Chapter 15

Fifteen

It was dark outside the window—the window without a glass.

The window that I had never seen before, but that I recognized because it was almost identical to most of the others in this castle.

The stone castle with four towers and a guardian dragon standing sentinel at the back of it, which Syra had somehow made with her magic on the Isle that she'd pulled out of the sea.

I am here.

I sat up with a jolt, my mind a vortex of all the images, all the memories, all the thoughts and possibilities about everything clashing against each other. Physically I felt fine. Nothing hurt and I had no blood on me that I could see, and I was on a bed. I was on a king-sized bed as big as the one in our bedroom in the Evernight castle, covered in white silk sheets.

The room was maybe half in size, but it was fully furnished—curtains, thin and white, to the sides of those big square windows across from me, and a carpet made of reds and golds and blacks on the floor, and there was a table and an armchair to my left, two doors to my right, dressers and a wardrobe by the wall, and a wide mirror mounted on it. Lamps on the bedside tables, and they were both on, spilling dim orange light while the moon outside the window in the middle bathed the tips of the trees in silver.

My limbs were numb, so when I pushed myself off the bed and stood up, I didn't feel it. I couldn't tell you whether it was hot or cold or if it smelled a certain way—the panic wouldn't let me make good use of my other senses, only my eyes.

They were telling me that I was alone in this room. All alone with the light of the moon streaming through those windows, and my reflection staring at me from the right.

My hair was loose around my shoulders, a black shirt and pants on me, same as what I'd put on that morning when I went to that beach in the Woods. My sneakers and jacket were missing, but right now I couldn't think straight enough to look for them.

Right now all I could do was look at that mirror and at the night sky, the tips of the trees that I could see from here—then back again. My eyes always came back to that mirror, to my pale face and wide eyes.

To my stomach.

Strange—I was crying though I really couldn't tell. I just felt the tears on my cheeks and then saw them glistening in the mirror, picking up the moonlight and reflecting it everywhere like they were precious gems instead of fluid. My hands had closed around my stomach, too, and then I was no longer standing but sitting on the floor, back against the bed, turned to that mirror.

Baby. I was going to have a baby.

I was going to be a mom— me, Fall Hayes, a mom!

Whether I was laughing or crying, I couldn't really tell, but it could have been both. I hugged my knees to my chest, and I had no idea what I was even thinking, just that I wished Grey was here with me. Just that I wished Grey could be mind-blown by this together with me. Just that I wished Grey could tell me that he was just as terrified, just as in awe as I was.

But I was all alone.

Minutes or hours must have passed before I was able to stop crying. Before I was able to force myself to breathe, to think straight, to accept.

The end of the world was coming, possibly only weeks away.

I was pregnant.

And Grey was Syra's prisoner still.

Picking myself up and dusting myself off and that just-keep-going mentality were no strangers to me. I'd done all of it before, but it never really got any easier. There was no magical formula to it, unfortunately, and each time was different. But the secret, I found, was to have something to cling to, something to put all your focus on—like tying a rope around the edge of a rock to help you climb to the top of that mountain.

When Brandon kicked me out, not going back to Missy had been my rock.

When I was thrust into the Whispering Woods, it had been my freedom that pushed me forward.

When I thought I lost Grey, it was the desperation to keep the Evernight brothers away that had gotten me through.

And the thought of Grey had taken me to Mount Agva, to the Eighth Isle, and had brought me back here again this morning.

Right now, my rock wasn't just him. It wasn't even the end of the world looming ahead nor the baby that I apparently had in my belly.

It was time. It was the opportunity. It was the chance I so desperately wanted to understand what it even meant that I was pregnant. To come to terms with the fact that there was life growing inside me. This hadn't been my choice at all—everyone was always talking about how very close to impossible getting a bride pregnant was, so I hadn't even thought about it. Never had it even crossed my mind, but I wanted time to understand it. To enjoy it. Look forward to it. To just… be .

And the only way I could have that time was if Syra died.

