“You really need to stop following me,” her voice came from behind. “And last time I checked, breaking and entering is still a crime.”
I turned around, still trying to process what I’d just found out. “What is this?” I held up the strip.
Her eyes widened, as if caught off guard.
“You’re pregnant?”
Silence.
I could almost hear the sound of her racing heart from across the room. Although she failed to respond, I knew for sure the child was mine. The timing, plus the fact that I was her first, all pointed toward me being the father.
That realization almost knocked me off my feet as a mix of emotions flooded my heart.
Things had just gotten more complicated.
Chapter 17 — Kiera
I bit on the cloth between my lips, groaning in pain as I pushed with every ounce of strength in me. My skin was covered in sweat, my fingers clutching the sheets tightly.
The agony of childbirth was tearing at my intestines, veins lining my forehead. My legs were spread apart on the hospital bed, shaking as my vagina stretched out.
“Almost there, Miss Kiera!” the doctor said, her voice smooth and encouraging. “I can see his head.”
My swollen belly was blocking my view, and I was too weak to push further. However, for the sake of my child, I let out a loud cry, straining.
The sharp pain rippled through me, tightening every muscle in my body. However, as agonizing as that was, it was nothing compared to the cry of the baby that filled the room.
My head fell back on the pillow, my chest rising and falling with heavy breaths. “My baby,” I said weakly, stretching out my arms. “Gimme my baby.”
As the doctor approached me, a loud explosion set off outside, shaking the whole building. Alarmed, my eyes widened as I heard the gunfire that followed.
My first and only instinct was to save that baby. With a strange kind of strength, I jumped out of bed, but before I could reach my child, a helicopter came crashing into the window.
The sharp, spinning blade took off the doctor’s head, blood squirting from his neck.
“No!” I leaped forward, hands stretched out, trying to catch my falling baby.
It seemed like time had slowed down, giving me a glimpse of how impossible it was to actually save my child. I wept in mid-air, surrounded by chaos and disorder.
But before the worst could happen, a whirlwind sucked me into a vacuum.
I jolted awake, eyes wide with terror. My body was trembling, my forehead dampened in sweat. My chest was heaving, my breath coming in ragged gasps.
It was a dream. A really bad one that left me shaking. Thunder rumbled across the sky outside, causing me to flinch.
“You don’t see that every day—scared Keira,” Nial said, seated on a sofa across my bed. “Must have been one hell of a nightmare.”
My face twisted into a frown, my blood boiling with rage. The last thing I remembered was arguing with him about how I wasn’t going to follow back to the mansion.
“Get dressed,” he said, standing by my window with the test strip in his hand. “You’re coming with me.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said, glaring at him.
His scowl deepened, and he stepped forward, “Listen to me, Kiera—”
“No, you listen to me!” I snapped. “You don’t have the right to control my life anymore—you sent me away, remember?”
He paused, tightening his jaw. “Things have changed.”
