Damien
JULIET GRIPS MY hand tightly as we emerge from the Rolls. Only it’s not just a team of doctors waiting for us.
There are cameras.
The bright morning sun is the least of our worries as state-of-the-art flashbulbs blink and blind us.
“Prince Damien! Was it a royal plot to knock up the Nightgardin princess?”
“Your Highness! Where will you and the princess reside?”
“Princess Juliet—is it true Damien doesn’t even remember sleeping with you? How can we be so sure you’re carrying Edenvale’s heir?”
“Damien, are you even welcome in Nightgardin now that you’ve made a whore of the princess?”
At this Juliet gasps, then stumbles over a paparazzo’s shoe. But before she hits the pavement, I scoop her into my arms. She ducks her head into my chest.
“Enough!” I bark at the crowd. “No fucking comment!”
I storm for the doors where X ushers the medical team and us inside.
“My apologies, Highness,” he says once we are safe from the press. “I assure you that no one knew of this appointment other than myself and the medical staff.”
I lower Juliet to the ground, and though she stands fine on her own two feet, she is shaking. “Someone leaked it,” I growl. “And this isn’t like the Rosegate stunt at the stables. That was international press out there, descending like damned vultures.”
X nods. “Your Highness,” he says to Juliet, “I will get to the bottom of this and assure it will not happen to you again.”
“Thank you,” she says, an audible tremble in her voice.
As the team leads us to a private elevator and then up to the birthing ward, I make myself clear to each and every one of them.
“When we find out who made our presence known, there will be consequences. Juliet is Edenvale royalty now, and whichever one of you betrayed your very own princess will have to deal with me personally.”
I stop suddenly as the elevator doors open onto our floor.
“What is it?” Juliet asks, giving my hand a reassuring squeeze.
Your very own princess.
I shake my head. “Nothing,” I tell her, but it’s a lie. Yet the truth doesn’t make sense—that I’ve spoken those very words before in my wife’s defense. Because if that is the case, it means I’ve not only forgotten making love to her, but I’ve also forgotten failing her once already.
“I’ll do a paternity test,” Juliet says softly as we head toward the exam room. “If you’re still having doubts about—you know.”
It’s not a matter of whether or not I want the test. Ever since DNA testing became possible, Edenvale used the medical advancement as another form of protection against enemies like Nightgardin. Ultimately, I have to break the news that it will be required by royal law to determine if she is, in fact, carrying an Edenvale heir. But royal law is not what is important to me right now. Nor do I want to risk hurting her.
“It’s my baby,” I say, jaw tight. “You have nothing to prove to me, Princess.” Then I wrap my arm around her, and we walk side by side into the room.
“X,” I say before I close the door and he stands guard. “What happened downstairs is one thing,” I say. “But if anything else gets leaked—we’re talking about the safety of our baby.”
“Of course, Your Highness. From here on out it will just be the doctor and the two of you,” he says, and the reassurance of his tone is enough for me to believe that for now, we are safe.
The obstetrician, Dr. Dominique Broussard, guides Juliet to the exam chair where a gown sits folded. “Please put that on,” she says in a kind voice. “The opening should be in the front. I’ll return in a few minutes, and we’ll get started on all the fun.”
The doctor steps out of the room, and for a few long seconds, Juliet and I stand there.
“Can I help you out of your dress?” I finally say.
She blushes, but I know it is not the same kind of reaction as when she disrobed for me last night.
“You can grab the zipper if you want.”
She turns so her back is to me, pulling her long brown hair off her neck.
Unable to resist, I press my lips to her nape and breathe her in. Then I watch as goose bumps pepper her flesh, grinning in silent satisfaction at how this woman reacts to my touch.
“Damien,” she warns as I slide the zipper down and push the dress off her shoulders.
I chuckle but say nothing as she steps out of the dress and then into the exam gown before situating herself on the chair.
A knock sounds on the door. Perfect timing.
“We’re ready,” Juliet calls out, and Dr. Broussard reenters the room.
“Is this your first doctor’s visit, Princess?” she asks as she situates herself on the rolling chair parked by a counter full of equipment. “I mean—for the baby?”
Juliet nods nervously. “I fled my country before getting medical verification of the pregnancy. But I—I stole a test from the bath chamber of the servants’ quarters. I needed to be sure before I risked running away. ” Her cheeks redden. “I thought charting my fertility was foolproof, but I guess our baby had other plans.” Her hand instinctively flies to her belly. “I’m just realizing now how scared I am. I mean, what if the baby’s not okay? What if the stress of running from home had some sort of adverse effect? What if—”
I grab her free hand and hold it tight. I will not discount her worries. They are valid, and I won’t lie that I don’t share some of them as well. But she doesn’t have to worry alone.
