Page 15 of Royal Surrogate 2

I sit down on a large rock on the riverbank, the tears taking over again, and I bury my face in my hands. I was so sure I had the strength to go through with this, but now that I’m in the middle of it, I’m not so sure.

Breathe, I think. Breathe. Deep breaths.

And then, as I’m choking back another round of sobs, something cuts through my haze of emotions—a scream.

My head jerks up. I’ve never heard anything as heartbreaking as that shriek—it almost sounds inhuman.

And then I realize why—the bloodcurdling sound is coming from a rabbit. An owl has the poor creature in its talons, and it’s carrying it off into the dusk…until suddenly the rabbit twists just the right way, managing to free itself from its captor. It falls from those talons into the river below.

I jump up. Even if the poor thing survived the fall, it would drown in the rushing water. And sure enough, I spot it struggling in the current, alive—but for how long?

I can’t let it die. The river doesn’t seem deep here, just fast, and the rabbit isn’t that far from the bank.

Without thinking, I hurry into the water. It’s icy cold, but after that first shock, I hardly notice. I wade in up to my shins, then up to my knees, just as the current sweeps the poor creature within my reach.

I grab it, and it’s so exhausted it doesn’t even struggle. There are some cuts along its back where the owl gripped it, but they don’t look as deep as I’d feared.

Carefully, I turn and make my way back toward the shore. I’m nearly there when my foot hits a particularly slimy rock on the bottom of the river and slides out from under me.

The rabbit goes flying out of my hands. I go flying, too, and when I land, I feel a sharp pop in my ankle as it comes down.

My vision goes white. When it clears again, I’m lying in the river, and the pains shooting up my leg are so intense I can barely breathe.

The rabbit… Despite my agony, I still find myself searching desperately for the poor creature. To my relief, he landed on the bank, and though he’s clearly shaken, he’s looking around, ears twitching, apparently both stunned and amazed that he’s still alive. As I watch, he wriggles, shaking the water off himself, before darting away again into the underbrush.

But my relief is quickly drowned out by the pain in my leg, and I’m suddenly aware again of how icy cold the water is around me.

I’m going to be sick. The nausea hits me like a truck, rising in my throat, and my head starts to spin. The world starts to twist and turn around me, like I’m on a boat riding up and down on the waves.

Shock, I realize. I’m going into shock.

It’s harder to form coherent thoughts now. Fuzziness is closing in, and my nausea keeps rising, and the pain is unbearably distracting. But one thing breaks through the haze in my brain—I need help.

I scream. Or at least I try to scream. It’s hard to make my body listen to my brain. I feel like I’m fighting sleep, hovering between wakefulness and a strange, cold dream. And I can’t remember why I’m fighting to stay awake.

The baby.

I try to scream again, but I’m not sure if I succeed. And then my eyes become heavy, and unconsciousness is too hard to resist any longer.

CHAPTER 14

Caspar

My brother doesn’t give me a moment to move before he swats me on the back of the head.

“What did you do?” he asks.

“What do you mean?” I rub my skull, but I know exactly what he’s asking. I’ve been a complete dolt these past few months, thinking I could just sweep everything under the carpet. Honestly, it might be nice getting everything off my chest once and for all.

“I think you know what I mean.” He glances in the direction Renae has gone. “You let your wife marry you without knowing the exact terms of your marriage contract? How is that possible?”

I gulp. It doesn’t sound like such an innocent mistake when Xavier says the words aloud. “I?—”

He doesn’t let me answer. “What did you do? Set it in front of her and have her sign it without reading it?”

“I…” I hope he’ll interrupt again, but he doesn’t. And when it’s just laid out like that—so simply put—I have no excuses. “I suppose.”

“Yousuppose?” His voice thunders through the woods, and I’d be surprised if there’s a living creature alive who doesn’t turn to look in his direction. “How do yousupposethat happened, Caspar?” Xavier shakes his head, then swats the back of my head again, this time much harder. “Are you an imbecile? And she’swith childnow? What did she mean that she’s ‘out of here when the baby’s born’? You didn’t…”

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