Page 139 of Born for Lace

One little death.

Maple. Tide. Now Tomar. I am losing friends faster than I am making them, but I will not lose Lagos.

Peering up, I find his gaze locked on my pregnant belly. Steel-coloured eyes, open and soft, focused.

My Lagos.

“Is it you?” he asks, voice a deep whisper. “I felt you beside me just now, and then you were gone. I thought I was back there.”

“You felt me?”

He kneels in front of me to get closer to the second heartbeat beneath my skin, his head level with mine but tilted to track the movement of his huge hands on his unborn baby. “You made this for me? That’s why.”

“Why what?”

“Why it didn’t work.”

What didn’t work?

“The conditioning,” he adds more to himself than me. I don’t understand what he is saying, but his eyes lift to me, painful memories stirring within them. “My little flower.”

Emotions—too many at once—wash over me. Love. Sorrow. Anguish. And then fear, reminding me we do not have much time. Any minute now, Community Protection will come for him and force him to leave or… Worse.

Shoot him on sight.

“We have to go.” I cup his cheeks, fingertips nestled in his neat blonde beard. “I don’t know what Robert will?—”

“You said his name.” Lagos frowns. “I was here in this room, and you said his name. I remember. Who the fuck is Robert?”

A sad smile forms on my lips at his protective leer, and I stroke my hands up through his hair. “The doctor.”

Dark energy pulses from him. “Did he taste you?”

“No,” I cough out.

A pause separates time. While inside his eyes, I almost see memories clawing back. “What happened in this room, little flower? I’ve been here before.”

“We can talk about it later. We have to leave.” I try to hold his lost gaze. “They will never let you stay.”

His expression changes as he studies my face, brows drawn in tighter and eyes sliding from my teary gaze to my wobbling lower lip. “Why… Where is your awe, little flower?”

A sob bursts from me, my nose and throat burning as I try to stifle more emotions. “My awe, brute?”

“I can’t…” He exhales roughly.

“We don’t have time for this.” My hands drop from his face, my mind made up that I need to get Spero, and we need to leave. I can feel the darkness all around Lagos, my skin prickling with his volatility, and I am terrified that at any moment, he is going to explode.

And they will fight back.

I have to get him out of here.

Lagos catches my elbow. “No. You should stay?—"

“We don’t have time!”

“I did that,” he states, staring at my face, his gaze lost and out of focus. This huge man, inhumanly powerful, so crippled with torment.

I force a smile, trying to push it the length of my lips, but they only tremble against the effort. “We don’t have time for this, Lagos. Everything will be alright now we are together.”

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