She swallowed hard, hand on her middle. “Go to hell.”
“Is that an official banishment? Come on now. Do it properly,” he coaxed, knowing that wasn’t what she’d meant.
“Trisk.” Quen stood before the bars, hands helplessly at his side. “He’s a loathsome, prejudiced bastard! How could you have a child with that jackass?”
“Back off, Quen!” she shouted, embarrassed. “Don’t lecture me on morals. With men holding all the keys, women don’t have a lot of choice but to whore themselves out for their bodies or whore themselves out for their minds.” Her face warmed, and she stared Quen down, seeing his understanding but not finding any joy in it. “So what if I did both at the same time for the chance that my work might stand as my work and not someone else’s.” She slumped, feeling the tears prick. “Maybe it was a bad idea,” she whispered. “But I’m tired of not being allowed to make my own life.” Besides, it had been damn enjoyable, so enjoyable that the thought of it kept popping into her mind at the most inopportune moments.
“That’s not what I meant,” Quen said, and her head snapped up.
“Then what did you mean?” she said bitterly.
“This is just delightful,” Gally said, wiping tears of laughter away with a gloved hand. “Truly, I will take the unwanted child off your hands. I’ll give you three wishes for it. A dozen.”
Unwanted? Trisk’s attention flicked from Quen to Gally. “Why don’t you leave?”
The demon looked affronted. “What about your foot?”
“Get out!” she shouted, rising to fling a hand at him. “Take your mark and go home! Now!”
Gally frowned, his hands clasped quietly behind him as his expression fell. “Bad dog, eh?” he grumbled. “Fine. But I own you, Felecia Eloytrisk Cambri, and if I take you while you are pregnant, that child is mine, too, by association.”
That fast, he vanished with an inrushing pop of air. Trisk shuddered, reaching down to rub a cold hand under her even colder foot. It was smooth. His mark was gone. But her tension didn’t ease. His grip on her felt stronger, not weaker.
“Trisk?” Quen said, and she turned away, not wanting to deal with anything right now. There was nothing left in her circle, and she let go of the line. Flickering, the energy holding the circle vanished.
Unwanted? No, it wasn’t unwanted, but his or her appearance was really bad timing. Shuddering at the thought of a child raised by demons, she vowed not to call Algaliarept again. It was too dangerous. No wonder my grandmother hid his name on a stone she swallowed.
“Trisk,” Quen said again, and thinking she heard recrimination in his voice, she put up a hand to stop his next words. Damn it, she couldn’t go to NASA now. They would never hire her. Not with a child to care for. She could hide a pregnancy for a time, but how responsible was it to work in a genetic lab with a developing fetus?
“I’m sorry, Trisk,” Quen said, and she bowed her head, shaking as she shuffled to her cot and sat down. “I didn’t mean—”
“Not now, Quen,” she said as the springs gave way under her.
“I promise, it’s going to be all right,” Daniel said softly, and she glanced up, relieved there was no reproach in his eyes. It only seemed to make it worse.
“How is this going to be all right?” she said as she lay down, facing both the wall and her uncertain future. With a sinking sensation, she realized Kal had won, because she could not in good conscience allow her work to lie fallow for the decade it would take before she would be allowed back into the workplace. And that was even assuming they would let her. A viable child was almost a mandate to make more. How could I have been so stupid?
But it was what it was. Calming, she breathed in and out as her world realigned, her lifetime mind-set of I shifting seamlessly into an unshakable we with the unstoppable force of those who came before her. She blinked, shocked at how fast it was, how unexpected.
Slowly Trisk put a hand to her lower middle. A child?
22
The quiet sounds of Quen’s frustrations were growing louder, but Trisk pretended to be asleep as he tried to pull the sink apart for the thin shaft of metal he thought was in the drain. The foul stench from the front room was getting stronger, and his need to get out of the cell was almost palpable in the late-morning air.
“There’s nothing in this cell to break out with!” Quen whispered loudly.
“That’s the intent,” Daniel said dryly, and she rolled over to see the two men at the sink. Quen had his fingers down the drain, Daniel standing so close he was getting in the way. “Why don’t you bring that demon back,” Daniel suggested, leaning closer. “We can’t give him Trisk’s baby, but there must be something he’d take in exchange to open the door.”