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I watch as he puts his tools away. He performed an entire examination on me, and I was too busy talking to notice.
“B-but…I was bleeding.”
“A result of the trauma you just experienced, most assuredly. It was triggered by stress,” he explains. “Bleeding can sometimes occur during even the most relaxed of pregnancies. It’s what’s known as a ‘breakthrough period.’ Even given what you’ve suffered through today, it’s nothing a little rest won’t cure.”
I collapse back against the pillow and stare up at the ceiling for a moment. “I didn’t lose the baby,” I whisper. “I didn’t lose my baby.”
I didn’t loseourbaby.
I take a deep breath and it’s a relief to realize that they’re coming a little easier. Then the door bursts open…
And Ilarion storms in.
His eyes land on me and it’s as good as if he’d zapped me with a cattle prod. I shove myself upright on my elbows while my heart rampages in my chest. His hair is mussed, his shirt sweaty, his knuckles bruised at his sides. But of all the signs of war painted all over him, it’s his gaze that scares me the most.
He looks like he could kill without blinking.
“Grisha? Is the baby—”
“Healthy, happy, and perfectly safe,” Dr. Baranov tells him before he can even finish his sentence.
He nods once, curt and detached. It’s almost enough to convince me he doesn’t give a damn one way or the other. But there’s no way he’d storm into a room and demand to know the outcome if he didn’t care about the outcome, right?
Right?
It crosses my mind that having Ilarion care about this pregnancy is an inconvenience I’d rather avoid. Especially considering I don’t intend for him to be a part of this child’s life. That’s a sentiment I’m clinging to for all of us—including andespeciallymy sister.
If she’s alive, that is.
“Thank you, Grisha. Please give us a moment.”
“Of course, sir,” the doctor says, collecting his bag and making for the door. When he steps out, I spy Mila lurking in the hallway.
The upside is that he shuts the door behind him, keeping her at bay.
Downside, I’m left alone with Ilarion.
And I have a feeling that being alone with this man—under any circumstances—is trouble.
22
ILARION
“My mother,” Taylor pleads, her eyes wide and searching. “If she’s dead…just tell me.”
I admire that she comes right out and says it. Most people are too afraid to even name their fear. Not her, though.
She stands in the middle of the road and lets it barrel toward her.
I open my mouth to give her the answer she wants, but I pause when I sense her starting to unravel in the seconds before I speak.
“You need to take a breath,” I growl instead.
She swings her legs off the bed and struggles to her feet. She’s shaky at first, but her fists stay knotted tight, her jaw held firm, and when she raises her gaze to meet mine, it doesn’t waver.
“I know I’m just a random, insignificant cog in your wheel—”
“Wrong,” I interrupt. “A cog implies that you serve a purpose, and you do not.” It’s a cruel thing to say. But it’s not far from the truth.Shedoes not serve a purpose in everything I have going on.