“Whatever we find out today, we find out together,” I tell her, and her brown eyes shine as she nods.
“The best thing you can do, Princess, is to relax. The calmer you are, the easier it will be to find the baby on the sonogram. But please do not get scared if we don’t. You’re barely ten weeks. Sometimes the baby is so small that we cannot find it on the first try.”
Juliet sucks in a shaky breath, then blows it out slowly.
“That’s good,” the doctor says. “Deep, calming breaths.”
As Juliet inhales and exhales, so do I.
“We’re going to make you a bit more comfortable,” Dr. Broussard says, and presses a button that tilts the chair so that Juliet is reclined.
All the while, her hand remains in mine.
Dr. Broussard opens Juliet’s gown. “Don’t worry, this won’t hurt, and we’re nice enough to heat the gel for you.”
She squirts the small tube onto Juliet’s belly, then swirls it around with some sort of wand, her eyes trained on a monitor to her right.
It’s so quiet in this sterile room. Too quiet. In my head I hear the steady beep of the heart monitor in the hospital room where I woke up only a couple months ago—practically at the same time this life was conceived. But I remind myself that this is not the same thing. No one’s life hangs in the balance, least of all my own.
“Hmm...” Dr. Broussard says, and Juliet sucks in a breath.
This brings me back to the moment, and I realize I’m holding mine. Because hmm, in my opinion, isn’t what we want to hear.
The doctor’s brow furrows as she presses the wand firmly to Juliet’s abdomen, swiping it slowly from left to right. “Ah!” She finally relaxes. “I think that inhale of yours shifted us right into the perfect position, because look.” She points at what seems to be a small smudge on the black-and-white screen. But then I notice that the smudge has a pulse.
“Damien,” Juliet whispers. Her voice catches on the last syllable of my name. “Can you see it?”
I squint at first, not ready to believe my eyes. But it is no trick of the light or glitch on the screen.
I clear my throat and squeeze her hand, but I cannot find the right words. Nothing has ever hit me so hard, not since losing Victoria. But this is no loss. It is the greatest gift given to someone who has never deserved so much. I do not need a fucking paternity test to tell me what I already know. Because there, on the screen, is our baby’s beating heart.
Juliet
“Do you?” I ask Damien again. “Do you see our sweet little gummy bear?”
“Gummy bear?” He groans, but I can see the smile tugging at his lips. “That right there is the most gorgeous child that has ever existed on the face of this planet. Tell me, Doctor, have you ever seen a more perfect baby?”
Dr. Broussard chuckles. “It is indeed one fine-looking fetus, Highness. You’re measuring about nine weeks, which puts the date of conception—”
“Right after the Nightgardin Rally,” I say, coyly glancing to Damien.
Molten lava has nothing on the intensity of his answering gaze.
The little gummy bear on the screen flutters about as if reacting to my increased pulse rate. “It’s incredible that it can move so much and yet I can’t feel it.”
“Well, right now it’s not much bigger than a grape. It will take time before it makes its presence known, but don’t worry. Soon it will be waking you up from a sound sleep with a sturdy kick.”
I burst out laughing. “I’m really going to have a baby.”
“Yes.” Damien kisses me on the forehead. “We are.”
“Would you like some photographs?” Dr. Broussard asks.
“As many as you can give us,” Damien orders, his face still buried in my hair, breathing me in as if I am his only source of air.
“Wonderful. Let me finish taking a few more measurements and then you two can get to the Prenatal Genetic Center for the lab work.”
I stiffen at the term genetic, studying the doctor’s face, but she doesn’t seem overly concerned, just a busy professional who must see a hundred couples like us every week.
“You are sure everything you saw today was okay?” I ask, trying to force a smile. “Not to be a nervous first-time mother but...I’m a nervous first-time mother.”
She nods. “This is still early days for a pregnancy, but I can assure you that everything that I’ve seen so far is perfectly normal.”
“So why the blood work and genetic lab?” I ask.
“Ah, that’s for the paternity test. Standard procedure given the circumstances.”
“I see.” But I don’t. Damien says he believes me that the child is his, and yet here we are, walking to a lab as if we are a couple on one of those American reality shows trying to prove who my baby daddy is.
It’s dreadful.
“You don’t have to do this,” Damien says once we are alone in yet another hospital room. “I don’t care about royal law. If I say it’s my child, it’s my child.”
I shake my head. “If I don’t, you will always wonder,” I say flatly. “So will the kingdom. And your brothers.”
