Chapter Four

The steady beep of the heart monitor was almost soothing now, a rhythmic reminder that I was still here, still breathing.

My hand hadn’t left my stomach since the doctor walked out. I kept pressing gently, as if I could feel them through skin and muscle and all the protective layers my body had wrapped around them.

My babies. My tough, impossible, surviving babies.

At least I had this. At least I had them. Whatever else Kieran had taken from me—my dignity, my trust, seven years of my life—he couldn’t take this. I would do anything to protect them. Give them everything I’d walked away from and more. They would never feel small or worthless or disposable.

My phone buzzed on the side table, screen lighting up with a name that made my stomach clench.

Kieran.

“Don’t you dare.” Aunt Meredith’s voice was sharp. “Don’t pick that up, Khione.”

“I need to.” I reached for it, my ribs screaming in protest. “I need to confirm something.”

“Confirm what? That he’s garbage? We already know—”

I swiped to answer and immediately regretted it.

“Where the fuck are you?”

His voice exploded through the speaker, loud enough that Aunt Meredith flinched. I pulled the phone slightly away from my ear, jaw tightening.

“Where did you spend the night last night, huh? You better not have gone crying to anyone about our private business.”

Private business. Like he hadn’t kicked me hard enough to kill his own children.

“I hope to God you did what I told you.” His tone shifted, became almost businesslike. “I hope you went to that clinic this morning and removed that fucking mistake you’re carrying. Because you have exactly three hours to get yourself back home, Khione. Three hours. You hear me?”

I said nothing. There was nothing to say to a man who’d never actually listened.

“And if you’re not back here by then with proof that baby is gone, you can forget about ever coming home. Go right back to whatever gutter you crawled out of. Are we clear?”

The line went dead before I could respond. Not that he’d wanted a response. He never had.

I stared at the phone in my hand, at the photo that still served as his contact picture—us on our wedding day, him looking at the camera while I looked at him like he’d hung the moon. That woman seemed like a stranger now. Someone naive and foolish and so desperately starved for love that she’d mistaken crumbs for a feast.

My hand curled into a fist around the phone, the edges biting into my palm.

“This is all your fault, you know.”

I looked up at Aunt Meredith. Her expression was hard, unforgiving.

“You’re a queen, Khione. Born and bred to rule continents. But because you were so pathetically desperate for scraps of attention from some nobody, you reduced yourself to this.” She gestured at my hospital bed, at the bruises blooming purple across my visible skin. “You let yourself become someone who can be kicked like a dog and threatened like a servant. Do you hear how he speaks to you? Like you’re nothing. And the worst part?” Her voice cracked. “You could crush him with a thought. You could end his entire existence with one phone call. But you’re so blind, so stupidly in love with a fantasy, that you let him treat you like trash.”

I bit my lip hard enough to taste copper. She was right. God, she was right.

“I understand now.” The words felt like glass in my throat.

“Do you?” She leaned forward. “It took you almost dying, almost losing your babies, to understand? What if you had died, Khione? What if those children had died? What then? Would your precious love have been worth it?”

I had no answer. There was no answer.

She sighed, the anger draining from her face and leaving only exhaustion behind. “We’ll go home in a few days. Your parents are waiting. They’ve been waiting seven years.”

“I want to go today.” I pushed myself up despite the pain radiating through my torso. “I’m fine. Really. I can travel.”

“Khione—”

“Please.” I met her eyes. “I can’t stay here another minute. Not in this city, not in this territory, not anywhere near him. Please, Auntie. Take me home.”

She studied my face for a long moment, then nodded slowly. “Alright. But if you so much as wince wrong, we’re stopping. Understood?”

“Understood.”

⸻

The estate looked exactly as I remembered it—sprawling grounds surrounded by ancient forests, the main house rising three stories of stone and glass that somehow managed to look both fortress and home. Seeing it again after seven years made something in my chest crack open.

I’d missed this.

God, I’d missed this so much and hadn’t let myself acknowledge it.

Aunt Meredith had barely parked the car when the front doors burst open and my mother came running out. She reached my door before I could even unbuckle my seatbelt, yanking it open and pulling me into her arms.

“My baby.” Her voice broke on a sob. “What have they done to my baby?”

“I’m fine, Mom. Really, I’m—” My own voice cracked as her familiar scent—lavender and old books and home—washed over me. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine. Look at you.” She pulled back, hands cupping my face, her eyes cataloging every visible injury with the kind of attention only a mother could manage. “Look what that monster did to you.”

“I’m sorry.” The words tumbled out before I could stop them. “I’m so sorry, Mom. For leaving, for choosing him, for abandoning everything you and Dad built for me, for missing seven years, for—”

“Hush.” She pressed a finger to my lips. “We’ll talk about all that later. Right now, you need to settle in, rest, and eat a proper meal. You’re skin and bones.” Her hands moved to my stomach, pressing gently. “And we need to make sure these little ones are getting everything they need.”

Despite everything, I grinned. “You know about them?”

“Meredith told me everything.” She helped me out of the car, one arm wrapped protectively around my waist. “Twins. My first grandbabies are going to be twins.”

Something warm unfurled in my chest. For the first time since that doctor’s office, since Kieran’s fist, since bleeding out on wet pavement, I felt something other than pain or rage or despair.

I felt hope.

Mom guided me up the front steps and into the foyer. The house smelled like pine and cinnamon, like every winter holiday of my childhood. The familiar portraits lined the walls—generations of Alphas watching with varying degrees of severity. I’d spent my whole youth trying to live up to their legacy, and then I’d thrown it away for a man who saw me as disposable.

Never again.

“Oh, before I forget.” Mom paused at the base of the grand staircase, turning to face me with barely contained excitement. “There’s someone I want you to meet. Your new bodyguard.”

I blinked. “A bodyguard? Mom, I just got home, isn’t it too early for this?”

“Hush. With everything you’ve been through, you need protection. Besides, he’s highly qualified and came very highly recommended… and I have a very good feeling that you will approve of him.” She called over her shoulder. “You can come in now.”

Footsteps echoed from the hallway to our left.

“Thank you for giving me the opportunity to serve, Luna.”

I froze.

That voice.

It’s been seven years, but I could recognize that deep and warm voice that always carried a hint of amusement anywhere.

I knew that voice. I’d know it anywhere, even after seven years of trying to forget it existed.

I whirled around, ignoring the protest from my ribs.

And I forgot how to breathe.

He stood in the doorway backlit by afternoon sun, taller than I remembered, broader through the shoulders. His dark hair was longer now, pulled back in a way that emphasized the sharp angles of his face. Those amber eyes—the ones that used to follow me everywhere when we were young—locked onto mine with an intensity that stole my breath.

“Emrys?”

The corner of his mouth lifted in that infuriating smirk I remembered too well.

“Welcome back, Princess.”

Then his voice slid into my mind, smooth and intimate through a mate bond I’d been certain he severed years ago when I chose Kieran over him. When I destroyed our friendship for a man who was never worth it.

"This… is going to be so fun, little mate."