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I leaned forward and set my thumbs under her eyes, swiping the fat droplets away, but letting her cry. Letting her feel this fully, for she deserved every second of it.
“You—you are sure?” She hiccupped.
“I am. I was that night. And I was even more sure an hour ago. Even more sure ten seconds ago. Its heartbeat is strong.”
She smiled through her tears, her eyes mystified. “Well, hell. Maybe we are destined for each other.”
I laughed. “It was never in doubt.”
Chapter31
{ Ada }
We’d been back at Netherstone for two weeks when Leo had arrived at the castle. That had been two days ago and Damen had been somber, distant, since his son had appeared.
Every time I broached the subject—his shift in moods—Damen just shook his head and said it was nothing I needed to worry about.
But I could tell something was deeply troubling him. And he wasn’t sharing shit about it with me.
Which pissed me off, naturally. I’d thought we’d moved on to a place where he finally trusted me enough to tell me when something was amiss—to unburden himself from the load he was always carrying. I knew in most matters with the malefics, I couldn’t help. But I could listen.
Unless he was distant because of me.
Which didn’t lend to me having a confident disposition on the third day after Leo had arrived, when I woke up and it was eerily quiet.
He wasn’t always in our bed when I awoke—that wasn’t unusual. Mostly because I was sleeping longer with the babe growing inside of me.
What was unusual was the lack of sound.
Someone, somewhere in the castle, was always moving, always clanking something. Even if it was just the hum of the mixer from deep in the outer bowels of the castle where the kitchen was housed. I should hear maids, the guards on rounds, soft murmurs of the staff.
Only silence.
Silence so loud I could hear the throb of my own heartbeat in my ears.
I rolled over on the bed and looked to the empty space next to me. Damen’s pillow was still curved to the shape of his head, but in the middle of it, a note.
Not lifting myself from my own pillow, I reached out and grabbed the thick paper, which wasn’t folded.
Damen’s fast, but distinct scrawl—the swooping cursive in the manner of someone that had learned to read and write more than a century and a half ago.
Get dressed.Eat. Stretch out. Take your time.
When you’re ready give me a call.
—D
I flipped backover in the bed, looking to my phone on the nightstand and beyond it, a silver platter filled with chocolate glazed donuts, water, and orange juice sat on the table by the wide window in his—now our—room.
I looked to Damen’s note I held hovered over my face. Dress. Eat. Stretch.
He must want to hit the training yard today.
Setting the note down, I crawled out of bed and shuffled into the adjoining bathroom. A quick shower, teeth, and I dragged a wide-toothed comb through my wet hair as I went into the room that branched out from the other side of the white marble-clad bathroom. It led into Damen’s closet that he’d had expanded so there was room for my clothing, though I’d only moved in the clothes that I wore every day. The dresses I’d left in my original suite. As much as he liked to see me in one of the gowns, I usually avoided them, except when I wanted to surprise him at dinner.
I was always thusly rewarded.
Yet at the same time, I wasn’t going to hit the training yard or the library in a gown and Damen had finally realized he liked stripping off a tank and yoga pants from my body just the same as a gown.
