Chapter 362

Chapter 362
Zayn

We were still sitting in our cages, doing absolutely nothing useful and apparently determined to make the miserable situation even more unbearable for each other, when I finally reached the point where I had started telling Kael the entire story of how I’d discovered that his father was also mine, partly out of sheer boredom and partly because there was something strangely satisfying about watching his expression become increasingly confused, horrified, and irritated as I explained every detail.

He had interrupted me so many times that I had eventually stopped trying to count.

“You’re telling me you found out your father was my father when—”

“Shut up.”

“I’m just trying to understand.”

“You’ve interrupted me six times.”

“It was four.”

“It was seven.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Neither does our family.”

Kael stared at me through the bars.

I stared back.

He eventually shook his head.

“You know what? Keep talking.”

“I was going to.”

“Good.”

“And try not to interrupt me.”

“I make no promises.”

I rolled my eyes and continued explaining, although I barely made it through another few sentences before he found another question to ask, and somehow the argument that followed was almost enough to make me forget where we were.

Almost.

Then a sound echoed through the dungeon.

Footsteps.

My sentence died halfway through.

Kael’s head turned toward the entrance at exactly the same moment mine did, and the faint amusement that had been lingering between us vanished so quickly that the change in the atmosphere was almost physical.

The footsteps continued approaching, each one growing louder as it travelled through the stone corridor, and I instinctively pushed myself upright, my back leaving the wall as I stared toward the far end of the dungeon.

Kael was already on his feet.

Neither of us knew who was coming, but after everything that had happened since he arrived, there was no reason to assume it was going to be anyone friendly.

Two figures eventually appeared around the corner.

Guards.

They were walking toward us with someone between them.

At first, I couldn’t make out who it was.

Their body was hanging heavily between the two men, their feet dragging across the floor with every step, and their head had fallen backward far enough that dark strands of hair spilled across their face.

Something about the shape of that body made my stomach tighten.

I stepped closer to the bars.

Then I saw her face.

Aurora.

My fingers closed around the iron bars so tightly that the metal dug painfully into my palms.

For one impossible second, I couldn’t breathe.

I had spent six months wondering where she was, imagining countless possibilities that I had tried to force out of my mind almost as soon as they appeared, and now she was suddenly standing—or rather, being dragged—only a few feet away from me.

Her body hung almost completely limp between the two guards, her head lolling slightly with each step as her feet scraped uselessly over the stone.

“Aurora.”

Her name came out before I could stop it.

Kael turned toward me.

I barely noticed.

My eyes were locked on her.

I searched her face desperately, looking for any sign that she was awake, any movement that might tell me she could hear me, but there was nothing.

Then I saw her chest move.

Once.

Barely enough to notice.

But it moved.

My lungs finally filled again.

She was alive.

The relief was so violent that it almost made my knees give out.

She was alive.

After six months of not knowing, after all the questions and fear and uncertainty that had consumed me, she was actually standing on the other side of those bars, breathing.

But the relief lasted only seconds before my gaze dropped lower.

Her stomach.

It was enormous.

Far larger than it should have been.

I had known she was pregnant from what Kael had told me, but seeing the evidence with my own eyes was something entirely different from hearing the words.

She didn’t look six months pregnant.

She looked as though she was much closer to giving birth.

My stomach twisted.

What had happened to her?

Had they hurt her?

Had something gone wrong?

Was the baby—

Our baby.

The realization hit me so hard that I tightened my grip around the bars.

My child was inside her.

After everything I had missed, everything I hadn’t known, everything that had happened while I had been trapped here, she was carrying our child and I hadn’t even been there to protect either of them.

The guards kept walking.

I expected them to continue toward one of the empty cages farther down the corridor, but instead they stopped directly in front of mine.

My confusion lasted only a heartbeat.

One of them pulled a key from his belt.

“What are you doing?”

He ignored me.

The lock turned.

The cage door swung open.

Before I could ask another question, the guard reached for Aurora and pushed her inside.

I caught her automatically.

Her entire weight collapsed against me, and I immediately dropped to the floor with her, carefully pulling her into my arms before her head could strike the stone.

“Aurora.”

Her body was completely limp against mine.

I wrapped one arm around her back and slid my other hand beneath her shoulders, supporting her as carefully as I could while the guard stepped out of the cage.

The door slammed shut.

The lock clicked.

I didn’t even look toward him.

I couldn’t.

Aurora was here.

She was actually here.

I finally had her in my arms, and every other thought seemed insignificant compared with the simple fact that she was breathing against my chest.

I pulled her closer.

Her skin was warm.

Too warm.

Her breathing was shallow, but steady enough that I could feel each breath against me.

I lowered my face toward the side of her neck, and the moment her scent reached me, something inside my chest broke open.

I had missed that.

I had missed her.

I had missed her so fucking much that I hadn’t realized how deeply the absence of her had settled into me until she was suddenly here again.

I closed my eyes and breathed her in, holding her as though letting go for even a second might somehow make her disappear again.

“Aurora…”

My voice cracked around her name.

I swallowed hard and pulled back enough to look at her face.

Her eyes remained closed.

There was no response.

“Aurora, baby, wake up.”

Nothing.

I touched her cheek carefully, brushing my thumb along her skin.

“Aurora.”

Her head remained against my arm.

Panic began crawling back into my chest.

I checked her breathing again, watching carefully as her chest rose and fell.

She was still breathing.

That was something.

It wasn’t enough.

I looked over her face again, searching for injuries, bruises, blood, anything that might explain why she was unconscious, but there was nothing immediately obvious.

That somehow made it worse.

I had no idea what had happened to her before those guards brought her here.

I didn’t know where she’d been kept, who had been around her, whether she had been fed properly, whether she had been hurt, or how long she’d been unconscious.

And I couldn’t stop looking at her stomach.

My hand hovered above it for a moment before I finally placed my palm carefully against the enormous curve.

My heart clenched.

My child was there.

My fucking child.

I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or completely lose my mind.

Instead, I stared down at her stomach with my hand resting gently against it, terrified that even the slightest pressure might hurt her.

“Are you okay?”

The question sounded ridiculous the moment it left my mouth.

She was unconscious in a dungeon.

Of course she wasn’t okay.

I swallowed and looked back at her face.

“What did they do to you?”

Kael had been silent across the corridor, but I barely registered his presence anymore.

Everything outside of Aurora had become distant.

The dungeon, the cages, the guards, even the pain still lingering throughout my body after everything that had happened earlier, none of it mattered in comparison with the woman lying against me.

I carefully lifted a strand of hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear so I could see her properly.

There were no obvious injuries.

No blood.

Nothing that immediately explained why she hadn’t opened her eyes.

That frightened me more than seeing an injury would have.

I shifted her slightly, making sure her head was supported against my shoulder, and wrapped my arm more securely around her.

“You’re safe now.”

The words slipped out quietly.

I didn’t know whether they were true.

I had no idea what was waiting outside this cage, and I had no idea what the king intended to do with any of us, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell her anything else.

“I’ve got you.”

My voice dropped even lower as I pressed my cheek lightly against her hair.

“I’ve got you, Rory.”

Her body remained completely still in my arms.

I held her anyway.

For six months, I had been trapped in this place with nothing but questions and memories, never knowing whether I would ever get the chance to see her again, and now that chance had finally been placed directly into my hands in the worst possible circumstances.

She was alive.

She was here.

She was carrying my child.

And whatever the hell had happened to her, whatever waited beyond these bars, and whatever it took to get us out of this fucking place, I wasn’t going to let anyone take her away from me again.