CHAPTER 123: ONE HUNDRED & TWENTY THREE

Valka

"She cannot take another dose, Your Grace," the physician says, his voice trembling. "Her body is failing. Her pulse is a ghost of itself. We’ve already administered enough to kill two women--"

"Then administer enough for three." Rafe’s tone is smooth, almost lazy, but beneath it coils something cold and certain. "If the spawn refuses to die, perhaps its mother should accompany it."

Something shifts in the dark. I try to open my eyes. They’re too heavy, stuck halfway between waking and the void. My stomach lurches, sour bile in my throat, my body shaking so hard the chains rattle against the post.

We’ve been at this for weeks. Day after day of of tonics, of needles and warm, bitter draughts, poisons have hollowed me out. It’s been fruitless, the baby absolutely refusing to die, and all it’s done is make me weak and aggravated the morning sickness, extending it far beyond normal and gifting me a terrible fever that never quite leaves.

They don’t even bother tying me down anymore. I’m too weak to run. Too weak to crawl.

I taste blood where I bit my tongue. My skin burns, my limbs ache as though the bones inside are melting. Each breath scrapes along my lungs.

The physician stammers something again about limits, about signs from the gods and committing sin, and then, a wet gasp echoes in the air, following a sickening crack.

When I blink through the haze, I see Rafe’s hand still raised, the physician crumpled beside the table, his head bent at an unnatural angle. I gag at the stench of death and twist in time to puke all over the floors.

Rafael is by my side in a second, his fingers twining through my hair softly. "It’ll be over soon," he cooes in a manner a mother would to a child, like he isn’t talking about killing my child.

I raise my head, clutch his sleeve weakly. "Please, let me keep it."

He glances down at where I have held him, his expression going from hard to tender in seconds in the most disturbing manner. "So long as you have something left of him, you will never forget him. This is necessary, for our future together."

"Rafael," I catch myself. "Rafe," I try again, and just when I think I have gotten through to him, the door swings open, and a shrill voice echoes in the chamber.

"What is this I hear of?" Cecilia exclaims, breaking stride to halt beside me. She looks frail in her garment of sheer white, the half ruined part of her face gleaming a touch of silver. "Yet again, you have proven you are a lackwit. Have you any idea what we have in our hands?"

I see Lilith walk in behind her, her green eyes flicking to mine briefly and maybe it is the tonics, but I hallucinate a tinge of worry in her gaze before it returns to the empty cold.

Rafael straightens, rolling up his sleeves as he turns to his grandmother. "We have a large enough army of half-breeds--"

Cecilia points at my stomach with a sharp stab. "In there is the only full-blooded heir of Lucien Draemont. Does your cock cloud your judgement or were you just born a complete idiot? That child has the blood of gods in its veins. It will be a weapon unlike any we’ve ever acquired--"

"The King is dead," Rafael murmurs nonchalantly. "Twenty thousand are being readied to march for Ebonheart in a fortnight. An army of hybrids is currently laying siege to the royal houses. The war is already won by us. There is no need for more weapons, much less one that strong. There is power, and there is insurmountable power. If it is strong enough to resist removal, what’s to say it will not just as easily turn on us and annihilate us?"

"You have made her your concubine," Cecilia counters. "If you raise the child as yours, he needs not knowing his origins."

Rafael is silent for a moment. "The child goes and that is final. My concubines are my affairs. Do not meddle in them."

Cecilia’s lips part in surprise at the clear dismissal, and I could have warned her that Rafael has already killed four physicians and he is on a short fuse, but I do not think it would have made any difference. When a person seeks death, they are almost, always deaf and blind.

She slaps him. "You will speak to me with respect! I made you. I raised you. I taught you everything you know and handed you that throne, even if you did nothing to work for it. I can take that from you and give it to someone more deserving, someone more competent and less driven by his foolish desires--"

It happens in a blink and I am not quite sure it has, until the blood splatters across Lilith cheek. Rafael raised a hand and slashes the air in front of his grandmother, gouging out the skin of her throat and she gasps.

She coughs, hands flying to her neck in confusion. Blood splays, her eyes going red as she begins gurgling, choking. With shock, I see the skin try to knit itself together at an alarming rate for a wolf, and I experience first hand the effects of drinking the blood of our kind. It was already odd enough that she’s lived this long, but I see it now. The vial of blood around her neck that she’s reaching for, trying to tug free.

But Rafael doesn’t let her.

His hand rises again and he slashes, claws raking across her face this time, taking out her eye. His next clash sinks deeper into her neck, taking vein and bone. Blood colours the walls. The maids are screaming. Lilith stands still as death as the splatters stain her cheek, as it frightened that it she moves, he’ll remember that she is right there and go for her neck.

And on the tenth strike, Rafael closes his fingers around Cecilia’s cheeks gently, in a way that unnervingly reminds me of Lucien, and he takes off her head.

Her body crumples to the ground, but her face is still etched in an almost-scream as the light begins to leave her eyes slowly. Rafael raises the head to his face and chuckles softly. "I thought it might have been harder. But I should’ve done this sooner."

In that moment, Lilith’s eyes jerk to mine. She must have noticed, too. The strength in that pull was nowhere near normal.

"Reiss," Rafael calls, tossing the head aside like a ball, frowning at his hands in distaste. "Find me another physician and remove the bodies," he adds when the man enters the room almost immediately.

Lilith unshakes herself and I commend her for being able to slip into a different skin so swiftly, wear a sheepish, submissive smile so easily and lower her gaze to the ground as she addresses him. "My liege," the words come out solid and soft. "I do think your grandmother was right about keeping the child, but for the wrong reasons."

Ever so slowly, she raises her gaze. "The child will be a greater leash than any chain you place on her. You root her to court and she will serve willingly. She will choose to be yours. She will be obedient if she knows the thing she loves is in your hands. You raise him as yours and she will learn to be grateful to you for letting her keep it. It will teach her that you can be benevolent. Patient. Loving. A better man than he was to her."

The words settle above us three slowly and I see it in the way his muscles relax, in the way he looks back at me in silent contemplation, that he somehow believes he can get me to want him or fucking reciprocate.

Margot was right. Men are simpletons.