Page 75 of Incoronate
She looked so small now. So vulnerable.
“Do you want to hold him?” I asked gently.
Her eyes widened slightly, then filled with tears. She managed the barest nod.
I leaned forward and carefully placed the baby in her arms, adjusting the blanket around him. Her hands trembled as they came up to cradle him, and a sound escaped her throat. Half sob, half laugh. The kind of sound only a mother could make when meeting the child she would never get to raise.
“He’s so beautiful,” she whispered, staring down at his tiny face with wonder.
“He is,” I agreed, my throat tightening with emotion.
We sat there in silence for a moment, just the three of us, as if it had always been meant to be this way. The baby madea soft cooing sound, and Nikki’s tears spilled over, tracking down her ashen cheeks in slow, fragile lines.
“I’m sorry.” The words came out barely audible as she met my eyes briefly. “For everything. I’m so sorry, Jemma.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.Sorrydidn’t fix the damage she’d done. It didn’t undo the pain or the betrayals or the nights I’d spent wondering if I was losing my mind. But looking at her now, dying with her son in her arms for the first and last time, I couldn’t find it in me to be cruel back to her.
“I know,” I said simply.
Her breathing was getting shallower with every second that passed. More labored. Whatever color had been left in her cheeks was draining away like water through a sieve.
“Will you…” She paused, struggling to get the words out. “Will you take care of him? Please? I know he’ll be safe with you.”
The question shouldn’t have surprised me as much as it did. I had saved his life in the end. And I was his blood. But I still hadn’t seen it coming. I looked down at the baby in her arms again, at his tiny fingers curled against the blanket, at the way his chest rose and fell with each fragile breath.
“I’ll protect him with my life,” I promised, meaning it with everything that I had.
Something that might have been relief washed over her features. “Thank you,” she breathed as her eyes drifted closed for a moment.
The baby stirred in her arms, making another soft sound, and her lips curved into the faintest smile.
“I love you,” she whispered to him. “I love you so much.” Her voice broke on the last word.
A few beats of silence passed before she found her voice again. And then, softly, achingly, she began to hum.
It was so soft and low, I almost didn’t hear it. Just a few broken notes of a lullaby I didn’t recognize, fragile and devastating in its simplicity. A song for a child who would never hear it again.
Tears blurred my vision and spilled hot down my cheeks as I watched her sing her final goodbye to the son she would never know. To the boy she would never watch grow up. The melody faltered as her chest rose once more, a shallow rise that took everything she had left to give. And then it fell for the last time. Her hands slipped away from her son, fingers loosening their hold as the last breath left her body.
I caught the baby before he could slip, pulling him back against my chest as Nikki’s head rolled to the side. Her eyes stayed half-open, fixed on nothing. The desperate, unrelenting intensity that had lived in them for as long as I’d known her finally, mercifully, gone.
I sat there for the longest moment of my life, holding her son while her body cooled beside me. Feeling the weight of the promise I had just made and the life I had just agreed to take responsibility for.
And I would. With every fiber of my being. With every breath I had left in me. I would keep him safe from the prophecies and the darkness and anyone who tried to use him for their own ends. He would never be a weapon. Never be a pawn. He would just be a boy.
I looked down at his tiny face, at the way his gray eyes had drifted closed in sleep, at the perfect curve of his cheek and the small hand that had curled against my chest. He was so small and innocent. So completely unaware of everything that had been done in his name.
He deserved better than the destiny that had been written for him. Better than the life all of us had been cursed to. Andas sure as I was sitting there breathing, I silently vowed to move heaven and earth to make sure he got it.
Then I stood and walked out of the room.
The sisters were in the main room, working in shared silence to clean up the aftermath of everything that had gone down tonight. Demon ash swept into piles. Scorch marks scrubbed from the floorboards. They looked up when I appeared in the doorway.
“She’s gone,” I said quietly.
A brief silence fell over the room, as though none of us were quite sure what the right words were for a moment like this. But the sisters didn’t pretend to grieve for long. There was too much work to be done. Too many bodies to deal with. Too many questions left unanswered.
“I need to get back,” I said, adjusting my hold on the baby.
