Crown of Beauty and Vengeance

Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Amory was lying beside her in the bed, his hand on the slight bump of her stomach, on the life they made together.

Lyv covered her hand with his and smiled over at him. "I think it's a boy."

"Not this one," Amory said to her. "This one is a girl."

"And how do you know?"

"Father's intuition... and because I just want it to be," he told her, leaning over to lift the tunic she was wearing – his tunic – and kissed the bare skin of her stomach. "I want a little princess to spoil."

"You already have a princess to spoil, though," Lyv grinned, gesturing to herself. "Me."

"Me spoiling you...isn't that how we got in this situation?"

She laughed, shaking her head as he kissed the spot on her neck just below her ear. "No, I think I spoiled you that afternoon. You wanted a backrub...but I didn't just want to give you a backrub. Not when we had the privacy of the lake and the waterfall with no one else around..."

"Oh, yes, I remember that afternoon..."

He moved over her then, careful not to squish the baby, before leaning down to kiss her thoroughly. As she kissed him, she reached up to thread her fingers into his hair...and something changed. He changed. His ears elongated into delicate points, his jawline sharpened, and his hair...

That was when he disappeared, right before she could open her eyes to see the male who had been kissing her. She reached over...

...and felt the cool sheets on the other side of her bed when she woke up.

Lyv's heart was thundering in her chest, the overwhelming sense of loss constricting her throat as her tears threatened to fall. It didn't help that the next place her hand went to was her flat stomach where no trace of a baby was.

She got up from the bed as quickly as she could, stumbling blindly in the darkness toward her door. Once she had it open, the only light was coming from the small one in Posy's room since she hated the complete darkness. The pixie was still sound asleep and didn't wake at Lyv's panicked breathing.

Calm down, she told herself. Just breath. It will get better. You will be better.

She tried breathing, her hand still on her stomach as she made her way to the kitchen, turning on just one light in the corner. It was enough for her to see the teapot, which she filled with water and set to boil on the stove.

I want a little princess to spoil...

Oh, gods, he would have been the perfect father.

Just that thought had her tears falling down her cheeks, especially when she knew it would never happen.

A soft knock on the door leading to the infirmary made her jump, mostly because it had never happened before. Of course, there was only one person who it could have been, the same one who she kept there for observation over the last four days.

Wiping her tears and slipping on her Audry glamour, Lyv walked over and opened it to see Jai on the other side. He'd pulled his hair up with one of her leather ties she'd let him borrow. It looked as if he had just thrown on his tunic since it was all rumpled from being tossed onto the end of his cot. But those sapphire eyes were searching her face when she finally was able to look up at his, the corners of his mouth turned down.

"Are you all right?" he asked. "I heard..."

"I'm fine," she told him. "Now, what are you doing up? You should be sleeping..."