Novels by Oli Via

CHAPTER 83Calla's POVThe night was a blur of terror and relief.Eleanor's "problem" turned out to be a minor respiratory scare common in preemies, quickly stabilized, nothing like the catastrophe my mind had conjured. By dawn, she was breathing on her own again, her tiny chest rising and falling with the rhythm of life.I stayed at her side through it all, holding her hand through the incubator's opening, whispering promises I prayed I could keep. Ronan stayed too the first time he'd been present for more than minutes since her birth. But we didn't speak. Didn't touch. The rooftop hung between us like a ghost.When the crisis passed, when the doctors assured us she was stable, we returned to the penthouse in separate cars. Separate lives. Separate everything.And this morning, Ronan called the meeting.I wasn't invited.I found out through Anya, who found out through Beck, who was currently in Ronan's study with Dorian and the head of security. The door was closed, the voices muffle

CHAPTER 82Calla's POVTwo weeks.Fourteen days of Ronan's absence, physical and emotional. He came home late, left early, buried himself in work and searches for Viktor's remaining network. He visited Eleanor once, for exactly eleven minutes, holding her like she might break before handing her back to the nurse with visible relief.I stopped counting the minutes he didn't spend with us.I stopped waiting for him to see me.And Dorian... Dorian was always there.Not intrusive. Never pushy. Just present in doorways, on night rounds, in the kitchen at 2 AM when sleep wouldn't come. We talked about everything and nothing. His childhood in Romania. My disastrous attempt at becoming an art curator. The way Isobel had started calling me "Mama" without prompting, the word still making my heart ache.He listened. Really listened. His green eyes held mine like I was the only person in the world worth hearing.And slowly, without meaning to, I started to unfurl.It happened on a Thursday.Isobe

CHAPTER 81Calla's POVHis name echoed in my head for the rest of the day.Dorian Black.Even his name was dangerous, smooth and dark, like expensive whiskey. I caught myself whispering it under my breath while folding Isobel's laundry, then froze, horrified at what I was doing.Stop it, I told myself firmly. You're exhausted. Hormonal. Lonely. That's all this is.But my skin still tingled where his eyes had touched me. And no amount of self-talk could erase the memory of that moment, the world falling away, the electric charge, the sense of being seen for the first time in months.I tried to focus on other things.Isobel needed help with her astronomy project. Eleanor's NICU nurse called with an update: another ounce gained, another small victory. Anya needed decisions about meals, about schedules, about the thousand small details that kept a household running.But through it all, Dorian's face hovered at the edges of my consciousness. Those green eyes. That voice. The way he'd said

CHAPTER 80Calla's POVThe penthouse was alive again.After all that silence and shadows, laughter echoed off the walls. Isobel's laughter—high and bright and so impossibly precious after days of wondering if I'd ever hear it again. She sat on the living room floor surrounded by gifts, Neil the astronaut propped beside her, a new stuffed elephant named "Ella" (after Eleanor, obviously) tucked under her arm."It's too much," Ronan said, but he was smiling—actually smiling—as he watched his daughter tear through another wrapped package."It's never too much." Lilian's voice cut through the warmth like a blade. "The child has been through trauma. She deserves to be spoiled."Lilian was here. Because of course she was. She'd inserted herself into the celebration under the guise of "family unity," and Ronan—exhausted, grateful, desperate for any sense of normalcy—had let her. Seraphina hovered at her mother's elbow, looking uncomfortable, her eyes darting toward me occasionally with someth

CHAPTER 79Calla's POVThree days.Three days since Eleanor arrived in the world, small and fighting, her tiny fingers wrapped around mine as if she knew I needed something to hold onto. Three days of shuffling between my hospital room and the NICU, my body healing, my heart splintering. Three days of Ronan's visits—brief, exhausted, always pulled away by another call, another lead, another dead end in the search for Isobel.I didn't blame him for leaving. I couldn't. His daughter was out there somewhere, and every moment he spent with me was a moment not spent finding her.But I felt the absence anyway. Felt it in the way he kissed my forehead instead of my lips. In the way his eyes skated past mine, always looking toward the door, toward the next crisis. In the way we'd stopped talking about anything except logistics—Isobel, Eleanor, the investigation, the next step.The love was still there. I knew it, deep down, in the place where certainty lived. But it was buried under so much e

