Pregnant With Alpha’s Genius Twins

Chapter 199

#Chapter 199 – The Long Night

Rafe carefully places Victor on his side of the bed while I pull back the sheets. The two brothers cheerfully joke about the battle and the siege, about what happened next and how poor Rafe had to clean up Victor’s mess while Victor had what Rafe calls a “nice four-day nap.” Victor laughs at this and teases his brother, but I can see that his heart isn’t in it.

He just wants to sleep, I know.

But he’s honestly so sick, so tired that…I don’t know if he’ll wake up.

It’s a horrible realization to come to as I tuck the blankets in around him. I see that Rafe comes to it as well and does his best to keep the knowledge of it off his face. As Victor looks between us, I know that we’re both failing.

“Thank you,” Victor says, smiling at Rafe. “You’ve been a good brother to me. I’m glad that we have… fixed things. Between us. After so many years.”

“Yeah,” Rafe says, a little awkward, running his fingers through his hair. “I’m sorry that I…poisoned you during chess. And hung you upside down from a tree. And all that.”

Victor and I can’t help laughing at this and Rafe smiles at us and then heads for the door. I walk with him to it.

“The boys?” I say quietly, looking towards their room where I can hear them playing. “Will you put them to bed? And…stay with them?”

He nods quietly to me and I can see the grief plain on his face now. No need to hide it anymore – not now that he’s out of Victor’s sight.

“Thank you,” I whisper, and then press the door shut. I turn back to Victor, leaning against it.

Victor sits in the bed, his face still so pale, but he smiles at me. He glances quickly at the closet. “Will we be expecting any…phone calls? Tonight?”

I can’t help the laugh that bursts out of me. “I mean,” I say, shrugging. “I can hook it back up, if you want to. Who knows who might call.”

He laughs along with me and then opens his arms. “No,” he says. “No interruptions. I just want you tonight.”

I go to him, then, sliding off my shoes and crawling across the bed, into his arms, my home. He wraps them around me as I rest my head against his chest, which rises faintly. I can feel a slight tremor in the muscles of his arms. God, I’ve never seen him so weak.

“Evelyn,” Victor says quietly, his mouth against my hair. “If this all…ends. I want you to know how grateful I am to have had you in my life. To have had at least these past few months. Every minute of it has been worth it.”

“No,” I whisper, shaking my head so that he can feel my refusal against his chest even if he can’t hear it. “No goodbyes, Victor. It’s not time for that. Not for a long time.”

He sighs and, after a moment, whispers, “all right. Come and give me a kiss, and then we’ll go to sleep. I am…so tired.” Please check at N/ôvel(D)rama.Org.

I do as he asks, raising myself on my arms and bringing my face to his. The kiss he gives me – it sweeps through me, the first real kiss we’ve had since…god, I can’t even remember. Since the big house burned down, at least.

For a moment – just a moment, as I close my eyes – he feels as strong and willful as he’s ever been – a force of nature ready to take on the world.

That makes sense to me, though. His love for me is evergreen, even if his body is failing.

But when I pull away, I can see that his eyes are half closed with exhaustion.

I help him to lay down and get his pillows right. Then, I leave him for a moment to go and change into my pajamas. When I come back to bed and turn off the light, I can see that he is already asleep.

I curl up next to him, ready for this long night.

As the hours pass, Victor gets worse.

I don’t sleep at all, listening to the air hiss from his lungs, his chest rising less and less with each passing breath. I keep my hand on his wrist, my fingers feeling for his pulse. It grows weaker as the clock ticks the minutes by.

Finally, eventually, I panic.

I had thought – hoped – that being home would invigorate him, bring him the peace and comfort he needs to heal. But things are progressing faster than I thought – faster than he can possibly survive.

“No,” I growl, my anxiety forcing me up when I can barely feel the pulse at his wrist. “No, Victor. This is not how it ends.”

I sit up next to him, putting my hands on his shoulders, shaking him. I have no idea what I’m doing, obviously, and I am sure that the doctors would tell me that this is not the right choice –

But what the hell else am I supposed to do?

“Victor,” I growl, shaking him harder – but his head just falls to the side. “Wake up!” I say. “I need you to fight!”

He does nothing – still asleep, or worse. Passed out? Crossing over some border between life and death?

My own breath starts to come faster as my panic overtakes me. s**t, s**t – what the hell was I supposed to do?

Some instinct takes over me. I don’t know what – I couldn’t begin to name it, or its source. But I act upon it, having nowhere else to turn.

I move quickly, pulling Victor flat on the bed, carefully removing the pillows from behind his head and tossing them to the ground.

Then, bizarrely, I feel the instinct to take off all my clothes – every stitch of them. So I do it. I don’t even think twice, I just do as my body tells me.

Then, I lean forward and take off Victor’s clothes as well, pulling them off his body and hurling them frantically to the floor. When his tshirt won’t come over his head, I grab scissors from the bedside table and cut it off, pulling it out from beneath him.

That done – when Victor is laying naked before me – I know that I have work to do next.

So I climb back into the bed and press my body against his, the front of me against his side, one arm wrapped around his waist, the other bent between us, my palm flat against his ribs.

There is nothing s****l about the moment – even though our bodies are naked next to each other. Every time in the past that we have lain like this, it was always because there was a heat and a need. But that is absent now.

Instead, there is an intimacy here, a deep connection that I feel as my skin presses against his.

Something in Victor’s nearly-limp form responds to the feeling of me next to him. He doesn’t wake up, but his sleeping body turns to me then, wrapping his arms around me so that we are pressed closely against one another.

When we come to rest, our chests and stomachs are flat against each other, our legs entwined, my head tucked beneath his chin so that my breath comes hot on his throat.

His breath is short, shallow – but mine is hot and frantic. I pull him closer to me, as close as I can get, whispering his name.

Then, I close my eyes, and the world falls away.