Page 136 of Born for Silk

“Not The Trade’s?”

“No!”

Then she looks up at me, tears streaming down her cheeks… And her eyes. I never want to see them like this ever again. Broken. Like my sister.

“Then we keep our baby, Rome,” she says. “We keep our baby.”

A growl wrenches from the base of my shadowed soul, rumbling against her tiny form, demanding and dominant.

“Yes!” That is my declaration; the only word I have, the only certainty in my life is that she is mine. The babies that grow in her womb are mine. I am keeping them all.

Whatever the dark deal, whatever I must sacrifice—whoever— I will make it happen through blood or bargain, I will not give them up!

My volatile muscles convulse, wanting her soft caress to tame them, but it doesn’t come...

Frowning, I stare down my lashes, cup her wet cheeks in my hands, and guide her chin upward.

A pooling violet gaze loses focus on me, reality sinking in. Her forgiveness drifting.

“That look in your eyes, little creature. Hurts more than I can handle. I can bear the bullets, but not your broken heart.”

Her head shakes over and over. “No.” She isn’t in her eyes as she whispers, “I cannot keep my baby and watch you take away my Collective’s… I cannot. I don’t… Can’t.”

She goes limp in my arms, the battle stripped from her, her words as defeated as her body feels against mine.

I want to roar. Feel it stirring. “I will take you to the Windmill Forest, Aster.” I will do anything. “You and Tuscany. I will make amends.”

Detached, she says, “And Ana,” but there is no hope, no pulse to her words.

It isn’t enough for her.

But she will take it.

Fuck.

Chapter Eleven

Aster

It has been two weeks since my whole body crumbled in Rome’s arms. I let go of something inside… Something I have been trying to get back with each passing day.

Hope.

Hope that I can dance in my love for Rome like rain coating me in the chill of winter and put aside the certainty of watching Daisy and Blossom lose their babes…

And even me.

I know what he says—I will keep my baby—but I don’t know what that looks like. It is as foreign a picture as the ones I’ve seen of the Missing Moon.

A huge rock in the sky?

Surrounded by twinkling lights?

Sounds like a fairytale.

A baby in my bed? In a cot? In a hammock? Surrounded by strangers and on display?

Also a fairytale.

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