CHAPTER 78Calla's POVThe contractions started at 3:47 AM.I know because I'd been staring at the clock again—the same clock I'd been staring at for five days, watching the numbers change, measuring time in the space between heartbeats. Five days since Isobel disappeared. Five days of searching, waiting, hoping. Five days of Ronan's calls growing shorter, his answers more clipped, the distance between us expanding like the universe after the Big Bang.At first, I thought it was false labor. Braxton Hicks, Dr. Vance had called it. Practice contractions. My body rehearsing for the main event.But by 4 AM, I knew this was no rehearsal.The pain started low in my back, then radiated around to my belly, tightening like a fist. I timed them—fifteen minutes apart, then twelve, then ten. Too early. Too damn early. I was only thirty-two weeks. The baby wasn't supposed to come for another two months.I reached for my phone. Ronan's number was right there, first in my favorites, the familiar di

Sabrina's POV He was shaking as I fell to the ground and looked up at him. The pain in my side was searing and hot.Silver blade!He really wanted me dead!The tall man came to take the blade from his hand. Then he dropped a vial by my side. "Take that and you can save yourself. Or not. Your choice. But this is a message that you are not wanted anywhere near Tweed."I looked to Kevin, felt tears fall from my eyes. I saw the pain in his. "I am sorry, Sabrina."My vision began to cloud and I could no longer hear what they were saying. Eventually, it was just me in the clearing. I found the bottle and looked at its blue contents. Then I shut my eyes and cried, not because of the pain, but because of the betrayal.It seemed like everything I had done was all for nothing. I had been good, and bad had been done to me. Men were really scum. I had lost everything I had to Kevin.So, I decided that it was better to let myself die. I let the bottle fall from my hand and released myself to deat

Sabrina's POVI took a walk in the garden alone. Trying to think about the results of what the day might bring. It occurred to me that I was doing the right thing. Taking my love for Kevin to the next level. I know he should be the one doing that, but in such case he wasn't the one who was entitled.So, I would make him.I stopped at the statue of my father, prayed to him and told him to be with me. Then, I felt someone walking towards me. When I turned, it was Kevin, in his new kingly robes. I got to my feet and flashed him a smile and he came to meet me."You came to see your father, huh?" Kevin said. "And you didn't even bring me with you?" "Didn't want to bother you," I said. "Well, what did he say?" That got me laughing. He looked up at my father's face for some time then said, "This should be a perfect spot." "What?" I asked. He looked at me, and his eyes seemed to have been elsewhere. "No, nothing. Just talking to myself." I wondered if he was talking about the place he

Sabrina's POV"It is a no for me," Derek said.We were seated at a long table, the council members and I. A small gathering made up of two men and two women, just to balance things up. During my father's time, there were five men and one woman. Derek was one of the most complicated person on my council. I kept wondering how the hell he had made the number, and remembered that my father had told me to let him stay and that his advice would be immeasurable to me.Well, I did not like the one he was giving. I let the others talk.Vanessa looked from Derek to me. "This hasn't happened before, your majesty. Are you sure you really thought this through?""No, she did not," Derek cut in. "She is doing it out of love. Or is it infatuation.""Is there a difference between the two?" I asked him.Derek looked at me as if I had just spoken in a language that he did not understand.I turned to Vanessa. "And yes, I have thought this through. Regardless of what Derek here might say about it. Plus, i

Sabrina's POV"Yeeeaaah, that's right," I encouraged, as Kevin slipped inside me. I was so wet and ready for him. There was never a time that I wasn't.Kevin began to thrust deep inside me, gradually taking me to my climax. I could say that he really wasn't a good lay, and could be lucky sometimes if he could get me to come but I really didn't care about all that stuff. It wasn't his dick that I fell in love with but the man himself. I reached my climax just as he released his seed inside of me. We lay there in each other's arms. A smile formed on my lips and it was unable to clear away for the next five minutes. Then Kevin raised his head and looked into my face. His eyes always seemed to get to me. They were a dark shade but also carried a tint of gold in them. His hair was long and grey, and he was the only one in his family to have that color. I always wondered why he chose that very hue. "Always happy when I come home to this," he said to me."Come home to me, you mean?" I as