Chapter 272 Deliberate – Amelia’s POV

Chapter 272 Deliberate – Amelia’s POV
My hand returned to my abdomen. The small curve remained firm beneath the hospital gown, and the reality of what had almost happened made each breath feel deliberate.
“Someone wanted me to lose the pups.” The words barely rose above a whisper. I was not speaking to Aleksandr so much as making the truth exist outside my head. Somewhere, a person had looked at two unborn children and decided their deaths were useful.
Aleksandr shifted onto the edge of the bed and drew me towards him. One arm supported my shoulders while his other hand covered the curve beneath the gown. The hold asked nothing of me. It simply gave the fear somewhere to go.
I cried without restraint, the kind that shook through muscle and bone and left dignity outside the room. His shoulder took my weight. His shirt absorbed the tears, and he held on without trying to explain the inexplicable. Someone had used a pastry to reach inside my body and take what was mine. The violation went deeper than any hidden camera ever could.
Time blurred. Fluorescent lights hummed, monitors kept their measured rhythm, and Aleksandr breathed steadily beside me. Eventually the sobs broke into hiccups, then faded into the hollow fatigue that follows after a body has spent everything it had.
Two hours later, three sharp knocks sounded at the door. Dominic’s rhythm. When Aleksandr called him in, Dominic and Mira stood shoulder to shoulder in the corridor like mismatched bookends. Dominic carried a tray. Mira carried the restless concern of someone who had waited as long as politeness allowed.
“It’s good to see you awake, my Queen.” Dominic’s voice retained its crisp efficiency, but four days of blame had worn at the edges. He placed the tray on the bedside table with unusual care, then did something I had never seen Dominic Frost do.
He apologised. Profusely. The words came in a clipped, formal rush, each sentence assigning himself more responsibility for my collapse. Watching the palace’s tactical genius turn self-recrimination into a briefing was almost harder than the apology itself.
“Dominic.” I stopped him before the apology acquired subsections. My voice sounded stronger than I felt. “You did not poison the pastry. Someone exploited the system and made a choice. We learn from it, close the gap and put the blame where it belongs.”
He went still. The tension across his face shifted, faint but visible. It was not relief yet, only the first sign that he might eventually stop treating guilt as another security protocol.
“Thank you, my Queen.” Protocol shaped the words, but the gratitude beneath them was unmistakable.
Mira ignored protocol entirely. She stepped around Dominic and arranged the tray across my lap with the concentration of someone treating food as medicine. A bowl of clear broth steamed beside two pieces of lightly buttered bread and a glass of lemon water.
Then she hugged me. Her arms wrapped around my shoulders hard enough to make the bed creak, honey-blonde hair brushing my cheek. Whatever she meant to say came out muffled against the hospital gown because Mira had never cared where her face went when her heart took over.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” she said. When she pulled back, tears brightened her expression, but she refused to let them fall. Instead, she nudged the broth closer, returning to the practical work she understood.
Dominic cleared his throat and returned to business, though the apology still hung between us. “The kitchens have been reorganised. Ingredient stores are sealed, preparation teams work in pairs, and every royal dish is logged from cupboard to table. I will supervise until we identify every weakness the conspirators used.”
“You will supervise,” I said, “but you will also sleep. Exhaustion is a security risk, and I am not replacing one crisis with another because you decided guilt counts as fuel.”
Mira nodded emphatically beside him. Dominic looked betrayed by the alliance, which was encouraging. “The Queen is right,” she said. “You’ve been frightening the kitchen staff by appearing behind them without making noise. One of the assistants dropped twelve eggs yesterday.”
For the first time since waking, laughter escaped me. It hurt my throat and pulled unpleasantly at my abdomen, but the sound was real. Dominic’s expression suggested twelve broken eggs were a tactical sacrifice he remained prepared to defend.
They left together. Dominic bowed, still formal but less burdened. Mira squeezed my forearm once before following him into the corridor. The latch clicked, and the monitors resumed their quiet claim on the room.
Aleksandr lifted the broth and tested its temperature before offering me the first spoonful, all concentration and no ceremony. Warmth eased down my throat and settled my empty stomach. Chicken broth, simple and bland, exactly right for a body relearning ordinary work.
He tore the bread into manageable pieces and passed them to me one at a time, catching crumbs with the napkin rather than turning the act into another display of devotion. The domestic ordinariness steadied me more than any grand promise could have.
Halfway through the bowl, my hand began to shake. Aleksandr noticed and lowered the spoon without comment. I waited until the tremor passed, irritated by the reminder that waking had not restored four lost days of strength.
“I hate this,” I said. “Not the broth. The weakness. Everyone making decisions while I slept. The kingdom moving without me.”
“Then recover quickly and make them regret becoming comfortable,” Aleksandr said. Dry humour softened the answer without dismissing me. “Until then, the kingdom can survive under supervision.”
The broth stayed down. That small success felt absurdly important. My body had survived poison, protected two pups and slept for four days; now it accepted chicken stock and bread as though relearning civilisation one spoonful at a time.
I checked inward again. Kaela remained deeply asleep, but her breathing had evened out and the savage strain in our shared mind was gone. She had done what none of us could have asked of her. When she woke, I intended to thank her, then argue about whether unconsciousness counted as an acceptable medical decision made without consultation.
When the tray was empty, he set it aside and adjusted the pillows behind me. Fatigue pulled at every limb, equal parts poison, grief and four missing days. I let my head rest against the cushion while Aleksandr remained beside the bed, close enough to reach without making the closeness another vow.