I wasn't delusional—I knew something like that couldn't be done. Syra couldn't be killed, not with all that power flowing in her veins. And my mind was too chaotic right now, my thoughts stretched and my imagination hyper, my fear making everything look so damn gloomy and hopeless, so I didn't bother to come up with a plan at all. I didn't bother to even try to think up possibilities in which we saw the end of this alive and intact.

I just got my shit together, wiped my face, and I went to see which door let me out of this room so I could find Grey.

The hallway outside the first door left was silent, dark, empty. I drew in a deep breath and focused all of my attention—and this time my magic, too—to not be heard or seen by anyone who could be close to me. It always worked—whatever magic was in me turned me invisible to other people's senses, and I was hoping that this proved true with Syra as well.

So, faking courage I didn't have, I made my way down the hallway to the right without any clue where I was going, just that I needed to find Grey. I would know his energy when he was close. I'd feel his magic, I was sure of it.

My legs were still numb, so I didn't feel them at all. I walked and walked, down hallways and around corners, my only guide the moon in the night sky that I followed all around whichever tower I was in, through the many openings in the walls. Nothing to see, not even doors in front of the empty spaces that were supposed to be rooms. Only the one I'd woken up in had had one, old and wooden and heavy, but there was nothing else here except stone blocks, and sometimes torches here and there.

No fire burned on them. I didn't need light to see, but I still felt so alone. Like there was not a single living being in this castle with me—on this whole Isle—and that alone was overwhelming as hell.

When I made a full circle according to the moon in the sky, I almost screamed in frustration. A single stairway going down was all I'd found, and I'd hoped to be able to go up first, to the very top of this tower, maybe all the way to the head of the Great White. From there I could see where I was and which was the fastest way out of this castle. I could see how far we were from the sea.

As it was, I had no other choice but to descend the ones in front of me, my focus still on not being seen or heard or smelled. My focus still on feeling Grey's energy so I knew which way to go.

I found it the moment I turned the second corner a floor below.

It wasn't Grey letting out that energy, but it was something else. Something big. Something that radiated it the way I'd felt before.

It was Syra, possibly not even fifty feet away from me.

I stopped in my tracks in the middle of the hallway. So many instincts fired up inside me at the same time, but the one thing that mattered the most was that she did not hear me. That she did not know I was there. Grey would be with her, I had no doubt about it, so going back or moving away in the other direction wasn't possible. I had to get closer instead, silently, just to see where she was and where he was. Just to see that he was okay, at least.

A couple of minutes passed, and when I heard no footsteps, and her magic remained where it was, I convinced myself to move forward. Slowly. Silently—I was barefoot anyway, so it wasn't hard. My hands were shaking, so I fisted them tightly and didn't let the fear get in my way.

A moment later, I found myself in the same narrow corridor I'd been in that morning when I first came here, with the window at the end, and the half-hidden doorway to the right, the one that had led me to Grey.

Syra's magic was coming from that same room right now.

Again, I stopped and I breathed and I held onto the cold wall for support. No idea what to expect and no plan of action when I got there, but I still moved forward. I still put one foot in front of the other and I went all the way to the end, and I slowly leaned my head to see inside.

Torches lined the walls, orange flames dancing on them. Blue lights, different from the ones in the Star Reader—these like overgrown fireflies—hovered around a large table I hadn't even noticed the first time I was here. Magic buzzed on the surface of it—red magic moving around like someone was throwing laser beams on it from afar.

But it was Syra who was guiding those beams with her hands as she stood near the table, her back turned to me—and Valentine was right by her side, watching whatever she was doing.

In the middle of the room, right there on the floor in front of those two throne-like chairs, was Grey, lying on his stomach, his back covered in blood, some glistening still under the flames, most dry.

He was sprawled on the floor, not moving a single inch, and his head was turned to the other side so I couldn't see his face at all.

My heart fell and fell, but it wasn't just fear that propelled me forward this time. It was anger as well. Raw anger, as bright as the fire burning on those torches, and before I knew it, I was moving. I was walking into the room, reaching out my shaking hands for Grey.

