Page 86 of Kingdom of Death and Hope

Mother pulls away from me and sits on the edge of the bed.

“How?” Mother asks as she searches my face.

“Oh, I can take the baby back.” Mother holds her hands out. “I didn’t mean for you to hold him.”

“It’s okay, I wanted to hold him. I can continue to hold him while we all talk. Give you a little break,” Kieran replies.

“Are you sure?” Mother looks at him hesitantly.

He nods. “I’m sure. We are family.”

Mother looks at me, her mouth hanging open. “I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to him saying that.”

A smile forms on my face as I look between both of them. I never thought they were going to meet each other in person but here they are, getting along so well like they’ve known each other for their whole lives.

“How did you come back to life?” Kieran asks. “It wasn’t me. I didn’t have the magic to do it.”

I try to think back to what it was when I remember the shadowy figure who touched my head.

“I don’t know who it was,” I whisper as I look at Kieran.

“It was a person?” He cocks his head to the side.

“A woman,” I say. “She was shadowy, like she wasn’t fully there but she touched my forehead and that’s when I woke up and looked at you before passing out again. Did I really die?”

Kieran nods. “You were dead for several minutes. I felt you take your last breath, felt your heart beat for the last time in my arms. Your body went limp and there was no bringing you back.”

Tears pool in my eyes as I remember him crying out for me and not being able to do anything. What if I had actually died and that was the end of it?

“And then all of the sudden you gasped, looked at me for a brief second, and passed out,” he continues to say as he rocks the baby.

I can’t wait for the day when he is holding our kids, rocking them to sleep while we talk. Kieran briefly smiles down at the baby before looking at me.

“That’s when I felt the curse break and knew I had to heal you, but at that moment you had already lost so much blood and I knew I had to rush you to one of the healers,” Kieran says. “That’s when the king and prince came into the room and I let you go for a brief moment to apprehend them before I rushed back to you.”

“And the following days after?” I ask.

“I stayed by your side. I never left because I didn’t know how you would react. The first time I had to leave was earlier today when I had to talk to everyone,” Kieran replies.

“What happened to me when you left?” I hesitantly ask.

“Your heart stopped.”

CHAPTER 30

My mouth falls open as I look between Kieran and Mother.

“He’s telling the truth,” Mother says. “You were perfectly fine and then all of a sudden the doctor came rushing in and was trying to get your heart to start beating.”

Tears pool in my eyes and fall down my face as I look at Mother. She had to watch all of that. Kieran had to feel it through the bond and also see it with his own eyes.

“Do—” I take a deep breath. “Do they know why it stopped? How did he know it stopped?”

So many questions run through my head from the information he just gave me.

Kieran shakes his head. “We have heightened hearing and he was paying attention to it while your mother was here. When he heard only one heart beat in the room, he knew something was wrong. They don’t know why me leaving triggered it, but I’m not leaving you again. If I have to go talk to people, you are coming with me or they are meeting us here. If I have to talk to all the people to explain things, you are going to be right behind me, sitting in a chair.”

“Could it be because of the wi—” I stop myself from even uttering what she is. “Have you found her?”