“Juliet—”
There is a knock on the door and yet another doctor breezes in. This one carries a tray covered by a blue surgical cloth.
“Good morning,” she says, holding the door open with her foot. “Right this way, Prince Damien. The waiting room is to the left.”
“Waiting room?” Damien snaps. “I’m waiting right here while you draw my wife’s blood.”
“Sorry, official hospital policy. Only the patient and the doctor can be in a room together during a paternity draw. Prevents tampering.”
My husband growls, a feral, animalistic warning from deep in his throat. “I’m not going one step.”
“Just listen to the doctor.” I sigh. “Let’s get this over with.”
“But I should be here, with you.”
I shrug. “And right now I would rather be alone. Just go drink some coffee and I’ll be out before you know it.” My head is swimming as I try to process the fact that I’m really doing this, that I’m going to have a baby. Being here in the hospital makes it all so real. Every once in a while it’s as if the insanity that is my current life bears down like a pile of bricks. It’s hard to stand strong and carry all the feelings.
“You’d do well to listen,” the doctor says with a tight smile. “Happy wife, happy life.”
He kisses my cheek, his lips lingering for a moment, and I can hear a note of unease in his shaky breath. “Fine,” he says. And when he straightens I see that same unease in his eyes. I’ve hurt him by dismissing him. But I just want all of this over with.
For a moment I want to call him, but my attention is drawn to the doctor. The woman is in her fifties with a silver bob and pair of blue glasses. She seems perfectly ordinary, so why are my senses on high alert?
“Onto the table,” she says, fiddling with her instrument case. “Please expose your belly. I’m assuming you want to get out of here and back to your comfortable palace, so—” She nods toward the exam table.
I do as she says even as I wonder why she wants to draw my blood from there and not my arm.
The doctor approaches me with a syringe not for drawing fluids but for injecting me. Before I have a chance to react, she jabs the needle into my skin, pressing the plunger and filling my veins with a yellow liquid. I take three sharp breaths. It burns. I want to ask why. I want to fight. But my vision blurs. I should scream. Or panic. But I can barely move.
Or breathe.
The doctor touches her ear. “The deed is done,” she mutters, not in a lilting Edenvale dialect but a thick Nightgardin accent, and before my world spins black I realize the horrible truth.
She is Black Watch.
What a naive fool I was to think I could ever be safe. My hands rise to my belly with the last of my strength.
The door bursts open, and two figures barge into the room, but I can barely make out their shapes. My vision grows darker with each labored breath. I can’t move.
“Here!” a male voice calls—familiar, yet I cannot place it. “Damn, they’ve given her the milk from the Evernight poppy. How the hell did they even come across it? Very few know of its potent qualities, which means if Nightgardin does, they’re a more powerful enemy than even I anticipated.” The man swears. “Get that antidote to her lips. There isn’t a second to lose.”
“On it.”
Damien?
One of the figures tips something against my frozen lips. A bitter taste floods my senses like I’ve taken a shot of dandelion root juice. What about the Gummy Bear? Will it be okay?
“That should counter the paralyzing aspects in a few minutes,” the other voice calls, and I swear it is X.
There is the sound of a scuffle, and I hear someone grunt.
“Fair warning, Princess, as I know you can hear me,” X continues, his features taking shape as my vision begins to clear. “The child will be fine. The Evernight poppy cannot harm it, neither can the antidote, which will soon allow you movement. However, I must let you know that the Evernight poppy comes with a host of rather exciting side effects.”
I flex my hands and sit up. “Are you sure the baby will be okay?”
He flings out his arm, grabbing the Black Watch operative by the neck, and the woman goes limp as a rag doll. “Don’t worry, Princess,” he says to me as I gape in horror. “I just knocked her out cold. She won’t be feeling anything for a while—unlike you.”
The moment he says the words an intense clench of need bears down between my thighs. My pussy is suddenly aflame with a hunger like I’ve never known.
“You must get her home without a second to spare,” X orders to Damien. “This one has to come to The Hole with me so The Order can begin the interrogation. If they gave her the poppy that meant they wanted Juliet alive...and I’m going to find out why.”
“Then make her wish she was never born,” Damien snarls.
“You focus on your lane. Trust me. Your hands are about to get very full. But don’t worry, one orgasm will be enough to counteract the poison’s effects... It is potent enough.”
If he says anything else it’s drowned out by my own moan. The Black Watch operative nearly poisoned me, but whatever exciting side effect X referred to feels almost as deadly.
My back bows as my hips undulate. If I don’t have physical release soon I will die.