"Good evening, lovely. Sleep well?"

I stopped when I was still a couple of steps away from him, too stunned by the visual to even form a proper thought yet.

But when I looked at them again, I found Valentine had turned toward me, hip resting on that table burning with red magic, and Syra still waving her hands over it.

Valentine was looking right at me, and not a hint of anything was anywhere on his face. Nothing to suggest that he was bluffing or playing games, or even cared that I was still alive— nothing at all.

To think of all those things he said to me…

Not that I believed him, but still.

"You must rest as much as you can, Fall. Pregnancy takes a toll on a woman's body. Regardless of what the world today is made to believe—just because women don't complain and make it look easy to create a life doesn't mean it is. Right?" Throwing her hair back, Syra turned to look at me over her shoulder. "And don't look so shocked, either—your body doesn't like shock very much."

I shook my head, words coming back to me slowly, my eyes moving back to Grey, bleeding, on the floor.

"What have you done to him?" I whispered, and I prayed with all my heart that my legs carried me all the way to him again.

Syra turned. "Nothing."

Nothing.

"Is he…is he d—" I couldn't even say it. God, my mind was so damn chaotic I couldn't even think it.

"Dead?" The siren laughed. "Don't be silly. I can't kill him, remember? And even if I could, I wouldn't. I love him."

I looked up at her then, relieved and disgusted and a million things at once. "Is this how you love?" Couldn't she see him there, still bleeding, not moving? Was this what she did to the people she claimed to love?

Her left eye twitched, and she crossed her arms in front of her chest as she slowly made her way to me. Valentine remained by the table as he watched, unbothered. Even Shadow was sitting at the edge with him—I just hadn't noticed from all that red light.

"He wouldn't stop. I have work to do. I can't keep watching out for his magic," Syra told me. "I just put him to sleep so he can rest." She stopped over Grey's head and looked down at him.

Looked down at him and flinched, like she was just noticing the blood on his back for the first time.

I don't know what did it, what was the last straw, but my magic burst out of me at the same time from every inch of my body. Probably all those emotions balled up inside of me, and I couldn't contain them any longer. I couldn't handle them, and just like Valentine said in his book about the Basics of Magic, magic reacted to them the most.

So, now it was in the room, spreading through every inch, and I didn't even try to stop it or slow it down. I didn't even try to see where it hit or how it would affect Grey—I just let it all go.

Valentine hit the floor on his knees the next second, and Shadow fell next to him, trying to hold himself up by his wings—but Syra still stood.

She still stood, a surprised smile on her face when she raised her hand and waved it at me, and the magic—all that fucking magic that nearly suffocated me—began to fade away.

Before the minute was over, Valentine was on all fours, coughing blood, and Shadow was barely beating his wings, and Syra was pushing back the hair that the energy of my magic had moved around her.

"That was unexpected—but so good!" she told me, and she walked around Grey to come closer.

"Don't come near me," I spit, ignoring the blood dripping from my nose again.

"Oh, don't be dramatic. We live in the same castle. Let me look at you." And she reached out her hand for me like she really thought I was going to let her touch me.

I moved back again. "You're a monster," I spit, and she stopped walking again. "I will find a way to stop you, Syra. I will walk out of this Isle together with Grey one way or the other." My voice shook and broke, and I was already crying again, but these were angry tears. These fueled me.

And Syra was absolutely unfazed. "You are not going anywhere until you have the baby, Fall," she told me, and she sighed like I had exhausted her. Valentine made it back to his feet, and his left eye was lower on his face than the right, but that's the only thing my magic had done to him this time before Syra stopped it. And with such ease, too.

"You won't—" Get anywhere near my baby, I was going to say, but she didn't even let me speak.

"Hush, now, lovely. You're angry. I think you need to eat."

She raised her hand in front of her face, kissed her fingers just like she'd done earlier, and she blew at me.

My body shut down the same second.

