Sunni tosses her hair and sniffs. “I’m manifesting. Let me have this.”
“Okay. Right.” I blow out a breath. “I tell him about the baby tonight.”
Sunniva pops the licorice whip into her mouth before pulling it back out and pointing it at me like a wand. “Also, when you tell him, open with ‘don’t panic’ and then duck.”
I snort. “Noted.”
The front door creaks open and footsteps breach the threshold. The guards adjust their stance, and I know . . . he’s home.
It’s time to let him see the pieces I’ve been hiding because I can’t carry this alone anymore.
I won’t let Giselda make me feel like I have to.
War or not, this baby deserves a chance at something more than fear and I deserve to trust the man I love with the truth.
The three of us link our hands and walk toward the foyer.
I’d be a fucking liar if I said I wasn’t terrified of how Konstantin is going to react. Not just to me keeping so much stuff from him, things that put me in danger, but also my pregnancy.
I have to find a way to make him understand that it’s my own fear that held me back, nothing to do with him.
“Kon,” I call out in a voice that sounds more sure than it is. “We need to talk.”
twenty-eight
Konstantin
ThesecondSunnivaandLucetta walk out, I don’t even try to play calm anymore. I turn on Cressida like a storm unleashed, pacing across the room like I’m two seconds from tearing through the goddamn walls. My blood pounds so loud that it’s all I can hear. That, and the echo of her voice telling me she’s been stalked for weeks.
And I didn’t know.I didn’t fucking know.
“You shouldn’t be able to lie to me.” My voice scrapes out as if its full of gravel. “Your ability . . . Cressida, you’re not supposed to be able to fucking lie to me.”
She doesn’t flinch or shrink. Just watches me with those calm, glowing eyes that see too much of me.
“I didn’t lie,” she says quietly. “I kept a secret. There’s a difference.”
My jaw aches from where I’m clenching it so tightly. “You think that difference matters to me when you’re out here dodging threats from a psychopath who knows where you fucking sleep?”
“I did it to protect you.” Her voice is firm now, but not angry. “You’re fighting a war, Konstantin. You’ve been at the edge for months. I couldn’t be the thing that tipped you over.”
That stops me, my chest tightening in a way that has nothing to do with rage. It’s something deeper, more painful.
“I’m not supposed to protect you by keeping things from you, but you’re allowed to do that to me?” I ask, quieter now, my tone a little bitter.
She walks over to me, her hands trembling slightly when she places them on my chest. “You already carry the weight of the world, monster man. I didn’t want to add more to it. Your shoulders are big, baby, but they can’t hold it all.”
I exhale roughly as if she punched me in my stomach because I get it. And that just pisses me off more because I’ve done the same thing.
Giselda’s formula is changing again. It’s corrupted further, no longer trying to mimic us but to turn into something new altogether. She’s trying to make herself stronger, more powerful than us. Her serum is twisting into something worse and it’s no longer about her gaining power. I think it’s about making people fear her.
Cressida also doesn’t know I’ve woken up in a cold sweat every night for the past three weeks because I can feel the vileness of Giselda’s move coming. I just don’t know how, where, or when.
And now that I’m married to Cressida, that unknown terrifies the fuck out of me.
Her fingers tighten in my shirt, and I bring my hands up to cover hers. “We’re done keeping things from each other.”
Cressida’s eyes shine with emotions that cut me open. Relief, sadness, fear. I don’t know which kills me more.
