Page 29 of Enchanted with the Orc
“Never. I’ll never love anyone more than I love you,” I pleaded, sounding absolutely desperate.
“Lies. Promise me. Promise me that you’ll never love anything more than me. Your life is in my hands, Baby. It’s up to me whether we live ordie.” He looked over at me and I saw everything in his eyes that I had feared I would see. He was insane, and I was just along for the ride.
Terror ran through me straight to my soul. This male was the biggest mistake of my life. But what could I do? I’d already come so far and I was pregnant with his baby.
If I tried to leave he would hurt me and he would hurt the baby. I was sure there was a way that I could deal with him. I just needed to figure it out.
That’s what marriage was. For better or for worse I needed to find a way to work it out with my husband. Gritting my teeth and knowing the truth, I reached out to cup his jaw, pressing my lips to the other side.
“It’s us, David,” I told him with a sob. “It’ll always be you and I. This baby is just a stepping stone for us to get closer, I promise.” I added, knowing that I’d never known a greater love than what I felt for that life growing inside of me, but understanding that the only way that life would survive would be if I figured a way through this relationship.
Maybe I could grow to love him. After he showed his true colors I hadn’t even tried to give it a real chance. Maybe I could help him.
Whatever it was, whatever I needed to do, for now I had to save my baby. And this was the only way to do it.
He was looking at me, his eyes off of the road while we were still too close to the edge. “Are you telling the truth?” he demanded.
“Yes,” I said, trying to sound as sincere as I could.
“And you’ll never leave me?” His hand tightened on my wrist and I could feel his fingers imprinting themselves in my skin.
I swallowed hard, fighting back the sobs that wanted to leave me and were wracking through my body, making me shake against him. “Never.”
The lie spilled from me because if he did anything to put my baby at risk again, I would find a way to leave.
He searched my face some more before he seemed to relax, thewrinkles between his eyebrows settling. His fingers relaxed against my wrist and a happy hum left him.
His eyes returned to the road and he chuckled. “Look how close you are to the edge,” he laughed and I felt a bubble of fury burning inside of me unlike anything I’d ever felt before.
He could have killed all of us and in that moment he was laughing about it as if it was all a big joke. I couldn’t leave, but by the Mother Goddess I wanted to.
As we drove home, he acted as though nothing happened. As if it was just another happy day in our lives having found out that I was pregnant.
Settling into bed next to him, his arm pulling me against his side, it was as if I was being smothered and couldn’t breathe.
What have I gotten myself into?
Chapter Seventeen
Tasia
Iwas yanked back to the present by my daughter running up to me to show me the collection of blocks in her hand. I smiled down at her, running my hand across the top of her downy head.
“Me,” she said, pointing to the small purple block, “you,” she announced pointing to the bigger yellow block, “and Abu,” shefinished, her chubby little finger prodding the biggest green block. Then she pressed them all together and lifted them toward me. “We’re a family.”
Shock, horror and terror flooded me at the same time, making adrenaline dump into my system.
Oh no. No, no, no.
I forced myself to smile, shaking my head. “No, sweetheart. Abu isn’t part of our family, okay? He’s a friend.”
The mutinous expression immediately took over her face. The one I knew too well that there was no way around. “Abu,” she insisted, smashing the blocks together harder. “Family.”
“He has his own family,” I tried explaining to her. “And we have our own. Right now he’s helping us, but that doesn’t mean that we’ll be together forever, okay?”
Instead of the screaming that I expected, her lower lip trembled and pain clutched at my chest.
“Together forever,” she wailed, sniffling hard, running toward Enka, who was frozen where he was standing a few feet away. She grabbed him around his leg, holding on for dear life as her tiny body was wracked with sobs. “Please, Abu!”
