She was aghast. “I don’t think of it this way! It’s our baby. Why would you even say something like this?” Now she was close to tears. Whathadgone wrong? Why were things this difficult?
“It’s whatsheused to call her baby.”
“What? Who?” And then it clicked. “Samantha?”
He nodded.
“She had… you and she had a baby?”
“She died before the baby was born.”
“Oh, no. I had no idea. Zoark, why did you never tell me?” Her mind reeled. All this time, she’d operated under the assumption that children were impossible. None of the women had ever gotten pregnant… that she’d known about.
“It isn’t something I talk about.” He rose to his feet in one fluid motion, and against her will, Addie admired the smooth, animal power that emanated from him so naturally. “I wish I could forget the whole sordid story.”
“Did the others know?”
He started pacing, making neat circles around Addie. “No. Samantha never told them. When her stomach started growing, she went to great lengths to conceal it. Sathe was the only one who knew.”
“I’m surprised she confided in Sathe.”
“She didn’t. I did. When I needed Sathe’s help…” he broke off and his head made a jerky rotation that went at odds with his usual smooth way of moving.
Addie didn’t think he’d continue, but he did, still walking, still not looking at her. “See, when Samantha first discovered what was happening to her, she went crazy. She almost lost her mind. Of course, she blamed me for it.”
“You were the father, right?”
He gave a huff. “We weren’t exclusive partners, but we were the most frequent. Other women had never managed to breed from any of the males they’d been with. Samantha hadn’t either until I showed up. Maybe it’s my redheaded bloodline, maybe it was a mere coincidence. Long story short, it is possible that I wasn’t the father, but unlikely.”
“You took responsibility,” Addie paraphrased, apprehensive to hear the rest of the story. She already knew it ended with Samantha’s death, and now she was reluctant to learn the details preceding it.
“Whatever you want to call it. It was a dark time for me. I was still recovering, the city men constantly picked fights with me in hopes of overturning my authority. Marauders raided the place on and off, even though the worst of it was over. Life in the city went against everything I liked or respected, and Samantha’s ever-changing moods were getting to me. I wanted out and I decided to leave.”
“But you stayed. For her.” Zoark’s integrity wouldn't allow him to leave pregnant Samantha even though the baby might not have been his.
“How could I not? She was hysterical, inconsolable. She would wake up in the middle of the night from nightmares and claw at her abdomen, trying to get thatalien thingout. I had to hold her down. It was ugly.”
Bile rose in Addie’s throat. “I think Samantha… I think she was very troubled.”
“Was she? I don’t know. I only know that she’d set out to make herself un-pregnant.”
“Oh, god.”
“She tried different things. Once, she threw herself off a small cliff but only managed to bruise herself all over. Then she ate some berries and puked for three days straight. Finally, she stuck a thin long stick inside, between her legs. I thought for sure she was going to die - there was so much blood. That’s when I told Sathe. Sathe patched her up and talked some sense into her.”
“Did Samantha finally accept her condition?”
“Accept? No. But she more or less gave up. We talked and made up. I promised that I’d be her mate and provide for our family. She said she wanted that, too. Afterward, we went about our daily lives, even though she remained secretive about her condition. She kind of wilted, like a picked flower. The baby continued to grow inside her, much to her dismay.”
He stopped talking and pacing, too overcome by memories.
Addie briefly cupped her own stomach in a gesture as old as time. “She didn’t want anyone to know? Surely she knew it was naive.”
“It was hard to reason with Samantha. She wanted to pretend it wasn’t happening. And if the others knew, then it would become real. But then she died, and it never became real.”
Letting go of her stomach, Addie nervously picked at the fringe on her sash, her fingers smoothing it and twisting it around. “Did she die in a Wrennlin attack?” Addie couldn't imagine a more terrible way to die.
“She hung herself from a meat drying rack behind our teepee.”
