Page 19 of Violent Reign (Violent Kingdom)

Tyler’s ghostlike eyes.

Ask Nathan what happened.

I open my mouth to do just that, but Nathan cuts me off.

“When did your last period start?”

He’s scrolling through his phone and the screen changes colors. He’s looking at an app. A period-tracking app. My stomach drops.Fuck off, already.

“Are you seriously planning to get me pregnant tonight?” My words drip with acidic disdain. Becausefucking really?

He laughs, cutting a glance my way. “Of course I am. How else will I make sure you stay compliant?” Nathan clicks his tongue. “I thought you understood, Avery. You might not love me right now, but you’ll love our children enough to be an obedient wife.”

I’ve heard that before. Almost the exact same words, only a different man, a different voice. I thought they were horrifying words then, when Joshua Grayson uttered them.

I had no idea how much worse things could get.

“Besides,” Nathan continues. “You’re the one who made this harder than it had to be. If you hadn’t gotten rid of those embryos.” He gazes thoughtfully into space. “What’s done is done. Now I’ll have to fuck a baby into you the old-fashioned way.”

Nausea burns at the back of my throat, but now that I think about it, now that we’re talking about periods and fertile days and babies… it might not only be the thought of having to lay back and spread my legs for Nathan making me ill.

It might be something else.

The days aren’t adding up. “I don’t know. I think…” I’m trying to do math here. I can’t even remember when my last period was. But I know I need to give Nathan hope, a distraction. I know how fertility works. I know what he wants to hear. “I guess my last period was in Joshua Tree. So, two weeks ago.”

It wasn’t. It was two weeks beforethat. But Nathan doesn’t need to know that the afternoon I consummated my marriage with Rome, the afternoon he fucked me without protection and came inside me was probably the most fertile goddamn day of my entire cycle. No wonder it felt so amazing. Oh shit.Oh shit oh shit oh shit.

“Perfect.” Nathan rubs his hands together. “Then we can have a wedding-night baby. How fucking romantic would that be?” He folds his fingers together behind his head and leans back. “The press will love it. Our brand-new dynasty, all wrapped up in a cute little swaddle blanket.”

Nathan sayingcute little swaddle blanketmakes me want to hurl even more, but I swallow it back down and do the math again. I have to be sure here. It’s been more than two weeks since my last period, for sure.. More than three. More than four? Yes. More than four. But not more than five weeks. Which makes my period late by several days. I’m never late. I run like clockwork, every twenty-eight days.

But my nipples burn, crammed into this stupid dress. The nauseating acid bile that made me puke this morning has been sitting in my throat all day, threatening to come back up again. And I’m unnaturally exhausted. I’d chalked up the exhaustion to the current situation. To being kidnapped, again.

But maybe it’s more than that.Holy shit.I fold my hands in my lap and stare out at the dizzying city lights until we’re back at Nathan’s building.

He comes around to my side of the car and opens the door for me, offering his hand. Such a fucking gentleman. “Careful, Aves. I wouldn’t want my child’s mother getting injured on her way out of the car.”

“That’s right. You’d rather do it yourself.”

“Of course.” He opens the front door of the building for me, a parody of a perfect gentleman. “It’s so much more fun when it’s on purpose. You know what I read?”

“I didn’t know you could read.” Breathe, and keep breathing. Nothing’s confirmed until I can find a test. Dates don’t mean anything when the body is under stress. We learned that in high school. All kinds of things can affect a woman’s period other than pregnancy. I would assume that being viciously attacked would fall under that list.

“I read that labor is the most painful thing a human can experience.”

“I can’t wait,” I mutter. I can’t think straight. An exhausted fog inside me competes with rising panic. My period is late.My-period-is-fucking-late.

Nathan puts his hands in his pockets and grins indulgently down at me. “I’m going to be with you every second when you’re in labor. Do you know that? I’m going to make sure you and the baby survive. Your poor mother, dying when she birthed that baby brother of yours.”

Grief stirs inside me as I remember my mother going to the hospital in the early stages of labor… and just never coming back. Seeing her again in her casket, pale and dead. I crush the rising emotion down, stuff it deep within myself for another day. For now, I can’t think about that. For now, I have to focus on survival.

“Oh, good. I’m sure the doctors will be glad to take a break.”

“They won’t have to give you an epidural. Not if I’m there.”

“Why? Are you going to paralyze me yourself? If you are, just do it now.”

Nathan lunges across the elevator for me, his thumb jabbing into the soft underside of my jaw. He forces my face up toward the ceiling and lowers his mouth to my neck. Fuck, I don’t want it. I don’t, I don’t. But my body freezes. It’s still trying to survive. It’s still trying to throw up walls so that Nathan doesn’t find out what I already know, deep down in my bones. “You’re going to feel everything, Avery. You need that punishment, don’t you? It’s the only thing that will make you fall into line.”

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