’t even finish. It hurt too much. They were our rulers. We weren’t supposed to get to close, but we did. She was important to me. She was my friend. And I had stabbed that EpiPen into her as hard as I could. As her assistant, it was my job to know as much about her as I could, so when I had read that she had a severe peanut allergy, I carried two with me at all times. I didn’t think anything of it. I never expected to have to use it because everyone in the palace had been informed peanuts were banned. The kitchen knew. So how in the hell did it end up on her plate?
“Your Highness?”
Alert, I stepped forward as the doctor finally came out of the room. For the first time, Gale looked up. His eyes were red, and tears dropped from them. Quickly, he moved to stand in front of the four doctors in front of him.
“How is she?”
“She went into anaphylaxis shock,” the female doctor said gently.
“That was not my question,” Gale repeated gently. “How is she, Doctor?”
The woman glanced at me and then Thelma. “We should speak in private—”
“We are in private. Please, say it.”
“She will recover.”
Gale exhaled, releasing his arms.
“However...”
“However?” he questioned.
“She lost the child.”
I froze.
So did he for a moment.
“What child?”
The doctor looked back at him, confused. “Did you not know she was pregnant? No more than a few weeks now.”
Gale stared at her, then hung his head again. It took him a moment, but he nodded, swallowing slowly before speaking. “Thank you. I hope we can count on your discretion.”
“Of course, sir,” she replied. “She will need a lot of rest. We sedated her, and she will need intravenous fluids and oxygen for some time. If not for the injections of epinephrine, she would have died, sir. You may go in, but visits should be kept to a minimum.”
Gale cracked his jaw to the side and nodded. “Thank you, Doctor.”
She nodded, and the rest of them stepped aside, allowing him to go inside. I wanted to go as well, but again, I was not family. I was the staff. So, I looked in from the door window to see her lying on a bed, intubated with a ventilator to help her breathe with IVs coming out of her arm. Gale slowly walked up to the bed, and being safely behind the doors with only her in front of him, he fell to his knees, weeping.
Feeling my eyes burn, I turned around and used my body to block the window, but it didn’t help. I could hear his cries, and so, the tears came down anyway. Normally, I hated how easily I came to tears, but when I saw Thelma—the bear, the female warrior of warriors—standing across from me and towering over me, with eyes glazed over as well, it made it easier for me to let the tears fall.
How did this happen?
How did everything go so wrong?
Why her?
