Bound by Curse

The Test Result

Draven's POV

The hall was silent after Isabella finished speaking, but her words kept ringing in my head.

Pregnant.

"No," I said. My voice sounded strange, even to me.

"Your Majesty." Isabella stepped closer, her eyes wet and soft. "I know it hurts. I did not want to be the one to say it."

"Say the rest."

She lowered her head. "My sister is cursed. Three princes fell sick. No man in any kingdom would want her. Not even the man who put that child in her belly would accept her." She wiped a tear from her cheek. "So she needed someone strong, someone who could not refuse her. She took you from me so she could hide her shame behind your crown."

My hand closed into a fist. The leather of my glove creaked.

"If you are lying to me, Isabella," I said quietly, "I will know. And you will wish you had never crossed my gate."

She did not flinch. "Then go to her room, my king. You will find a test there. It will tell you everything."

I looked at her face for a long moment. Then I turned and walked away.

***

My boots hit the stone like hammers. Servants saw my face and pressed themselves against the walls. Garrick's voice called my name from somewhere behind me. I did not stop.

It is a lie. I said it again and again in my head. The girl is jealous. She is clever and sweet and she lies.

But another voice, a smaller one, said something worse.

Why did you not ask Rebecca first?

My chest burned. I thought of her white face in the throne room. I thought of her pale lips when I last saw her, dry and cracked. I had told myself I felt nothing. Yet when Isabella said pregnant, it felt like a blade sliding between my ribs.

Let her be innocent, I thought, and I hated myself for it. Let Isabella have lost her mind.

I reached the Queen's door. Isabella's quick footsteps came up behind me. I pushed the door open so hard it hit the wall.

***

Rebecca's POV

I was sitting on the edge of my bed with the little glass tube in my lap. My heart was pounding so hard it hurt. Mira had told me what to do, and I had done it with shaking hands, and now I only needed to look.

I had just stood up when the door crashed open.

I gasped and pressed the tube to my chest.

Draven stood in the doorway. His face was like stone. His eyes were burning. Behind him, Isabella stepped in with her hands folded, her face full of false sorrow.

"What is this?" My voice cracked. "Draven, what are you doing?"

He did not answer. His eyes swept the room. Then he walked past me, so close that his shoulder knocked mine, and went straight to the washing room.

"Stop!" I ran after him. "You cannot go in there!"

I was too late. He was already inside, and I heard the sound of glass moving, and a sharp, cold silence.

Then Isabella slipped past me.

"I will help, Your Majesty."

"Isabella, no..."

She was already inside. I stood frozen in the doorway. They were standing side by side over the small stone shelf. Draven held something in his hand. Isabella leaned close to look at it and gave a little gasp, as if she had never seen it before.

"Oh, it is true," she whispered. She lifted it high, so he could see. "Look, my king. It is positive."

***

Draven's POV

I stared at the small piece of glass in my hand.

Two lines. Dark and clear. There was no mistake.

For a moment, I could not hear anything. The room was gone. My ears rang, and the floor seemed to sway under my feet.

She is pregnant.

My throat was so tight I could not swallow. My chest felt like a hand was squeezing it. I had been angry before, many times. I knew that fire. This was different. This was cold and sharp, and it reached somewhere deep that I had kept locked for seven years.

Betrayed.

I dropped the test on the floor. It rolled and stopped against the wall.

I turned around slowly.

She stood in the doorway with her hand over her mouth and her eyes wide and wet. She was shaking. She looked so small. For one wild second, I wanted to pull her into my arms and ask her to tell me it was not true.

Then Isabella's hand touched my sleeve, light as a feather. "I am so sorry, my king."

The cold came back.

***

Rebecca's POV

"Draven, please," I said. My voice shook. "Listen to me. I can explain."

He walked toward me. Every step felt slow and heavy.

"I was only about to look. I did not even know this myself. I..."

His hand moved fast.

The slap cracked through the room. My head turned sharply to the side. Pain burst across my cheek and into my ear. I stumbled back and caught the wall to stay on my feet. My eyes filled with tears.

I touched my face. My fingers trembled against the burning skin.

He had hit me.

I stared at him. I could not understand how it had happened so fast. How did he know? Only Mira and I had spoken of it, in the dark, behind a bolted door. Why was Isabella here? Why was she standing beside him with that look in her eyes, like a cat that had caught a bird?

Mira. My stomach dropped. Did Mira... No. She would never. She would cut off her own tongue first.

"Do not look at her." Draven's voice shook with rage. "Look at me."

I lifted my eyes.

"Since the day we married, I have not touched you," he said. Each word was low and hard. "Not once. Not a finger. Do you hear me?"

"Draven..."

"So tell me whose it is."

My mouth fell open.

"Whose bastard are you carrying?" His voice cracked like a whip. "And how dare you? How dare you bring it into my house and think I would raise it as mine?"

"That is not..."

"Is that why you married me?" He stepped closer, and I flattened against the wall. His eyes were wild and red, and under all the fury I saw something I did not expect. It was pain. "You walked into my kingdom with your sad eyes and your crown. You let me give you a bed and a room and a name. All so you could hide another man's child behind me."

"No!"

"Answer me!"

"I do not know what you are saying!" I cried. My tears ran hot down my cheeks, over the mark of his hand. "I did not plan anything. I did not know it myself!"

"Liar."

Behind him, Isabella pressed her fingers to her lips. Her shoulders shook as if she were crying. But I saw her eyes over her hand, and they were shining with joy.

I looked from her to Draven, and a cold, strange feeling spread through me.

He stood there shouting at me like a wronged husband. Like a man who knew nothing. Like I was a stranger who had come out of the dark to cheat him.

But you know, I thought. My lips trembled. You know what happened. You were there.

I remembered the candle. His hands in my hair. His low voice in my ear. Then, I remembered waking up alone, with the sheets cold.

You took me to bed before we were ever married, I thought. My whole body shook. And now you stand there and ask me whose child it is.

I opened my mouth.