Chapter 101 Daevir’s child
Amarien POV
“You lie!” I said, turning away as tears blazed in my eyes.
My breath came apart in jagged pieces, sharp and uneven, as if my lungs no longer remembered how to work together. My heart slammed so violently against my ribs it hurt. This…this can’t be true. It would not be true. The world had already taken too much from me. It could not still be reaching.
Behind me, I felt him move.
Not like a predator this time. Not like a king or a beast or a man used to taking. His steps were slow, deliberate, as though he feared I might shatter if he came too close.
“Amarien,” Theron said quietly.
I shook my head, hair whipping against my cheeks. “Don’t,” I whispered. “Don’t say anything else.”
His hands came to rest on my shoulders.
They were warm. Steady. Heavy with restraint.
“The Alpha of the South does not lie,” he said softly.
I stiffened under his touch.
“The child has been proclaimed,” Theron continued, his voice low, careful now. “Prince Ares Varek of the Eastern Sea. Son of the Emperor.”
The words hit me like cold water.
“No,” I breathed.
I turned on him, shoving at his chest with shaking hands. “No! no! no!” Each word tore itself from my throat, thin and frantic. “It can’t be. You’re wrong. You have to be wrong.”
My legs weakened. I barely caught myself from falling.
“They wouldn’t,” I whispered, more to myself than to him. “He wouldn’t. He couldn’t.”
That night at the tower, he didn't look back at me. Yet I had holes that Daevir hasn't forgotten me and his promises will haunt him for the rest of his days.
What child is his? Was it Catherine's? How could he possibly have a living child while I have a dead one!
Theron didn’t grab me when I stumbled. He didn’t force me to face him. He only stayed close, close enough that I could feel his presence behind me like a wall against the night.
“You think the world pauses for your grief,” he said gently. “But it doesn’t. Kingdoms keep moving. Crowns are passed. Celebrations are held…”
“Stop!” I cried, my voice breaking into a sob. “Stop it!”
I pressed my palms over my ears, as though I could block out truth itself.
“I don’t want to hear it,” I said, shaking my head violently. “I don’t want to know! I don’t want to see it! I don’t want…!”
My voice cracked completely.
Theron stepped closer and turned me, slowly, carefully, until I faced him. His hands slid from my shoulders to my arms, grounding, firm without pain.
“Look at me,” he said.
I didn’t want to. I couldn’t. My vision was drowning. He held my chin and tilted it up so I face him. Tears streamed my eyes.
“It’s not possible,” I whispered. “I was carrying his child. His. I suffered for it. I bled for it. I lost everything for it.”
My chest convulsed. “How could the gods give him another? How could they let mine die and bless him with a living son?”
Theron didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, he pulled me into him.
It was the last thing I expected.
I resisted at first, weakly, my hands pressing against his chest as if to push him away, but my strength was gone. Starved. Drained. Hollowed out by weeks of grief and sleeplessness and screaming into empty rooms.
My body betrayed me.
My forehead hit his chest.
And then something inside me collapsed.
A sound tore out of me, raw, primal, humiliating. My knees buckled, and if Theron hadn’t tightened his arms around me, I would have fallen straight to the earth.
I sobbed.
Loud and hard.
I cried with my whole body, hands clutching at the leather of his coat, fists bunching as if I could tear my pain out through my fingers. My shoulders heaved violently
“My baby,” I choked. “My baby…he was alive inside me. I felt him. I felt him!”
Theron said nothing.
He only held me.
One arm wrapped solidly around my back, anchoring me against him. The other lifted, slowly, carefully, until his fingers slid into my hair. He did not tug. Did not rush. He simply ran his hand through it again and again, smoothing where he could, letting me cry without interruption.
“I did everything right,” I sobbed into his chest. “I endured everything. I stayed alive for him. For him.”
My tears soaked into his clothes, hot and endless.
“I promised him,” I whispered. “I promised I’d protect him.”
Theron’s hand stilled for a moment against my head.
“You did,” he said quietly. “You fought harder than anyone I have ever known.”
My cries grew louder, breaking free now that someone was finally holding me steady. I wept for my child. For the lie I wanted to cling to. For the life that had been stolen from me and given so easily to another.
I wept because denial was easier than truth, and truth had found me anyway.
Theron remained unmoving beneath me like a solid presence against the storm. He did not flinch. Did not tell me to be strong. Did not ask me to stop.
For the first time since losing my baby, I did not cry alone.
And in his arms, under the cold stars by the river, I surrendered, not to anger, not to vengeance.
But to grief.