Page 87 of Group Studies

My stomach cramped painfully. I pressed my hand against it and sat, trying to crush the pain. Grimacing, passing out in Abe’s class came back to me in a rush. I was never going to get on her good side.

“How long?” I asked.

“Just over twenty minutes,” Ashe answered. “Norah stripped you. She’ll be back with a clean uniform soon.”

Saffron straightened the pillows behind my back.

“Thanks,” I said, trying to work out what was going on. “Ah, I’m injured, or am I a robot?”

I jerked my hand up to my face, trying to feel if I had some weird synthetic skin. My fingers dimpled warm, normal flesh.

Ashe gave me a strange look. “A robot?”

I flushed. “I started feeling weird after I put in my piercing and thought maybe Damon had built me or something…” I trailed off, feeling stupid.

“You didn’t know,” Saffron said quietly next to me. “You told me you were sterile.”

I turned to Saffron and blinked. “I am. What didn’t I know?” I narrowed my eyes. “You shouldn’t be here; Mercedes will find out and make both our lives miserable.”

Saffron clenched his fists. His bumble-bee yellow rims burned into me. “How could you not know?”

I took a sharp breath, not willing to take Saffron’s shit anymore. “How could I not know what I don’t know?”

“Saffron, calm down,” Ashe warned, drawing my attention to the bottom of the bed. Ashe’s gaze softened. “Kitten, you had a miscarriage.”

“Ah, right.” I snorted. “I’ve never even had a menstrual cycle. I only know what they are because I’ve read about them.” I pressed on my abdomen. “You’d have to be pregnant to have a miscarriage.”

Ashe leaned forward and Saffron’s posture fell.

My abdomen cramped again, along with another weird pop in the back of my head, followed by a moment of intense lightheadedness. I steadied myself as the pain and dizziness settled. Something pinched my heart, and I couldn’t look at the mages on either side of me. Peeling the blankets away from the wad of cloth between my legs, I studied the dark red stain covering the inside of it.

I blinked a few times before feeling for the piercing I’d put in above my socket. The warm metal pressed into my fingertips.

“It’s not regulating my magic,” I finally said.

The evidence before me clicked into place: my trouble keeping food down in the mornings, the pickle cravings. Crying every time something happened. I had to force my next breath in and out.

“Aphy,” Saffron said next to me, “Look at me.”

I didn’t know why it was so hard to turn, but in that moment, I wasn’t sure if I’d done anything more difficult.

Pain like I’d never seen before filled the Greek God’s face. His eyes dimmed as a weariness settled over his shoulders. “Was it mine?”

The three words tumbled around in my brain. Saffron needed to pass on his magical genetics, but to the right person, who wasn’t me. It was Mercedes. What if I’d gotten this all wrong and Saffron struggled with fertility?

Guilt burned in my stomach, but I pushed it away. I didn’t know if this was a good or a bad thing for the Greek God. I hadn’t known I could even get pregnant; none of this was my fault. The world didn’t revolve around me.

Saffron reached for my hand, and I gripped it, focusing on his question. I’d slept with Saffron the most, though Beryl too enough times. My relationship with Ashe was too new. But the truth was, I didn’t know. I hadn’t even known I could get pregnant.

“Does it matter?” I asked. “It’s apparently not a thing anymore.”

Saffron stiffened. His anger visibly shook the air around him. For a moment, I thought he would hit me. Instead, he sat heavily on the bed.

“I’ll be right on the other side of the curtain, Kitten,” Ashe said, softly.

The sea of blue briefly parted as he stepped out. I blinked after him, confused he willingly leave me alone with a mage he hated so much.

Saffron pressed his forehead against the paper gown covering my shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

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