“Right.” She paused. “But aren’t Sean’s problems sort of your problems now, too?”
The ice rumbled, and he reinforced it with a slow breath and a blank mind. He and Sean hadn’t discussed Isobel’s condition, but the phantom of it clung to the connection between them.
“She’s very young,” Anna said. “I’ve always heard it was impossible for anyone under fifty.”
Yes, David had heard that as well, but he’d decided to down the contraceptive tonic anyway—not that it had done Sean much good. David had even gone so far as to research the realm’s fertility issues—a dire reality, truly. But as days passed and the rumor of Isobel’s pregnancy spread, whispers had followed. There could be only one reason why a woman of noble blood would conceive so young, they said. The Great Mother willed it, knowing she didn’t have long to live.
It seemed…ridiculous. And though he hadn’t spoken a single word to Sean about it, David knew he agreed. What kind of goddess cared so much about bloodlines? What sort of deity would choose to bring forth a child just to let its mother die without ending a noble line?
The child was Sean’s, too. What if he was the one destined to die young?
These thoughts had churned in cycles through his head since the moment he’d watched Isobel Faywood empty her stomach over a balcony.
She would have a baby, and that baby belonged to Sean, David’s soulmate. So what did that make David? How would this child perceive him? How connected was he to the new life growing in Isobel’s womb? How far could he distance himself from it?
He preferred to pretend none of it was happening—a trait he suspected he’d absorbed from Sean. Denial.
“It’s really not my problem,” David said. Did his voice sound raspier?
Anna said nothing, but an edginess had woken in David, vibrating against his skin. He needed to move, to think. He kissed Anna’s temple and whispered something about needing a drink. She nodded, her sleepy eyes drifting closed while he pulled on a loose pair of trousers and slipped from the room.
The door snicked shut behind him, and he headed toward the cookery, stopping short as he registered another presence in the room, sitting at the table.
Isobel looked up at his entrance, unsmiling, though he didn’t miss the way her gaze darted down to his bare chest before tearing away to stare at the wall.
“You’re up late,” he said, carefully making his way toward the pitcher of that lemony drink the brownies kept stocked for him.
She held up an empty elixir vial. “Just waiting for this to kick in.”
Sipping his drink, he leaned against the serving counter. “I thought you weren’t capable of sickness.”
“Pregnancy is not a sickness.”
“No? Maybe you’re just doing it wrong, then.”
Isobel glared at him. “Could you be any less pleasant?”
“We both know I definitely could.”
She laughed humorlessly. “So this is you trying?”
He set his glass down. “This is me choosing to ignore the fact that you accused me of things I didn’t do, lied to the entire realm about Galadaine and Meléan, and stole my soul.”
“I didn’tstealit,” she said. “It’s still in there, isn’t it?”
“Part of it,” he said. “The rest of it is sleeping down the hall. Inhisbed instead of yours.”
She scowled. “He’s just upset?—”
“That you raped his soul? I wonder why.”
With a sigh, she stood. “You are so crass.”
She glanced to the side, giving him her profile, and a violent lurch in David’s chest made him suck in a breath, like a wire tether snapping tight, shredding through anything that existed in its path.
A spike of pain drove through his heart, and his veins lit on fire as the connection between him and Sean expanded like a dying star, demolishing roadblocks to feed emotions through.
He’d looked at this woman so many times, but tonight looking at her made him feel as if he was staring over a cliff, like his life was just a step away from changing forever.
