Page 19 of Royal Surrogate 2

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

The beeping is more than annoying now—it’s starting to feel ominous. Maybe something is wrong.

I force my eyes open again, bracing myself for the bright light. It hurts, but I manage to keep my eyes open this time.

I’m not in Caspar’s bedroom, to my surprise. I’m somewhere with sterile white walls.

“Renae.” Caspar is sitting beside the bed, still holding my hand, and he leans forward, relief in his eyes.

“Where…? What…?” Forming full sentences is too hard, so I didn’t bother.

But Caspar understands. His face falls slightly, and his fingers squeeze mine. “We’re at the local hospital. As soon as we’re able, I hope to take you back to Wintervale and our family physician there, but it was too far.”

“Hospital?” I’m still squinting against the light, but I look around the room. It’s certainly nicer than any hospital I’ve ever seen—and I’ve seen quite a few, given what’s been going on with my dad—but maybe I’m in some special royal wing or something.

Beep.

Beep.

That sound is coming from the machine beside the bed. A machine that’s currently hooked up to me.

“What…?” I ask again.

“You fell in the river,” he says.

I fell? And then it comes back to me—the rabbit, the river, the shock, the pain.

And now I’m here, in the hospital, dazed but alive.

Wait.

“The baby,” I realize suddenly. “What happened to the baby?”

CHAPTER 16

Caspar

My heart pangs at her question.

The baby.

It hadn’t seemed real before today. I’d known there was a child growing inside her.Mychild. I’d known I cared for her. I’d known I cared for her a great deal.Mywife.

But seeing her—them—lying in the river like that, so helpless and broken… Something has changed. I still can’t quite put my finger on what it is, but something is different.I’mdifferent.

“Caspar?” she asks. “I lost him, didn’t I?” Tears well in her eyes. “I’m so stupid. The bunny?—”

I lift her hand to my lips, kissing the back of it a dozen times. “No, Renae. You and the baby are fine. I don’t know about any bunny, though.”

She laughs, and the sound fills my heart with such joy I think it might burst. “The bunny made it, too, I think.”

I nod—it must be the medicine that’s filling her veins that’s making her a little loopy. I suppose I should ask the nurse if it’s safe for my child, as it seems to be making Renae a littletoosilly.

“How did you know?” I ask her, uncertain how much of the last several days she remembers. She seemed to come in and out of consciousness, making strange sounds when the doctors and nurses would ask her questions. Her grunts and nods made no sense to me—she certainly didn’t seem to be in any way coherent—but her responses seemed satisfactory enough to these backwoods medical types.

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