The Dark Calling (The Arcana Chronicles #5)
Kresley Cole
1
Day 512 A.F.?
Castle Lethe
Do you not know you’re pregnant?
Do you not know?
Do you not know?
I sputtered, “I-I . . . what?” Tick-tock.
Tick freaking tock. I’d been struggling to wrap my head around Jack’s possible survival, trying to decide if Matthew was bent on driving me crazy.
Now this?
Aric’s blond brows drew together. “You’re carrying our child.” Though he sat beside me on the edge of the bed, he sounded miles distant. “I was wondering why you hadn’t told me. Clearly you had no idea.”
This. Could. Not. Be.
I was seventeen, riding out an apocalypse and counting on a one-way trip against Richter. I clutched the sheets as the bed seemed to spin. “I didn’t know—because it can’t have happened. I’m on something. There’s no way.”
“There must have been. Paul tested your blood.”
“You let him take my blood when I was passed out?” The idea of the two of them administering a pregnancy test on me rankled.
My reaction seemed to surprise Aric. “Yes. After my wife lost consciousness, I bade our medic to determine what ailed her.” When he put it like that, I sounded ridiculous to question his actions. “You were out for an entire day.”
“That long?” I glanced out the window. A blizzard raged in the never-ending night. Lightning flashed as brightly as daylight, illuminating the dense shower.
Last I knew, we’d been hightailing it away from Richter and Zara’s attack after meeting up with Finn. Then Matthew had contacted me, giving me a blinding headache and a nosebleed, but letting me hear Jack.
Matthew could have pulled up an old memory of Jack’s voice, fooling me into believing he lived. But why?
“Sievā, when you lost consciousness, I was frantic.”
I turned back to Aric. Silvery rays of light shot through the blinds, accentuating how tired he looked. He obviously hadn’t slept. “Something else must be wrong. I can sense a seed deep in the ground—wouldn’t I be able to tell if something was growing inside of me?”
He frowned. “Not necessarily.”
“So how far along does Paul think I am?” For weeks, I’d had that ominous countdown feeling in my head. Had I been sensing this?
“His test could only confirm positive or negative. I was so stunned that I asked him to run it twice.”
Of course Aric would be stunned. He’d longed for a kid. Yet even when he’d wanted to try to start a family with me, he’d doubted Death could help create life.
My heart twisted for him. When he found out he’d been duped . . . “Paul’s lying to you. I took a shot. Remember? You and I talked about it.” Aric had been delighted that I’d premeditated sleeping with him.
“We did. But I have to wonder how you’re pregnant if a contraceptive was administered.”
“He must’ve faked the test results.” I knew how insane this sounded, but I still expected Aric to trust my word. “You believe his story? That he tried to get me on birth control and I refused? Why would I do such a thing?”
Seeming to choose his words very carefully, Aric asked, “Why would he lie?”
“I don’t know.” Paul had always been the most helpful person in this household. He’d taken such great care of my grandmother that I could’ve nominated him for sainthood.
“During that time, you were going through intense stress. And you admitted that things had gotten confused in your mind.”
Before the Flash, I’d been programmed by Gran, then deprogrammed in a psych ward. After our reunion, she’d nearly programmed me again. In her last days, I recalled thinking that my brain felt like Swiss cheese.
Or a bloody battlefield.
“Perhaps they have again?” Aric offered gently. “Are you so certain of your own memories?”
Ugh! I wished I hadn’t admitted my memory issues to him. “I remember the prick of the needle. I remember counting the shots Paul had left, figuring that Lark might want some once she found Finn.”
What if Paul had given me a dummy shot? No! I refused to believe that. Because it would mean . . . Nope. Not going there.
God, I didn’t need this right now; I needed to find out if Jack was alive. What if I’d . . . imagined Matthew’s call?
Aric said, “I think you have been through too much trauma and tragedy. How could it not affect you? Especially during a pregnancy?”
I could kill Paul for this! Not because I believed I was knocked up, but because Aric did. This would crush the knight.
Though he’d adored his parents, Aric had accidentally killed them—and their unborn child—with his touch. Through one of Matthew’s visions, I’d experienced Aric’s harrowing grief. Even after two millennia had passed, he still carried it. “You told me that you trusted my judgment. I helped save our asses against Richter, but you’re taking Paul’s word over mine? He’s lying, which means he’s dangerous. Yet you’re letting him walk around free!”
“When I realized his version of events was vastly different from what you told me two months ago, I asked Lark to monitor his movements with a creature.”
Which only worked when she was awake. “I’m going to confront him.” I leapt from the bed.
Aric swiftly rose to assist me. “In time. You need rest.”
I grabbed my robe, pulling it over my nightgown. “Because of my alleged ‘condition’? I feel fine.”
“Can we not discuss this first? I am asking you to wait. Can you do that for me?” When I hesitated, he said, “Let me draw you a bath. We can talk. You can relax and contemplate things.”
“A bath?” Not a murder?
“You can confront him later; he isn’t going anywhere. Come, love.”
If I was pregnant, I would definitely eviscerate Paul, and the red witch—my homicidal alter ego—would want to savor the kill. Maybe I should wait for my powers to recharge a bit. As my adrenaline waned, my weakness increased. “Fine.” For now, I would cooperate with Aric.
I allowed him to lead me from the bedroom, shuffling along docilely—just as I had whenever the nurses had steered me around the mental ward.
As Aric filled the tub, the winds roared outside.
“What’s going on with this weather?”
“A blizzard blew in not long after we arrived back here. We’ve had nothing but snow and lightning.”
“What happened with Joules and Gabriel after I passed out? I’m sure you were all politeness when you kicked them out of the truck.” A stray thought: Where’s the wedding ring I had in my pocket? I’d vowed to give it to Aric after we’d returned home with Finn.
“Alas, I managed zero politeness when I ejected them.” He added my favorite bath crystals to the water, bubbles forming. “In my haste to get you medical care, I drove directly here, taking no pains to elude them. I have little doubt that they followed us. Circe confirmed that she saw something land on the next mountain over, just in advance of this blizzard.”