Grey, Grey, Grey, bleeding all over the floor…

My eyes opened slowly, and my head wobbled to the sides like it meant to fall off my neck completely. I blinked and blinked and there was light around me, and it was so bright that for a moment I considered I might somehow be out in the sun. For a moment, I considered I wasn't on the Eighth Isle with Syra, and I hadn't just seen Grey bleeding all over the floor, not moving a single inch.

Alarms rang in my head, making me wake up all the way at once.

I wasn't lying on a bed this time, but I was sitting in a chair all alone at the head of a table that could sit fifty people comfortably, in a big rectangular room. Over me in the high ceiling hung two chandeliers full of crystals, and paintings of places I'd never seen before decorated the walls, and food— so much food! —was on white and silver plates in front of me, waiting to be eaten.

My stomach growled as if on cue to tell me just how hungry I was. My eyes couldn't pick what to look at yet, all the soups and the meats and the vegetables and the sauces and the cakes— too much, too much, too much.

My body was shaking with weakness. Fuck, I really needed to eat something, or I wasn't going to be able to make it out of here without collapsing.

But where was I? Where the hell had she put me?

The room was made of that same dark grey stone, with two windows at my back that showed nothing but trees and the night sky, the moon hidden away by big dark clouds. Plenty of light came from the chandeliers, and the candles placed all over the long table, as well as on the stands around the room, under the paintings framed in silver. It took me a few minutes just to stop my heart from beating so fast, and to convince myself to reach for some of that bread and eat it.

I needed food. If I couldn't even coordinate my limbs properly from hunger, how could I ever hope to find Grey again and make sure he was okay?

That's the only thing that mattered. That's the only thing I'd allow myself to think about right now.

So, I ate a piece of bread as I cried, and some meat, even half a bowl of warm soup so that I wouldn't need to be thinking about food for as long as possible. And when that was done, I pushed myself to stand, and my legs held me. I forced myself to breathe—and God, I was so tired. So fucking exhausted of constantly having to swallow and keep moving, ignore my body and force it to push through. Just push through until the danger passed—but that was just it: the danger never passed!

"Find Grey," I told the empty room. The rest was unimportant.

The corridors were dark—no chandeliers or lamps or torches out here. It seemed everything in this castle was unfinished, and Syra only furnished and lit up the rooms she needed—like that dining room that I was pretty sure I'd passed by while searching for Grey earlier, and it had been empty then. Just like the rest of these cold, dark, eerie spaces.

But I moved forward anyway, hoping to find her room again, to find Grey on the floor, bleeding—all alone. To feed him my blood and pull him to his feet and have him fly us out through one of the windows.

The hope was strong—it wasn't over yet. No, it wasn't over until I'd tried a hundred more times.

Except the longer I moved through the corridors—and half my attention was on keeping myself shielded so Syra didn't hear me coming—the more certain I was that I'd never seen these rooms before. The more I was certain that Syra had put me in another part of the castle and I was never going to find my way back.

But…

I heard the footsteps far too late. I was in the middle of the wide corridor, this one long and empty with no doorways, just small windows close to the ceiling that let in a bit of moonlight.

If I turned around and ran, Syra was going to still see me as soon she turned the corner. She was so, so close…

I froze in place right there, unable to move or make up my mind, and my magic was already slipping out of my fingers. Even though I knew, I'd seen with my own eyes that it wasn't going to do anything to her, I still planned to let out every ounce I had in me, just as soon as I saw her face.

Then he turned the corner.

A small scream escaped me, and both my hands closed around my mouth.

Grey was standing there with his eyes wide open, shirtless still, his skin covered in dry blood, and he was just as shocked to see me.

He ran. I couldn't bring myself to move a single inch yet, half afraid that this was only my imagination, that Grey was still with Syra, on the floor, unconscious. I froze and I didn't move until he was in front of me and grabbed me in his arms, crashed me to his chest and kissed my head, and said, " You're okay, baby. You're okay. "

Definitely, undeniably Grey. One hundred percent.

