This was my mess. My problem.
???
I sat in my car holding the little booklet the midwife gave me. A night full of pounding a stranger left me with a lifetime sentence. My reckless behaviour was back to haunt me. I glanced at the picture of the baby on the leaflet. The bastards used a cute one.
I thought of the genes my child carried. I could produce a cute baby. I would be thirty when the baby was born and fifty when it was twenty. How late did I want to leave it? Did I want to risk having an ugly baby?
I frowned, thinking of my ex, Alex. He wasn't unattractive, but his abusive nature wasn't desirable in a gene pool. I wish I’d left him the first time he lifted his hand to me, but I thought I could help him—each time, I was suckered in by flowers and sincere apologies. He even squeezed some tears out a few times.
But a child. A baby would be mine. I didn't need to worry about a man. I earned a good wage and had a decent amount of savings hidden away.
My stomach twisted, not from fear, but something deeper—a flutter, like wings brushing my ribs.
It's too soon for that. Way too soon.
I pressed a hand to my belly. Cold sweat dripped down my spine.
Was it a sign?
The sensation went away as quickly as it came. I shook my head and started the car. It must be hunger.
???
I grew to adore my little bump.
My family cooed over ultrasound photos, and my friends threw a shower with enough tiny socks to outfit an army. Even the sceptics softened—except for Sadie, who claimed partial ownership of my unborn child on the grounds that ‘I basically helped create this baby into existence with vodka and poor decisions.’
I laughed. For the first time in years, I felt complete.
Everything was going well until I began to get strange pains in my stomach. Each morning, I would rush to check my underwear for spotting, but so far, there was nothing. The midwife and doctors couldn't find anything wrong. At first, they thought there was an issue with the placenta, which was my baby’s lifeline, attaching us together, but every test came back normal.
As days turned into weeks, I began to feel weak, and nothing helped. My manager exiled me to work from home when she saw my pale, gaunt face. The fear in her eyes terrified me. I couldn't lose my little bean.
I lay in bed, grocery shopping, but when I reached the protein section, I started salivating over the blood-red meat. I craved the bloody lamb and beef. The thought of sinking my teeth into the muscle, sinew, and bone made my hands tremble. Hunger made my stomach hurt—the familiar pain that woke me up at 3 a.m.
I couldn't wait for the online delivery. I sat up.
It had to be some weird second-trimester craving.
Women had them all the time, didn't they?
Chapter 5
Nicholas
Iwatched her through the supermarket window, her swollen belly leading her like a compass.
Her trolley overflowed with bloody meat—lamb shanks, ribeyes glistening under the fluorescents, organs packed in their plastic coffins. A few wilted greens languished at the bottom, an afterthought. A pathetic attempt at normalcy.
She wouldn’t need vegetables soon.
Her emerald green top strained over her hips, those heavy breasts swaying as she moved. When she turned, the curve of her stomach caught the light. It was taut, round, and mine. The doctors’estimates were laughable. This child would come early. Hungry.
And I would be there to deliver it.
A feast awaited me. Not just the afterbirth, although that vintage would be exquisite, but her Ivy. I craved a taste of the young mother. The way she’d writhe when I pinned her down. Her tortured cries, begging me to let her cum on my dick.
Fuck.
