“Fine.” Lucien exhaled hard. “Let’s just get this over with. Allow me tounconfuse you.”
Unwinding his arm from my waist, he slung it over my shoulders and dragged me into him. My hand swung—bringing the knife dangerously close to his chest.
The guns shot up, drilling into me. “Mr. Ashfall. Either disarm the girl or we’ll shoot.”
Lucien ignored them.
His body vibrated with hidden tension and his energy burned me alive. His lips burned my cheek as he kissed me, mocking and cruel.
My heart cracked right down the middle.
I wished it was just us.
I wished he’dtalkedto me.
Whispered his plan and told me what I was supposed to do.
But then he nuzzled my ear, looked at the guards, and announced loud enough to inform all of Cinderkeep. “She’s pregnant, you idiots.Now,do you understand?”
Chapter Three
THE GUARDS GASPED IN UNISON, TAKING a collective, giant step backward.
Two slipped on the wet grass. One turned bright red as if he’d choked.
The guns vanished, hands slipping on holsters.
They all clustered together as if holding a very important meeting—their shoulders knocking, heads bowing as they muttered in sharp, frantic whispers. One of them swore viciously and yanked a walkie-talkie from his belt, hands shaking as he pressed the button to talk.
Thatwas how he planned to prevent them from killing me? By telling them I was knocked up with an Ashfall child?
What about after?
What about when they tried to confirm said pregnancy and found nothing but a lie?
In the dense blood-red maple trees to my left, a shadow hissed, low and violent, followed by an impatient grumble to intervene.
Lucien stiffened beside me, noticing his panther’s fraying self-control. “Stay put,” he commanded under his breath. “You mess this up, and I’ll never talk to you again.”
The sudden urge to laugh like a crazy person had me clamping a hand over my mouth.
Stress did odd things to people and right now, it was either giggle hysterically at Lucien giving his panther such a childish ultimatum or pass out at his feet.
Lucien shot me a worried look before he smothered it with disdain.
The guards suddenly got a handle on their shock and gawked at me as if I was a goddess perched on a fertility shrine. Their eyes widened as they looked me up and down, acting as if they’d personally witnessed us in bed together. Watched us writhing and thrusting, creating something that didn’t exist.
The urge to laugh vanished as suddenly as it’d arrived.
Pain and dizziness grew stronger.
Whisper snapped his teeth, whining a little as he sensed my rapidly building panic. But he didn’t venture out from the maples. Didn’t dare go against Lucien’s order to ‘stay put.’
Taking a step forward, the redhead stiffened as if he was reporting to the army. He flicked a look at Lucien but couldn’t stop his gaze straying back to my very empty, very unfertilised belly. “She’s pregnant?”
My knees threatened to buckle.
But Lucien just stood there, calm as could be in the eye of the storm he’d deliberately created. “Yepppp.” He popped the P, making it sound like an achievement. A notable award at impregnating me instead of the calculated lie that it was.
