Chapter 94 Captive

Chapter 94 Captive
Violet's Pov

Jacob was in the chair against the wall with his wrists tied and his eyes on me.

Stephanie was at the door. Two fighters were in the room with us. Eric had gone to the study. The house had settled into a quiet that was worse than noise because it meant everyone was waiting for something.

"You look terrible," Stephanie said. She said it directly, without cruelty. A fact she had decided to share.

"I am in labor," I said. "I have been in labor for eight hours."

"Does it hurt," she said.

"What do you think," I said.

"I think yes," she said. "I have always been grateful I do not have to do that."

"Among all the things you have to be grateful for," I said, "I am sure that one ranks highly."

She looked at me. The calculating eyes.

"You are angry," she said.

"I am in labor in a locked room with nowhere to go while you stand at my door," I said. "Angry does not cover it."

"I expected more fear," she said.

"You will have to be disappointed," I said.

"I have been in that outer building for six weeks," she said. "I am not easily disappointed anymore. Disappointment requires expectations. Six weeks in a building that smells of horses removes most expectations."

I looked at Jacob. He was watching Stephanie. His face was controlled. From the angle of his shoulders, I could see he was working the rope without making it visible.

"Jacob," Stephanie said.

He looked at her.

"You always did come after her," she said. "Even when you were pushing her away. Even when you were engaged to me. You were always looking at her."

"Yes," he said.

"That must have been very inconvenient," she said.

"Extremely," he said.

"For me as well," she said. "If you had simply loved me the way I needed you to love me, none of this would have been necessary."

"If you had simply not faked your death and blamed it on Violet," he said, "none of this would have been necessary."

"That is also true," she said. "But you went first."

Eric came back in at six in the morning.

He looked at the contraction in my face and waited for it to pass.

"How far apart," he said.

"Five minutes," I said. "Possibly less."

"Helen is on her way," he said.

"I do not want Helen," I said.

"Eli needs her," he said. "Whatever else is happening in this room, Eli needs her."

I pressed my hands against Eli. He pushed back. Ready.

"Eric," I said.

"Yes," he said.

"Tell me what happens tonight," I said. "After Helen. After Eli is here and you have decided he is stable enough. Tell me clearly what you intend."

"Violet," he said.

"Say it," I said. "You told Stephanie you would move as soon as Helen said he was stable enough to survive without me. I want to hear you say it to my face."

The room was very quiet.

Jacob was watching Eric. The fighters were watching Eric. Stephanie was watching Eric.

Eric looked at me.

"What I told Stephanie," he said carefully, "was said in a private conversation."

"Through a window that was not as private as you believed," I said. "Say what you meant."

"I meant that the situation would be resolved," he said. "After Eli arrived. That is all I will say in this room."

"Resolved," Jacob said from the chair. His voice was controlled. "Stable enough to survive without her. I want to understand what resolution looks like in this plan."

"No," Jacob said. "He should say it. He has spent six months being careful with his words in front of you. He should say this one plainly."

Eric looked at Jacob. The cold thing was fully at the surface now. The calculation without the warmth over it.

"You are in a chair with your hands tied," Eric said. "You are not in a position to make demands."

"Then untie me," Jacob said. "We will have the conversation properly."

"Jacob," I said.

He looked at me.

"Not yet," I said. Not yet. Hold. Wait.

He held my gaze. Then he looked back at Eric and said nothing further.

Stephanie stepped forward from the door.

"I will tell them," she said to Eric. "Since you are being precise about it."

"Stephanie," he said.

"They already know," she said. "She heard through the window. Jacob knows from her. The room knows. Being precise changes nothing."

Eric looked at her.

"Fine," he said.

Stephanie looked at me. "The plan was always the same," she said. "Eric saw your gift and decided it was more valuable than anything else we had planned. We got you here. We used the gift for six months. It delivered everything we hoped."

"Six months of battle victories," I said.

"Every major territorial gain Eric has made came from your predictions," she said. "You made him the most feared Alpha in the region."

"And now the gift is in Eli," Jacob said.

"If it is hereditary," Stephanie said. "We believe it is. The lineage suggests it."

"So you take Eli and remove the source material," Jacob said.

"That is a cold way to say it," she said.

"It is the accurate way," he said.

Another contraction hit me. The strongest one yet. I breathed through it with both hands pressing on Eli. I kept my face from showing how strong it was because showing it gave Eric information I did not want him to have.

When it passed I looked at Eric.

"Six months," I said.

"Yes," he said.

"You were present for six months," I said. "The tea. The honey from the southern orchards. Sitting on the ground at the ritual. Saying I am sorry without qualifying it."

"Yes," he said.

"And this was always underneath it," I said.

He held my gaze. "Both things were true," he said. "I have told you that before."

"Both things cannot be true equally," I said.

"They can," he said. "You know they can. You have been living with two truths simultaneously for months. You know what it is to hold two things at once."

I looked at him. This man who had learned how I took my tea. Who had planned to have me killed after I delivered his son.

"What you did was not the same," I said.

"No," he said. "It was not."

Jacob spoke from the chair.

"Eric," he said.

Eric looked at him.

"Whatever you had planned," Jacob said, "it does not happen. Not tonight. Not any night. You can keep us here. You can have fighters at the door. You cannot keep us here forever. The documentation Darius prepared is outside your territory. The regional council will receive it the moment we do not make contact by noon today."

"Darius is in the corridor with his hands tied," Eric said.

"Darius is one person," Jacob said. "The documentation is not with Darius."

Eric looked at him.

"Caius," Eric said.

"Among others," Jacob said.

Eric was quiet.

Stephanie looked at him. Something passed between them.

"He is bluffing," she said.

"I am not bluffing," Jacob said. "Test it. Keep us here past noon and find out."

Another contraction moved through me. Long and building. I breathed and pressed and held.

Jacob was watching my face. Tracking the contractions. Counting.

When it passed he looked at Eric.

"Eli is coming," Jacob said. "Whether you want him to come in these circumstances or different ones is the only choice you have left."

Eric looked at me.

I held his gaze.

"Get Helen," he said finally.

He said it to Stephanie.

She looked at him. "Eric," she said.

"Get Helen," he said.

"This is not the plan," she said.

"The plan has already been adjusted three times," he said. "Get Helen."

Stephanie looked at me. She looked at Jacob. She looked at Eric.

Then she went out.

The room was quiet except for my breathing.

Jacob was looking at me. I was looking at him.

Eric was in the center of the room between us, and outside the documentation was somewhere with Caius, and Helen was coming, and Eli was almost here, and none of it was resolved.

But Jacob was still in the room.

That was the only thing I was holding onto right now.