Chapter 4 Selfish?

Rhea’s POV

“What is this racket?” he drawled. He peered at Freye and the blood on my sleeve and let out a sound like a sigh. “Really? Again?”

While my child fought for her life, he had been elsewhere, wrapped against someone else. My world felt like it had split open.

“Don’t you dare,” I hissed, the slap that followed ringing like a bell in the room. My palm stung when it landed and a satisfied silence fell for a second. My throat tightened. “She’s seizing,” I spat. “She needs help. You—answer me, where were you? Why didn’t you pick up?”

A knife twisted in my gut. “While my child was battling for life,” I spat, “you were out whoring yourself with some slut? You refused to come when I called you.”

He looked down his nose at me. “Of course she’s seizing. Like clockwork.” Theon folded his arms, amusement curling the corner of his mouth. “You always make such a scene.” He stepped closer and sniffed as if the smell of illness embarrassed him. Then he spoke slowly, with that deliberate cruelty he used when he wanted to wound me: “You couldn’t even give me a healthy child, Rhea. You couldn’t. Why are you still clinging to this? Why are you still holding on to something that breaks you every day?”

The words landed with the force of a blow. I felt each one like a hot stone pressed to my ribs.

“You should let her go,” he continued, “Let her die and be freed from these shackles. Free yourself. You’d stop dragging my name through the muck. You’d stop being an embarrassment to the house.”

“No!” The protest ripped from me, he rolled his eyes again, as if I had said something uninteresting.

“You’re selfish,” he laughed, taking another step in, so close his breath ghosted the skin at my temple. “You keep her alive for your own martyrdom. You keep her alive so you can play at suffering and loyalty. Admit it — you want the pity. You want the story. You would keep her if it meant people would look your way. That’s why you won’t leave. You’re too weak to choose your own freedom.”

His words dug under my skin and I knew, that they hit home. They struck the dark place in me that had learned to believe the streets’ verdict, that I was unworthy, that I owed everything to anyone who would take me in. Theon’s poison slid into that old wound and the pain flared bright.

“You gave me a child that costs me my reputation,” he sneered, lowering his voice. “Think of how people whisper. Think of how our name is tainted. Who would look kindly on a mate who can’t even keep her pup healthy? You’ve ruined everything for us.”

Liema’s hands trembled on Freye’s small body. “My lord—” she began, but he cut her off with a single, contemptuous look.

“Save your tears for someone who needs them,” he said. “You think I don’t know the gossip? I hear everything. Everyone knows. Rhea is the one who refuses to see that letting go would be mercy.”

The worst part was not the words themselves but the way a tiny, traitorous part of me whispered that he was right, that my child had been a burden from the start, that my clinging was more for my comfort than for her. The thought made bile rise in my throat.

I lunged for him before I could think. My hand struck his cheek again with a slap that echoed off the walls. “Don’t you dare,” I screamed, every syllable slashed with venom. “Don’t you—don’t you say that to me when you failed her.”

He swallowed hard. He refused my gaze. “You are impossible,” he said finally. “And ungrateful. I gave you everything. You should be grateful I even touch you. But look at you. Fat. Ugly. Useless. You couldn’t even give me a healthy child.”

Rage flared inside me, hot and blind. I clawed for him with hands that trembled.

He pushed back. “You keep that useless child alive like some relic, and for what? You’re selfish, Rhea. So very selfish.”

The room held its breath. Liema’s hands shook on our child. The guards shifted like animals sensing the predator’s mood.

The room felt too small. The world had narrowed to my child’s laboured breaths and his cold, cruelty. I rocked on my heels, drowning in a shame made by his mouth. He would never be the man in the photograph on my bedside. He would always be the beast in the doorway.

He turned away as the healer leaned closer over Freye and Liema’s prayers filled the space like smoke. I stood rooted, blood still on my shirt, and vowed—softly and blackly—that I would not let this be the end.

Freye was still alive and she would stay alive for as long as I could keep her. The world could break around us. I would not.