Chapter 26
The drive back was wrapped in silence.
Rune listened to the hum of the tyres, the occasional click of the indicator, the shallow, controlled way Dorian was breathing. He hadn't touched his notebook since the sonographer's words, hadn't tried to capture anything more in those clipped black lines. Instead, he kept glancing at her belly like she was hiding some kind of alien life form. One that might break out of her any second.
A flicker of amusement cut through her own tension. Maybe, she thought a little sadistically, they needed to sit down and watch theAlienfranchise together, see how he coped when the creature actually burst out of someone's chest. Even Eli, who was usually happy to fill any silence with chatter, seemed cowed by the tension sizzling between them. Rune pressed her palms to her thighs. Every time she opened her mouth, she shut it again. Until finally, she couldn't.
"Do you have nothing to say?" she asked, voice as brittle as an autumn leaf.
He kept his gaze fixed on the road, knuckles pale against his thigh. Not a flicker toward her .
"Go," she burst out, staring at the window. "Go back to London. I don't want you here anyway. I'll be fine on my own."
Even as the sharp words left her mouth, Rune felt the sting of them, felt herself shrink. Even to her, they sounded like a petulant child lashing out. But she couldn't stop. She wanted him to say something…anything,
"You're like a machine," she pushed on, her voice shaking now that it had started. "What can you offer me? What can you offer them?" She wanted to stop. She wanted to pull it all back. But the words poured out anyway, a rush she couldn't dam. The silence that followed was brutal.
From the back seat, Eli shifted and muttered, "Well... that went well."
Rune turned, deadpan. "It's twins. He had a mini panic attack."
"I did not," Dorian snapped, eyes still on the road.
"Yes, you did," Rune shot back, feeling too petty to let it go.
"I didn't," he repeated, lower now, almost desperate. Then, quieter still, "I'm just... worried something will happen to you. She said the pregnancy was high risk ."
That silenced her completely. For a long moment, nothing but the rumble of the car filled the air. Then, out of nowhere, he said, "Crispin is having a baby too."
Rune blinked. "What?"
"Our kids will be almost the same age." His voice was flat, but something trembled beneath it. "He was my best friend. My only friend." For the first time, there was no armour in his words. "Maybe our kids..." he started, then stopped. A rare crack in the machine vulnerability is seeping through. By the time they pulled into the drive, the world felt strange, tilted. Nana was at the door, wiping her hands on a tea towel.
"So?" she asked briskly, shepherding them inside. "What did the doctor say?"
Before Rune could open her mouth, Dorian said it. "We're having twins."
Not she is. We are.
Rune hadn't wanted to feel it, but a burst of joy shot through her anyway. A sharp, bright spark. The first time he'd claimed them as his. Nana tutted, then added as she reached for the kettle as she prepared to rain on Dorian’s parade, "That boy, Kai, the one you met at the bonfire? He wanted to know if you'd give him a call. You left your phone here."
Rune felt Dorian's gaze settle on her. She smiled, small and defiant. "Yes. I will."
Dinner had been a strange dream. Dorian, of all people, helping Nana clear the table, stacking bowls, rinsing plates, his shirtsleeves pushed to the elbow. Every time she caught sight of him at the sink, Rune felt like she'd stepped into an alternate universe.
This man, this man who had lived his whole life in glass towers with staff to polish the silver and lay out his clothes now stood in her grandmother's kitchen, shoulders bent over a steaming sink, obeying Nana's instructions like a well-trained boy. Even Nana had looked at him with approval, her sharp eyes softening as she handed him the tea towels. Rune carried that disorientation up the stairs. But the moment she turned, he was there right behind her – too close. So, close she could feel his breath ghosting over her neck.
"Dorian-" she hissed, trying to wedge some space between them. "Personal space...."
He loomed above her, broad enough to block the light, his gaze dark, hungry. Demon-eyes, she mused.
"No," he said, voice low and unyielding. "No, I won't. You belong to me. The babies belong to me."
Her pulse spiked in spite of herself. "I don't belong to anyone. I am not an object to be owned." But the heat between her legs quietly called her a liar. Damned hormones. Something about the way he worded that just did it for her.
He leaned closer, lips brushing hers with a maddening restraint. "You want me too, Rune. Don't deny it."
"I don't," she whispered, though her body trembled with treachery.
