The Survivor (Book 2)

Chapter 34

I woke with two pairs of arms around me and sat up quickly. Taylor held a giggly Iris on his chest, and Eros was fast asleep at my side.

“I put Gen to work, sorry,” Taylor said quietly. “So, naturally, we took over. And my baby’s been dying to see you. Or at least that’s what Eros told me when he got back.”

“Why’s he alive?” I asked harshly, though I didn’t mean for it to come out like that. “I thought he died with her,” I lied back down.

“T!” Iris reached for me, and I held her on my chest.

“Hey, kiddo,” I smiled and kissed her tiny fingers. “How’re you?”

“Good,” she giggled. “T sad?”

“T sad,” I nodded.

“Where Tack?”

I bit my lower lip hard and sniffled as tears welled in my eyes. “He’s, uh, he’ll be gone for a little bit.”

“Tack happy?”

“God, I hope so,” I said under my breath. She was quiet. “Tack happy.”

“Good!” she nodded her head. “T be happy if Tack happy.”

I turned to face Taylor, placing Iris on her back between us. Taylor ran his thumb over my cheekbone. “Seriously, how’s Eros back?”

“He wasn’t in the Purity building. They went to Atlantis I think, for some reason. He came back, saw everything was wrecked, and went back to wherever it was they were before. I came back here after you sent your stop text and decided to start rebuilding shit so we could get out of the dragon-bloods’ scales.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Aragon belongs to the dragon-bloods. That’s they’re home. Then one day, a portal opened and in stepped my baby…carrying my other baby.”

I nodded, taking a deep breath. “Do you think Fifteen would take me to Hell to see him one last time? I didn’t exactly get to say goodbye.”

“Treble, knowing you…You wouldn’t be saying goodbye. You’d try to smuggle him back with you, and that would get him tortured worse and you thrown into Hell’s prison.”

“T,” Iris said quietly. “Wing Daddy say you have tiny Tack in you belly.”

I kissed her forehead, “I do.”

She frowned, “T eat Tack?”

“I’m sure she did a few times,” Taylor said under his breath. I glowered at him. He shouldn’t be saying things like that in front of Iris. Not when she was learning to talk. “C’mon, Treble. Not like she knows what that means, and I doubt she even heard.”

I turned my attention back to the girl, “I didn’t eat him,” I smiled. Iris looked confused, but I didn’t know how to explain pregnancy to an almost-ten-month-old child. I looked back at Taylor, “Where’s Fifteen?”

“Don’t try it, T,” Tay shook his head. “It’ll only make things worse.”

“The only way it could possibly get worse is if I have a miscarriage,” I said quietly. “She’s all I have left of him.”

Taylor kissed my lips tenderly, “I’ll go see if I can find him.”

“Thank you,” my voice was choked as Taylor crawled out of my bed and scooped Iris up in his arms.

“If he wakes up and starts bothering you, don’t be afraid to beat the shit out of him,” Taylor chuckled. I nodded, and he left me alone with the god.