He nods, swallowing hard, and disappears around the doorway.
Simone tips her head back and looks up at me. Her face is so pale I can see the blue veins at her temple.
“Don't let go,” she whispers.
I press my mouth to her hair. “Never. I’m never letting you go.”
36
SIMONE
Pain consumes me. It swallows me whole like a living thing with jagged teeth and sharp claws, and I'm drowning in it. My vision blurs at the edges, the bedroom tilting sickeningly around me. I try to focus on Az's heartbeat against my back, but even that feels distant now.
“Breathe,” Daniel says softly. “In through your nose, Simone. Out through your mouth.”
I don't remember how to breathe. My lungs seem to have forgotten their purpose. The baby is drawing on me, pulling my energy like a vampire, and I'm getting weaker with each passing second. I can feel the slow drain, the creeping cold.
“I can't.” The words come out as a ragged whisper. “I can't do this.”
“You can.” Az's arms tighten around me, careful of my belly. His voice in my ear is raw, desperate. “You're the strongest person I know, little fairy. You're going to do this.”
Saraqael's golden light intensifies, and I feel a strange pulling sensation low in my abdomen. It feels like invisible hands are working inside me, and I have to bite my lip to keep from screaming.
“The baby is suffocating,” Ithuriel murmurs. “I'm moving the cord away from its neck now.”
A sob tears out of me, and Az rocks me gently.
The world keeps blurring in and out.
Az's arms are the only thing that feels real. The only thing keeping me tethered to this bedroom, to this life.
Syrin's cool hands smooth my hair back from my forehead. “You're doing beautifully,” she murmurs.
I want to laugh at that. I'm bleeding through my nightgown, shaking so hard my teeth are clicking together, and somewhere inside me, my baby is fighting for oxygen. But I appreciate the lie.
Daniel and Ithuriel work in silence, their light moving beneath my skin, warm and golden.
Saraqael is on my other side. His presence is awe-inspiring, and any other day I'd be gobsmacked that I'm next to a mythical archangel.
But the drain is getting worse.
“She's fading,” I hear Ithuriel say quietly.
“I know.” Daniel's voice is tight, less calm than I'm used to from my time at Abaddon. “We need to stabilize her and deliver this baby now. Or we will lose one... or both of them.”
The words cut through the haze like a blade. My hand goes to my belly, slow and heavy, but I press it there because I need to feel my baby.
I'm not going to lose it. I refuse. I didn't survive Thomas, and the Burning Pits, and the cave, and learning the man I love is an archdemon, just to lose my baby in our bedroom while strangers stand at our bed.
I drag in a breath through my nose and hold it for a count of three. Out through my mouth.
“Good,” Daniel says instantly. “Again.”
I do it again. And again.
But I can still feel myself fading.
“Wait,” Syrin suddenly says. “The soul bargain.”