My body was finally able to move again. I wrapped my arms around him, too, and I cried.

"You were…you were…y-y-you…" Three minutes in and I still couldn't speak, couldn't say a single sentence for the life of me.

Grey took my face in his hands and pushed my hair away, coming close enough so that the tips of our noses touched. "Listen to me, Fall. I need you to listen to me closely," he whispered, and that alone freaked me out even more.

Why wasn't he flying us out of here right now?

"Storm," I choked because Storm was still out there, out of the castle— free —and we could jump out the window right on his back. Grey didn't even need to use his wings. Storm could get us out faster.

But he wouldn't hear it.

"No," he told me. "Storm can't get us out."

My poor heart. "Then you can." I grabbed him by the wrists and held onto him with all my strength. "You can get us out. Just fly out the window—you can get us out, Grey."

He shook his head. "I can't, baby. I'm sorry," he said, then suddenly turned around as if he just heard someone coming from around the corner.

Grey froze in place for the longest moment, and I almost threw up all that I'd eaten, thinking he heard her, thinking she was coming, but…

"Run with me," Grey then said, and grabbing my hand in his, he started running right back where I'd come from.

I had no choice but to follow, not only because I was scared shitless of Syra coming to kill me by blowing me kisses, but because Grey pulled me and my body moved on its own. He knew exactly where he was going, even though the corridors all looked the same to me.

Suddenly, we were in that same hallway where there was a door, a single door made out of wood, the same door I'd come out of when I woke up earlier.

"No," I whispered because I knew what this was already.

Except Grey still held me by the hand and I didn't have the strength to stop him. He opened the door and walked us inside then slammed it closed the same second. It was that same room, same bed, same curtains, same carpet— that same room .

"What are you doing?! Why did you bring me here? We need to?—"

"Stop, baby," Grey whispered, grabbing my face in his hands again. "We can't leave yet. She won't let us. If we try, she'll hurt you. She's not stable and her oath doesn't prevent her from hurting you—do you understand?"

Fuck, yes, I understood.

I wrapped my arms around his neck, and we were close enough that I could see every line of his face and every color in his eyes. He was just as desperate as me, it was clear to see, and I hated it.

"You were bleeding on the floor," I said, and he shook his head, leaning in to kiss me, just a peck.

"I'm fine, baby. I'm okay," he told me, and when he leaned back again, he was smiling .

For a moment, it took me off guard, and not only because Grey smiled so rarely.

"You're pregnant."

My knees got week instantly as if my strings had been cut. Grey felt it so he wrapped an arm around my waist lightning fast, securing me against his chest.

I'm pregnant, I thought, as if I'd forgotten that little fact and it just occurred to me, too.

"Look at me, Fall," Grey said, concerned now, no smile on those lips. "We're okay. We're going to be just fine. We're going to get out of here soon."

"We're having a baby," I said because it just seemed so absurd to me now that he was here and I was allowing myself to comprehend what those words meant.

His smile was automatic. His hand moved down from my cheek and to my stomach, the other holding me up still. His fingers spread over my stomach, and God I felt like I might burst any second now.

"We're having a baby," Grey whispered, and he kissed me again.

But my brain refused to cooperate still, so I leaned away for a second.

"Wait, wait, hold on," I said. "Just…how? When ?" It made no sense—we hadn't even been together that many times, had we? Not nearly enough for me, at least.

"I don't know," Grey said. "I don't know. I have no idea." And he was still smiling.

"Stop smiling !"

"I can't," Grey said, shaking his head and moving us closer to the wall near the door, pressing me against it before he suddenly fell to his knees, his hands around my waist tightly. "I can't stop smiling. I'm happy, Fall. I'm so fucking happy."

It was a miracle I hadn't burst into a thousand pieces yet. Tears in my eyes, but these were light. Grey pulled my shirt up and kissed my stomach, breathing in the scent of my skin, holding me tightly.

I ran my hands through his dark hair, his shoulders still covered in dried blood, and I was happy and sad and terrified at the same time—but right now mostly happy.

