Page 76 of Dark Shaman: Eternal Hope
"You're right. I am a coward," Tony said in a hushed voice. "But not just because I was afraid of your temper. I knew how much you dreaded this. That you didn't want this, didn't want this child. And I knew you'd blame me for it."
Tula opened her mouth to argue, then closed it. "Why would I blame you?"
He rolled his eyes. "Do I need to explain about the birds and the bees? Unless you were sleeping with others behind my back, it's my fault that you are pregnant."
Tula tried really hard to ignore the idiotic comment about her sleeping around. As if that had been an option. Tony was just being a moron.
"Did I ever put the responsibility of preventing my pregnancy on you?"
"No, but it still was my doing."
She shook her head. "I drank the contraceptive tea. It should have worked, but for some reason it didn't. Should I blame Elias for giving me the wrong herbs? Or the doctor before him?"
Tony let out a breath. "Maybe, but in the end, it was me. I caused this. I caused your anguish."
The fight drained out of her as suddenly as it had risen. "You didn't. You have enough to answer for without adding this to your guilt. Did you think that by staying silent and pretending not to notice, you were somehow protecting me?"
"No, I think I was protecting myself," he admitted. "From seeing the disappointment in your eyes. From confirming that I'd ruined everything for you. Every day I didn't acknowledge it was another day I could pretend that maybe I was wrong, that maybe you'd just gained some weight, and that maybe the wine was giving you heartburn for other reasons."
"That's ridiculous—" She stopped herself, seeing the pain in his eyes. "I'm not blaming you, or even myself. I did everything right. I didn't forget or miss a dose. But the tea is not a hundred percent effective, especially on immortals. The Fates decided that it was my turn to suffer, that's all. But I could have used some care and attention, which I didn't get from you."
"I'm sorry." He sounded miserable.
"Nothing works forever," she said. "I knew that. I've always known that eventually my luck would run out."
Tony came to sit beside her on the edge of the tub. "I should have said something. Should have acknowledged it, supported you. Instead, I left you to carry this burden alone because I was too much of a coward to face my guilt."
"Your guilt," she repeated, finally understanding. "That's what this is really about. Not fear of my temper, but guilt."
He offered her a half smile. "Your temper is formidable. It was both. Can I make it up to you?"
She sighed. "We need to be there for each other. This child will either be taken away if it's a boy or condemned to mortality if it's a girl. Either way, I lose. But if it's a girl, at least you will get to see her grow up. You will probably die before her, like it's supposed to be for humans, so for you it won't be as heartbreaking as it will be for me."
"Thanks for the pep talk," he said sarcastically.
"It's the reality. You are human, and if we have a daughter, she will live and die a human." She turned to study his profile. "Do you want this child?"
The question seemed to surprise him. "Want? In another place, another life, yes. But here? God, no. How can I want that kind of fate for a child of mine?"
It was an honest answer, so she couldn't even get angry at him for not wanting the life growing inside of her. Yet she wished he'd answered differently.
Tony moved his hand tentatively to hover over her stomach, not quite touching. "May I?"
She took his hand and placed it on the slight swell of her belly. "It's your child as much as it is mine. For as long as we get to keep it, that is."
"I'm sorry for being such a coward."
"We're both cowards," she said. "I've been hiding it from everyone, also pretending it wasn't happening."
"What are we going to do?"
"Right now, we will go to dinner and pretend that everything is right in our world. By the way, I told the others."
He swallowed. "So, why keep up the pretense?"
"For the servants. For Navuh. The truth is that there is no point in hiding it because soon it will become impossible to hide, but I'm going with my gut, and it tells me not to make it official yet." She looked down at her belly. "I might miscarry. It happens in the first trimester."
That was one of the reasons she hadn't told anyone. On a subconscious level, she'd hoped for a miscarriage.
