第2章

Evelyn Carter's POV

I rented a run-down cabin outside Blackpine under a fake name.

My landlady, Mabel Greene, assumed I was a single pregnant woman fleeing domestic violence. She never asked about the baby's father. Before every blizzard, she'd leave bread, milk, and old blankets at my door.

I didn't dare go to a hospital.

During the day, I studied normal pregnancy guides at the town library. At night, I used a secondhand fetal monitor to record the sounds from my belly. Six heartbeats, all different. The smallest one was always the slowest. I assigned them numbers and logged my temperature, food intake, and any unusual reactions every day.

Five months into the pregnancy, my body started to change.

A cut from slicing vegetables would heal in minutes. I could lift a crate of firewood that used to take two people, and I began craving raw meat with a ferocity that scared me. Once, I stared at a steak on the cutting board for too long. When I snapped out of it, my teeth were already buried in the raw, bloody flesh.

I ran to the sink and gagged. But all six children inside me kicked with excitement.

"What are you?" I pressed my hands against my belly, my voice shaking.

Everything inside me went still for a few seconds.

Then all six moved at once, gently bumping against my palm.

From that day on, I was still afraid. But I never again thought about ending the pregnancy.

I didn't know who Cassian was. I didn't know what I'd truly signed during those seven nights. But these children went quiet whenever I woke from a nightmare. When I was so hungry I trembled, they'd nudge my belly, reminding me to eat first.

Mabel occasionally brought stew. I never let her in, just told her through the door that my morning sickness was bad. She'd hang the basket on the doorknob and curse the baby's father while she was at it. I never explained. To the people in town, I was just a pregnant woman abandoned by some man. That story was much safer than the truth.

They were no longer six terrifying shapes on a screen.

They were my children.

Third Person’s POV

Back in New York, Cassian discovered I had used only five hundred thousand dollars.

The money had gone to Liam's surgical account. Cassian confirmed the surgery was done. But the payment had gone through an anonymous trust, and the hospital couldn't disclose family information to an outside party. He had no way to find my new name or address.

The only lead close to me was a bus ticket to Montana.

Seraphina flagged that record as a system error.

"The border council is in revolt. You can't drop everything for one missing human." She set the European emergency report on Cassian's desk.

Cassian stared at the bus ticket for a long time, then was forced to board a plane to Europe.

I knew nothing about any of it.

Evelyn's POV

In the tenth month, the worst blizzard in twenty years hit Blackpine.

Power lines snapped. The cabin went dark. I woke in the middle of the night to searing pain and crawled from the bed to the fireplace. No doctor, no ambulance, no phone signal. All I could do was bite down on a towel and push, over and over, following the instructions I'd memorized from books.

But what came out of me wasn't a baby.

When the first black-gold serpent egg landed on the blanket, I thought I'd gone insane.

Then came a second, a third... all the way to the sixth.

They sat in a row in the blood. No crying, no breathing. The fire was nearly dead. I was covered in blood, so cold I couldn't lift my fingers.

Hunger and blood loss made my brain sluggish. I stared at the six eggs, each bigger than a watermelon, and the most absurd thought surfaced.

Fry them.

At least I'd survive.

I dragged myself to the kitchen and picked up a frying pan. Just as the rim was about to touch the first egg, all six started tapping from inside at once.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The tapping was faint, but it came one beat after another, unceasing.

The frying pan slipped from my hands and hit the floor.

I dragged myself back to my knees beside the blanket, fed the last of the firewood into the hearth, and wrapped my coat around all six eggs. Blood loss kept pulling me under. Every time I started to fade, the tapping would come again. I could only dig my nails into my palms to stay awake.

The first egg cracked.

A tiny, warm, soft hand reached out and grabbed my fingertip.