Anger was better than indifference. It meant she’d touched a nerve and that was enough to tell her she’d gotten through to him. Sure, his first reaction to anyone managing to do that was always rage, but that was just because his brain was wired to react that way when it hit a conflict in his logic and once that had passed he’d actually process it, even if she knew he’d never admit it.
He had been going through every “safe house” he knew Chance had used in the past, all of the ones he had gotten Sera to tell him existed. But leave it to the fucking psycho to take her to the house he tried to kill their mother in. He had, initially, planned on being a little more stealthy, waiting for the lights to go out and just taking Sera back while she was asleep, but the sound of breaking glass had him kicking the door in, the shock of seeing Sera alone in the room and, mostly, unharmed, had him stopping in his tracks. He had been expecting her to be bleeding.
“Oh. Don’ even care ‘bout fae politics myself.” He added a second stick to his collection, “Bu’ I know thick people, had a human once who though’ if he jus’ covered ‘is eyes ‘nd couldn’ see us we’d leave ‘im alone.” Badger was laughing and quickly pretended to cower and cover his face, only for a moment. “No’ a long ‘unt tha’ one.”
The way he spoke about hunting people was enough to make her cringe. The only things she had ever hunted had been rabbits, squirrels, that sort of thing, and only for the purposes of food and furs when she was living on the streets. It had been to live.
“You were an adult when she did that to you, Chance. Try imagining how you would have felt if she’d done it to you when you were a kid. Maybe then you’ll understand what went wrong with Jack.”
She didn’t mean for it to come out like that, but she needed him to connect to some sort of emotional response from him right now, even if she had to drag it out of him.
He didn’t respond to her words as he stood and walked away. If he stayed in the room with her, he was going to hit her. Instead, he put his fist through the glass window in the kitchen door, barely feeling the glass tear his hand and arm up.
If she wanted him to feel something, she succeeded, but he doubted it was what she was hoping for.
She faltered, fighting back tears as she tried to take his indifference as a good thing and ease her worries, but she just couldn’t until she knew he wouldn’t find some way to punish her for it.
“Please don’t take this one away,” she begged, breaking down. “I’m better now. You don’t have to do to this one what you did to Jack. Please?”
He gave her a look that fell somewhere between bored and annoyed That was what she was worried over? And why on earth was she crying?
“That would fall under non-consensual harm. Something I can’t actually do, remember? They’re not to leave this house when they’re born though. Are we understood?”
He couldn’t take the children from her but he damn sure wasn’t going to let anyone else, including her, take them away from him. What was his was his, whether he cared about them beyond that or not.
Of course, he already knew, but it unnerved her all the same, trying to swallow down the conditioned fear of not knowing how he was about to truly react to the news.
“I’m pregnant,” she muttered, short and flat-toned, hoping to just get it out of the way and done with as little pain as possible. Still, it wasn’t like she could hide the fact she was terrified either, but she didn’t know if he figured out why or even remotely cared.
“Most women would seem more thrilled,” he remarked, giving her a once over. She looked far from pleased and he didn’t have the capacity to try figuring out why. Besides, if he asked, she would have to answer.
“It’s hardly the first time you’ve been pregnant, Sera.”
Sera had been feeling unwell for a few days now, but that in itself wouldn’t have been enough of a red flag to her under normal circumstances. Neither would missing her period with how irregular it generally was from stress anyway, but this was different. Even before she took a test to confirm it, she knew. It was the same feeling she had when she was pregnant with Kellen, so she knew that warm, flickering little pulse of life was unmistakable.
She knew logically that Chance wasn’t allowed to hurt her or the baby growing inside now or he’d be breaking the blood oath he’d taken, but she couldn’t help feeling scared anyway, worried that he’d take this one away like he had with Jack and she would have to suffer that loss all over again, but she couldn’t hide the truth from Chance either or she’d be breaking her promise to him.
He wasn’t an idiot and it wasn’t the first time he had felt that little pulse when touching someone. Of course, he was a monster and that had never actually stopped him from killing someone either. But it didn’t matter, he was blood bound to not harm her or the life growing inside of her. Either one of them, if he were to be honest. It had been two distinct energies, just forming, starting. He would have been more excited if he had been allowed to parent his way.
When she finally came out of the bathroom, Chance glanced up, trying to look as disinterested as possible. “Something you need to tell me, Princess?”
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