Page 109 of Iron Blade

Now, there was a strange woman standing in front of me, her eyes worried and kind, and I clung to her like she was some kind of life raft.

Aoibheann placed her hand on my belly, and I blushed.

I had been holding water weight, and I knew it. I assumed it was stress, and everything else going on, but a strange thought wiggled into the back of my mind. It was like a firefly, landing in the darkness, threatening to grow into day.

As if to confirm that small invasive thought, Aoibheann, in her haunting, strange Irish accent said, “You’re with child.”

She didn’t say it with awe, or joy. Not in the way someone should declare a baby. But…

I reflected her fear back to her, as I shook my head. She nodded, cupping my face in both her cold hands.

“You must get up, and get dressed,” she said, her eyes becoming glassy. “I’ll come back with a test, but you must get up. They won’t let you hide in here, no matter how cruel they have been, or how justified you are. You must get up.”

She placed a quick peck on my forehead and floated away, silently opening and closing my door and leaving me alone like she had been some kind of strange apparition.

She was getting a … a test?

I shuddered, but got up. I had been so lost without Eoghan’s guiding hand that now I was willing to do whatever this strange witch was telling me. She must have known how to survive in this family, and in this house, with all of the vipers that coiled and slithered around us.

I just hope I’m not fooled, like I was with Eoghan.

I put on a black dress, feeling the slight cinch of the waist around my abdomen. I stared down at my stomach. It had always protruded, at least a little bit, so it was impossible to tell if this was more than just water weight or, in fact, a new life just like Aoibheann had said.

I was dressed when she returned, she deliberately closed the door, ensuring it was locked before she handed me the familiar foil-wrapped test. She put it in my hand, and shooed me into the bathroom.

“Why do you have this?” I asked, staring at it. “Were you trying…”

“I was trying not to.”

Her candor surprised me, after Alastair’s words about children, and whelps and wee’uns, or whatever…

“This is no place for a babe,” she said, her eyes darting around, as if the walls had ears. “I cannot even defend myself, much less a child here.”

Dread seeped into my core, making my womb tighten. I placed my hand on my belly, already knowing the result of this test before I even took it.

“Are you saying that…”

“Eoghan is a good boy,” she said, though I doubted that she and Eoghan had that much of an age difference, really. He was younger, but not by much. “But with each passing day he is more and more like his father.”

She swallowed, loudly. I shuddered.

“With each passing day he becomes more like his father.” She was staring off into the distance, shaking her head slowly, as if she was mourning something tragic. “One day, he will be just like him and… and…”

A single tear went down her porcelain cheek.

Without looking at me, she took the sleeve of her shoulder, pulling it down to her bicep. She didn’t have to reveal much. But what I saw was enough. With the new skin she revealed, she also showed me deep, angular scars. It crossed over her shoulders, over her breast, disappearing into the lines of her bra. When she brought the sleeve back up, I realized that her conservative dress wasn’t because she liked it… it was to hide the marks on her skin.

I didn’t need to ask who did that to her. I already knew.

“He’ll do the same to you, I fear.” Her frown deepened at the corner, creating a sad crease on her chin.

Her husband whipped her. Or cut her. Either one was more than just simple abuse. It was torture.

My gut clenched. She was showing me my future.

“I could not defend myself, and I could never defend a child.” Her green eyes changed, darkening to something that looked like determination. She looked at me, her lips no longer frowning, but in a hard determined line. “But I can defend you, child.”

Chapter forty

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