A Life Full of Loss #1

Chapter: 2

 I must have dozed off because my eyes shot open when the limbo stopped in front of the massive black, metal gate, that ran along the perimeter of our mansion, in Thauria. 

The mansion itself was hidden from the public, as it was on the edge of the dome. Not many people know it even exists. In the center of each dome, the royal family has a castle. Many royal families and leaders live in the castle, but others, like my brothers and I each have castles. However, due to threats, we choose to live close to the outer dome, where not many others live. The citizens think that we live inside our castles, but instead, we live in houses no one else knows to exist.

I gazed over to Ethan, who I was snuggled up against, he gave me a sad look. Probably felt guilty that I woke up. We all suffer from insomnia, and I usually don't get more than an hour of sleep.

 When I sleep, if I sleep at all, I sleep during the day because he would come at night.

 Every time I close my eyes for even a minute I'm taken straight back to the cell, our prison. I don't like to think about the past often, or all the people I lost, so when I close my eyes it's like no time has passed, and I am that same weak little girl, right back in that bloody cell, where most of us survived for years despite all odds. 

I just wish that she made it out like the rest of us did, rubbing my hand over the date tattooed into my color bone, a reminder she's always with me. Taking a few deep breaths to calm my raging heart. Even though I didn't have a flashback, my thoughts of her still made my body ache. 

I'm sorry I couldn't protect you, La Mia Stella.

Ethan reaches out now kneeling in front of me, wiping a tear I didn't even know fell, "She would want you to be happy. Ana. Look at me, there is nothing else you could have done," he muttered. 

I gazed around the limbo, we were in front of the house, the others already inside, before looking at him the tears in my eyes falling. 

"I know. I just want the pain to stop. I wish there was something more I could have done. She was only three, she would have been ten in a week. And I am constantly feeling guilty that Rora and Seb never met her. She and Rora are so similar it hurts to look at her sometimes. It hurts to look at my child! I'm a terrible mother," I sobbed the tears now streaming down my face.

Ethan pulled me into his chest, wrapping his arms around me, and squeezing me tightly. Holding me as I cried. 

Elijah must have heard my tears because he was suddenly back inside the Limbo with me and Ethan. Elijah is a selective mute he doesn't talk much unless he feels comfortable or has to. Without a word, my shaking form is passed from Ethan to Elijah, like a beach ball.

We all designed the house together from the ground up, to create a safe space, for the kids to grow up. 

I had a lot of time to feel guilty and dwell on the past when I was pregnant, so to distract myself I designed the house and planned for the future. Because I was on bed rest because being an assassin, and queen of two countries isn't exactly easy to maintain especially while pregnant with twins, isn't exactly safe. So I put the illegal, and stressful work on hold for nine months, and focused on building our dream home, as well as expanding our legal businesses, while on bed rest.

Previously all of us had been living in Doms, a four-bedroom house, with a single bathroom. I don't know how we all survived sharing a bathroom with a pregnant woman, six boys, and three girls. 

It was literal hell. 

The house took a year to fully build, so we moved into the house when the twins were two months old. Which was over three years ago. Time does fly.