Mag-log inScarlet's POV Twenty-two weeks became twenty-three. Each morning I'd wake up and check the monitors first thing, making sure both heartbeats were still there, still strong. Some days the babies would move and I'd feel it, these strange fluttering sensations that didn't quite feel real. Other days they were still and I'd panic until a nurse came to do an ultrasound and show me they were fine, just sleeping. Damian read to me. Brought in his laptop and showed me funny videos. Told me about what was happening at the company even though I'd explicitly said I didn't want to hear about work because stress. He was careful, though, editing out anything that might upset me, giving me sanitized versions of reality that probably bore little resemblance to actual events. Eleanor visited daily, sometimes with updates about Jace, sometimes just to sit quietly and keep me company while Damian ran down to the cafeteria for food. We didn't talk about her faking her death or the fifteen years she'd
Scarlet's POV By day three I was ready to claw my way out of my own skin.The hospital bed had become my entire world, this narrow rectangle of mattress and starched sheets where I was supposed to lie perfectly still for weeks, maybe months, while my body tried to expel the babies I was fighting so desperately to keep. I couldn't sit up more than thirty degrees without risking the cerclage. Couldn't stand except for brief, supervised trips to the bathroom with a nurse on each side of me like I was an invalid. Couldn't even shift position without carefully considering whether the movement might trigger a contraction.The ceiling had seventy-three tiles. I'd counted them approximately four hundred times.Damian had pulled strings to get me a private room with a window, which helped marginally because at least I could watch the world outside continue spinning while I was trapped in this bed. People walking on the sidewalk below, cars passing, clouds moving across the sky. Normal life ha
Scarlet's PovDr. Kim appeared in my line of sight, masked and gloved."We're going to get started. You shouldn't feel pain but you might feel pressure or pulling. If anything feels wrong, tell me immediately."I nodded because I couldn't speak past the fear clogging my throat.The surgery was a blur of sensations I couldn't quite process. Pressure in my pelvis. The sound of medical instruments clicking. Dr. Kim's voice calm and steady as she narrated what she was doing to her surgical team. I stared at the ceiling and tried to count tiles, tried to think about anything except what was happening to my body and whether this desperate gamble would work.Time stretched in strange ways. Minutes felt like hours or maybe it was the other way around. I couldn't tell.Finally I heard Dr. Kim say, "Cerclage is in place. Let's close."More pressure. More waiting. Then she was at my side, pulling down her mask so I could see her face."We did it. The stitch is holding and your cervix is closed.
Scarlet's POVThe medication burned going into my veins, a cold fire that spread from my IV site up through my arm and into my chest, and I tried to focus on that sensation instead of the cramping that wouldn't stop no matter how many drugs they pumped into me.Dr. Kim was standing at the foot of my bed watching the monitors with an expression I'd learned to read over the years working alongside her at this hospital. She was worried but trying not to show it, which meant things were worse than she was letting on."The magnesium sulfate should be working by now," she said, more to herself than to me. "We're at therapeutic levels but the contractions are still coming every eight minutes."I could feel them, these rhythmic tightenings that started low in my pelvis and radiated outward like waves. Each one felt like my body was trying to expel something it had decided it no longer wanted to carry, and I wanted to scream at it to stop, to understand that those two tiny beings it was trying
Damian's POV The survival rate at twenty-one weeks is very low," Dr. Kim confirmed, and I appreciated that she didn't try to sugarcoat it even as the words felt like knives. "But we're going to do everything we can to stop the labor and buy these babies more time. Every day they stay inside increases their chances exponentially.""What caused it?" I asked, trying to focus on something I could understand instead of the terror threatening to overwhelm me. "Why is she in labor now?""Multiple factors. The trauma from the accident created weakness in the cervix. The stress she's been under for months has kept her body in a constant state of fight-or-flight. The emotional upheaval, the separation, the custody battle, all of it has taken a physical toll. Her body is exhausted and it's trying to end the pregnancy prematurely."I thought about the past months. The kidnapping. Victoria's accusations. The photograph. Scarlet living in a hotel. The custody hearing. All of it stress piled on top
Damian's POVEleanor had called me while I was in a meeting with my board, her voice sharp with urgency in a way that made my blood run cold before she even got the words out."Scarlet collapsed. We're in an ambulance heading to City Hospital. You need to get here now."I'd left the meeting without explanation, grabbed my keys, and driven like a madman through midday traffic with my heart hammering so hard I could feel it in my throat. The whole way there I kept thinking about the last time I'd gotten a call about Scarlet being rushed to the hospital, after the car accident that had taken our baby, and I couldn't breathe past the fear that I was about to lose her too.By the time I burst through the emergency room doors, a nurse was already waiting to intercept me because apparently Eleanor had given them a heads up that a frantic husband would be arriving shortly. The nurse led me through a maze of corridors to an exam room where I could see Scarlet through the window, lying on a bed
ScarletThe air between us shifted the moment the words left my mouth.Damian's eyes darkened impossibly further, his pupils blown wide with something that looked dangerously close to hunger. His hand on my face tightened slightly, thumb pressing against my cheekbone with just enough pressure to ma
ScarletI woke to the sensation of being devoured.For a moment, still caught between sleep and consciousness, I couldn't process what was happening. Just that something hot and wet was between my thighs, that my legs had been spread wide, that pleasure was building in waves that pulled me rapidly
He thrust back in, even deeper in this position. I cried out, my hands gripping the couch cushions for purchase. Damian's hands gripped my hips hard enough to bruise, his fingers digging into my flesh as he set a punishing pace. Each thrust was deep and hard, hitting spots inside me that made my v
THE PROTECTORDamianI'd never been a kid person.Children were loud, sticky, unpredictable creatures that required constant attention and made no logical sense. Their emotional outbursts seemed excessive, their needs never-ending, their very existence a disruption to the careful order I maintained







