Page 28

It feels like a cliche, but I’m sitting in the living room, starting to doze off, when Dorian finally comes walking through the door. I can tell that he’s trying to be quiet, but the gentle brush of his jacket against the door alerts me to his presence.

If not that, then the scent of him.

I sit up, rage and uncertainty rolling in my stomach. Dorian hasn’t claimed me as his mate, but I’ve been stuck in this house, still hiding myself from everyone, despite the fact that I have his bite on my neck and his scent has started to mingle with mine.

I’ve been sitting here all day with the knowledge that I now have. Pregnant with his child. All day, I’ve been subconsciously reacting, resting my hand against my belly without realizing it. Wondering if that pregnancy is now or later, but having the sinking, elated feeling that it’s now.

The words roll through my head at a fast clip, popping up intermittently.

I’m pregnant with Dorian Field’s baby .

And he didn’t even send me a single text today, nothing to let me know he was okay or when he would be back. I made dinner earlier, prepared a creamy wedding soup, but it’s boxed up now in the fridge, cold and slimy, the thought of it making me sick.

Hunger gnaws at my stomach, reminding me of how I sat at the dining table, staring down at the soup, willing myself to take a single bite.

“Kira,” he says, the moment he turns around. Surely he could sense me, must have known that I was waiting for him as he walked up the steps and toward the house.

“Dorian.” I stand, realizing my words are choked by anger and try to breathe through them. “What—where have you been all day?”

He blinks in surprise. “There was an … issue. I had to deal with it.”

I get the sense immediately that he’s holding something back. There’s something he really doesn’t want to tell me. I shouldn’t—in reality, I don’t actually—care that much that he’s keeping something from me, but the fact that I’ve been stuck in this house and he’s in no apparent rush to tell anyone about me is making my skin itchy.

Does anyone else in the pack even know I’m here, other than my parents, Emin, Ash, and Beth? I’m tired of feeling like Rapunzel stuck up in her castle, looking out on the town. I want to go walk the streets again, actually browse the aisles of the market, rather than making an order to be delivered here and intercepted at the gate.

“What was the issue?” I ask, watching as Dorian’s face goes carefully blank. He swallows, looks to the side, and levels me with a completely apathetic expression.

It’s so different from everything this past week that it cuts to the bone, hurting more than any expression of anger would have.

“It’s none of your concern, Kira,” he says, and his tone is so pinched and tight that it makes me want to scream. I scan his face, eyes trailing over his strong cheekbones, straight nose, the black hair on his forehead. I’ve known Dorian as a boy, a teen, and now as this man.

In high school, he tormented me regularly. Taunted my body, my smell, pointed out every inadequacy.

And somehow, I have never been as furious as I am with him now.

“I’ll need a key to the house,” I say, which clearly takes him by surprise. He blinks, looks at the front door as though it might offer answers, then looks back at me.

“What? Why?”

I cross my arms over my chest, hate how the flick of his eyes down there makes me warm.

“The farmer’s market is tomorrow.” I take a step back from him, aware of how my body is reacting. I want nothing to do with these feelings of attraction. “And I’m going.”

His response is faster than I thought. “No, you’re not.”

“Ex cuse me?” The words are so quiet, they come out somewhere between a whisper and a hiss. “Am I your prisoner, Dorian?”

He winces, showing emotion for the first time in this conversation. Muttering something under his breath, he turns around, sighs, and looks back at me.

“Of course not, Kira. It’s just … not safe for you right now.”

I hold his stare, humiliated tears streaking down my cheeks. “Why? What is the danger?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Well, then the only thing that makes sense is that there is no danger,” I spit, shaking with hurt and anger, and hating how those two things together are making me cry. “And you’re ashamed of me, Dorian. You don’t want to let me leave because you don’t want anyone—”

A sudden wave of dizziness rolls over me, and the words suck right out of my mouth. I sob and bring a fist to my lips, trying to quell the nausea that follows right after the lightheaded rush.

“That is not it,” Dorian says, taking a step toward me, reaching up like he might touch me, but decides not to. As the pain increases, his words sound like they’re coming to me through the ocean, distant and warbled, muffled by the sudden cotton in my ears.

I can’t respond. I can’t do anything but succumb to the premonition taking over my body. This time, it’s less like something I’m reaching for and more like a bucket of ice water that’s been tossed over me, freezing my muscles and scrambling my ability to think.

“Kira?”

Dorian’s body tilts in my vision, and then I realize I’m staggering back, sitting down hard on the couch. My breathing comes quick, my skin prickling, every inch of me feeling raw and open in the worst way, like a single touch could stop my heart, bring all the delicate systems of my body crumbling to pieces.

“ Kira —”

“Don’t touch me,” I manage, and then, as though possessed by a demon, the next words out of my mouth don’t belong to me. They force their way out, like a violent, hacking sick: “ Don’t worry. I’ve got you, baby girl. ”

Dorian hovers close, apparently not bothered by the way words are coming out of my body, unbidden. It doesn’t even sound like my own voice, and it doesn’t feel like anything I’ve ever experienced before, and my mind races through everything Beth told me about my abilities.

Hearing the future, hearing the past. And also hearing from the spirits. Benevolent and evil, those who would guide, and those who would lead you astray.

My breathing is coming fast. The approach was violent, but I feel the spirit around me, cradling, soft. Guiding. A gentle warning provided in a violent sense.

Maybe if I had more experience receiving messages like this, it would have gone differently. I sink into the feeling, the swirling, inky black abyss, letting my mind blink off for a few seconds, a tiny reprieve from the onslaught of feelings and sounds.

When I wake, it’s with Dorian’s hands clamped on either shoulder, his eyes boring into mine.

“Oh, thank fuck,” he breathes, when my eyes flutter open. He moves like he might drop his head into my chest, but I push weakly against him, and he lets me go. I’m shaking like a leaf, barely able to get to my feet, but giving a wide berth to the hand he offers, the assistance he clearly wants to give me.

“Don’t,” I say, raising my eyes to him. “Unless you’re going to give me a key to the house?”

It’s not about the key—it’s about Dorian making this public. Claiming me as his own. Which he so clearly doesn’t want to do.

“Kira,” he says, the word broken, and I turn away, ignoring the pounding in my head and the tears running down my face. When I reach the upstairs landing, I don’t think twice—I turn left and walk into the guest room, my room, no matter how badly my body craves the touch of sleeping with Dorian tonight.