Page 69 of Crown of Storm and Silence
"Is fine," he assures me quickly, his hands touch my stomach. "Alive and strong. The healers say the connection is fully restored."
Relief crashes over me so intensely that more tears fall. Through everything—the capture, the feeding, the violation—my child survived. We both survived.
Anger courses through me, so vicious that the chamber lights up. Kaan's hands touch my shoulders. "You are safe." His gaze is glazed over with unshed tears as he presses his forehead to mine. "You are safe,hatun."
But as the immediate anger fades, another memory surfaces with devastating timing. Not from recent days, but from before—a fragment that has broken through the walls of my amnesia with perfect, cruel timing.
I remember asking him about children, about the possibility of having them someday. The way his face had changed when understanding crashed into him, the horror that had flooded his features when he realized what I was suggesting. The shadows that had exploded around him, violent and chaotic, as he stepped back from me like I was something to fear.
"I was wondering... how you felt about them. About the idea of... of having them. Someday."
The darkness had erupted from his skin, and I'd felt his terror through whatever bond we'd shared then. Not joy at the possibility of creating life together. Horror. Pure, undiluted horror at the thought.
I had backed away, my hand pressed protectively to my belly—though he hadn't known then that life was already growing there—understanding with crystal clarity that children were the last thing he wanted.
The memory cuts through me like a blade. Even then, even before he knew I was carrying his child, he'd made his feelings brutally clear. And now, months later, that unwanted child moves within me while he sits vigil beside my bed.
"Nesilhan, I won't let anyone hurt you again." It's a promise that sounds like it's being molded by the hands of the gods. He has mistaken my horror of the memory for fear right now.
I flinch before I can stop myself, my body recoiling from his touch without conscious thought. The movement is instinctive, primal—every part of me that was violated, that was touched without permission, screaming warnings about hands reaching for me.
The hurt that flashes across his features is immediate and devastating. He stops mid-reach, his hand suspended in the air between us.
Tears begin streaming down my face—not just from the memories of assault, but from the impossible tangle of gratitude and fear and remembered rejection that tears at my chest. He saved me. He fought monsters to bring me home. But he doesn't want this child, doesn't want the life we created together.
"You came for me," I whisper, my voice breaking on the words.
"Of course I came for you," he says, and there's something raw in his voice, something that speaks of terror barely survived. "I felt your fear, felt the baby's distress. I would have torn apart creation itself to find you."
"But you don't want this," I say, my hand pressing protectively to my belly as fresh tears fall. "You don't want us."
Confusion flickers across his features. "What are you talking about? Of course I want?—"
"That night," I interrupt, the words tumbling out between sobs. "When I asked about children. You looked at me like I was a monster for even suggesting it. You stepped away from me like I was something to fear."
"Your memories..." Kaan interrupts. I shake my head and back away from him, drawing my knees to my chest. "Only some."
Understanding dawns in his eyes, followed immediately by something that might be self-loathing. "Nesilhan, that wasn't... You don't understand?—"
He reaches for me again, and this time I can't stop the full-body flinch that runs through me. "Please don't," I whisper, pressing myself back against the pillows. "Please."
The words shatter something in his expression. He stops immediately, his hands falling to his sides as he watches me crumble with an expression of helpless anguish.
"I would never hurt you," he says quietly. "Never. What they did... I will kill them for it. I will tear them apart with my own hands."
"I know," I sob, because I do know. I can smell death on him, can see the evidence of violence in his stained clothes and haunted eyes. "I know you saved me. But you don't want this baby, and I can't..."
"That's not true," he says desperately. "Nesilhan, you have to listen to me?—"
"I remember," I cut him off, my voice breaking completely. "I remember the horror in your eyes. The way you couldn't get away from me fast enough when you realized what I was asking."
The silence that follows is deafening. He sits there, looking like I've just driven a blade between his ribs, and I can see him struggling with words that won't come.
Finally, he speaks, his voice barely above a whisper. "I was afraid."
"Of me?"
"Of myself." The admission seems torn from somewhere deep in his chest. "Of what I might do if I lost control again. Of becoming the monster who destroys everything he touches."
