I tried to rest. Except my mind wouldn’t relent.
I haven’t told Sebastian, but I’ve been having nightmares about the night of Samil’s attack. Sometimes they’re just flashes and then they morph into happier times. Sometimes Sebastian dies on that library floor. Sometimes I do too, gasping for breath as the slice across my neck goes deeper than it did.
But I’m all about making fear my bitch lately.
So that’s where I find myself. Standing outside the door of the third-floor library entrance. Much like with the press, I’m tired of being afraid, but this is a different level of fear altogether. My hand lands on the cool metal latch and with a swift motion, I jerk it down and the door swings open.
My breath catches. No one has been in here in months. Dust and cobwebs cling to old books and the soft fabrics of the sitting area. The air is heavy with must and disuse. With a hesitant step and a shaky breath, I enter the room, peering around, but who am I kidding? My gaze immediately snags on the space between two bookshelves where Samil attacked.
There’s no blood on the floor, so clearly someone came through and cleaned it up. My feet carry me along, and here I am, standing before the window he intended to throw me out of. The window that incidentally and ironically broke and he fell to his death from. It’s been replaced and no one who didn’t know would be the wiser.
I lean against the pane, staring at the jagged rocks a hundred feet down. I hadn’t known I was pregnant when he tried to kill me. I’m glad I didn’t because I was quick to sacrifice myself for Sebastian and the children. If I had known I was pregnant…well, I’m not sure what I would have done or how I would have reacted.
A sigh hits the pane, fogging up the glass, and I spin around, staring out into the room where both Sebastian and I nearly lost our lives.
“I want my room back.”
I wait and listen. Listen for what, I don’t know. The ghost of Samil to come and haunt me maybe, but it never shows. It’s just a room. Just any old room, and much like a curse, it only has power if I allow it to.
“Oh, Samil. You dumb motherfucker. You threatened Nora’s children. You tried to kill them. You killed her and took her from them. I only wish I could see just how she’s torturing youin the afterlife. And Nora?” I say in French as I curtsy, making sure I finally get it right. “Thank you. I haven’t spoken to you directly yet, and I apologize for that. Your children are remarkable, and though I didn’t know you, I see so much of you in them, especially Phaedra and Sabrina. They are such stunning exhibits of you and your grace and beauty while Zayer has such a pure, sweet heart. How I wish you could see them. See the children they’re becoming and eventually the adults they’ll be.” I suck in a breath. “I love your children. I will take the best care of them that I can.”
I just hope what Rowan initially said is true. That love is enough to banish this curse from this kingdom once and for all. Because I can’t help it. For the first time, I feel the curse. Right here in this room.
And it doesn’t want to be broken.
16
BELLAMY
I’m sitting on the table at the hospital and the doctor is like something out of a French movie with his white hair and cute mustache. For the last ten minutes, he’s been telling me how being pregnant with twins is not ideal for my body. Yup, I know. It’s the fact that I have small hips. I might be curvy, but I’m petite. He wants to schedule the twins to be born via C-section when I’m thirty-seven weeks pregnant, though he did mention that some women with twins don’t make it that far and that there is a chance I could go into labor before that.
Boo. I don’t want a C-section.
But I don’t argue it either, because I want the twins to be safe, and he’s probably right about trying to deliver vaginally.
So here I am, on my back on the unforgiving table with Sebastian by my side, and the woman who only speaks French is plopping warm goop on my lower belly in copious amounts and then pressing the probe down onto me. It’s not the most comfortable thing that’s ever happened to me, but it’s certainly not the worst.
Especially when the screen comes to life and there are our babies.
Sebastian makes a noise in the back of his throat, his hand clenching mine. “Do you see them?”
I nearly laugh at the awe in his voice, but I’m too mesmerized myself to even utter a sound. The babies are separated by a layer of tissue, I suppose. They’re moving around, sliding this way and that, and I can see their hands and feet and legs and faces and chests. And their hearts. I can see their freaking hearts!
“Sebastian!”
“I see them.” He bends down and kisses my lips. “I see them.”
The tech goes through whatever it is she’s required to go through. I have no clue what I’m looking at other than basic anatomy.
“Do you want to know their sexes?”
“No,” Sebastian states since we haven’t talked about it again since that first time.
Only I answer “Yes” at the same time.
He peers down at me. “I thought we weren’t going to find out.”
“I want to be able to tell my dad.”
