Page 238 of Onyx Cage: Volume II

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FOUR

Istood stunned in the empty tearoom after Rowan walked out.

A relief.

It should have been, perhaps.

But all I could see was my wife lying in our bed while I traced circles on her flat stomach and wondered if it would ever grow round with something that was entirely ours.

All I could hear was her telling me she wanted our children one day, and how it had been enough to steal my breath.

And now?

Now we were here, at a point where she wouldn’t even tell me that was a possibility. What the hell had happened to us?

Even as I asked the question, I knew.

Ihad happened to us.

When I left her at that inn, I thought I had considered every possible outcome, but I hadn’t accounted for this – for pushing her so far that she went from sleeping in my arms every night to saying it was a relief we didn’t have a child to worry about.

Kirill’s voice echoed in my head.

Neither of you seems to be fighting this one.

Spinning on my heel, I took off in the direction of her rooms. Like hell I wouldn’t fight for her.

With each step, I saw her shattered expression when she asked me if I wanted to know what the worst part was.

I had still been so frustrated with her choice and with her anger that I hadn’t quite let myself understand the magnitude of the tears pooling in her eyes.

She had told me on my balcony just how badly she didn’t want to be in love at all, for fear of losing that person.Who in their right minds would want to go through what Avani went through?

Then in the carriage after she killed my stepmother.I don’t want to live in a world where you’re not.

Even in my rooms, she had said it again.You knew that losing you was my worst fear.

So much resignation in her tone by then, and no fight at all.

I walked faster, a rare bit of panic overtaking me because I was starting to wonder if I had already lost her, if she had been gone from the moment she brought down a bolt of lightning with the force of the betrayal she felt.

When I got to her room, I pushed her door open without knocking.

“Lemmikki, I—” The words died on my lips when I heard the hitching sound of a sob.

Opening the door the rest of the way, I stepped inside to find her curled up on her bed, shaking with the tears she so rarely shed. Tears that were my undoing every time.

“Go away,” she choked out between sobs.

Like hell will I leave you like this, Lemmikki.

I hesitated for less than a second before I shut the door behind me, kicking my boots off and crossing the distance to the bed. She had her face buried in the pillow, looking so much smaller than the woman who had charged across a battlefield and tamed the storm itself to do her bidding.

“No.” I settled into the bed beside her, putting my arms around her and trying to lend her a small bit of my warmth like I had at the war front just before everything had gone up in flames.

“I never should have left you to begin with,” I said, feeling the truth of the words resound in my very bones, “and I’m sure as hell not going to do it again.”

I make mistakes, Lemmikki, but I rarely make the same one twice.