"You've made me the happiest man in the world, my queen," he said, and I was tempted to laugh.

"We're prisoners of the most powerful being in the world," I reminded him, and he nodded.

"I'm aware of that," he said, looking up at me, cheek pressed to my stomach. Fuck, his eyes looked almost white right now. They were glowing.

I had never seen Grey like that before, even at his happiest. And I fucking adored that look on him.

"But we're going to get out of here. I have a plan and I'm going to see it through," he whispered, then continued to kiss all around my bellybutton. "Right now, I need you to be safe, okay? I just need you to be safe."

I closed my eyes, resting my head against the wall behind me, because his kisses were therapy. Nothing in the world like being with him, and it was already making everything else seem…distant. Not that important, even though I knew very well it was.

"Grey," I whispered because I didn't really know what I wanted to say at the moment—too many things. Way too many possibilities.

"We're going to get out of here, my queen," he said again. "We'll leave and she'll never find us again."

"The world might end if she doesn't, though." If we did get out of here and Syra couldn't find us, she was going to fucking end the world, no doubt about it—and this time for real. The stars said it, too.

"But you'll be alive," Grey said. I shook my head, eyes squeezed shut as he gently touched my stomach with the tips of his fingers, then whispered, "Take care of her—that's all that matters. We always take care of her first."

I laughed a little. "It's an Evernight—pretty sure it's a him ." Vampires only sired males.

"I know. I was talking to him," Grey said, then kissed my stomach one more time before he stood up.

My poor heart was about to explode.

"Grey, don't leave." Because now he looked like he was going to.

"I have to," he said and came closer again until our lips touched.

I knew he did, but God, I didn't want to be alone again. Was it too much to ask to be frozen in this moment in time forever?

"Kiss me," I said because that's the best way I knew how to stop time and make the world disappear, to float in the air with only Grey as my anchor.

Slamming his lips to mine, he kissed me the way he always did, like he was starved for me, like I was his lifeline, and I kissed him back the same way. His hands were all over me and I jumped, locked my legs around his hips, and then we were really one. His moans fueled me, and I took everything he gave me, bit his lips and sucked on his tongue until I was reminded again how perfect he tasted, exactly how he took all my worries and threw them away when we were like this.

I couldn't get enough of him. I never wanted to stop—but Grey did.

Way too soon, he let go of my lips and put me down on the floor and stepped back, hair all over the place, eyes bloodshot, a bulge in his pants that had me burning just to look at it, until…

"I will get us out of here, baby," he repeated, touching my cheek with his fingertips for only a second before he was out the door, closing it behind him, leaving me too stunned to move for a little while.

Gone.

He was gone, just like that, and I was all alone in the room, pacing in front of the door, trying to figure out what the hell to do with myself— why the hell did you just leave?!

Then I felt it.

A second before the door of the room opened, I felt the raw energy, the magic that came from Syra's body. Whether she tried to shield it or not, I had no idea, but I felt it all the way to my bones.

Then she was right in front of me.

Air no longer moved down my throat. I was standing in front of the door, barely three feet in, and she was there, a brow raised, looking around the room like she expected to find someone else in it besides me.

Like she expected to find Grey.

And when she didn't, she said, "I looked for you everywhere." I couldn't speak if I tried. "Go on, get in bed. You need to rest."

I shook my head—how had she changed from the woman she was with Hansil on that beach to this person? How had that warmth in her eyes turned to this soulless blue?

"It's not our fault for your misfortune," I whispered before I could help myself.

Syra paused, eyes wide and unblinking as if she was seeing so much more than just my face.

"It wasn't my fault, either," she finally said, turning around so fast that her hair flew in the air before it settled, exactly like it would do underwater. "Go ahead—sleep. I'll see you tomorrow, lovely."

She closed the door and left me alone in the cold room, my arms wrapped around myself and my heart pounding.

It was a long time before my legs were too weak to carry me and I had to lie down on that bed.

The memory of Grey's kiss lulled me to sleep.