[This post is from Marin’s point of view.]
I wasn’t sure if I’d heard her correctly. I stood with stomach sinking, palms sweating, staring at her and Matt, my heart starting to beat a little faster. I cleared my throat, mouth dry. Words wouldn’t come.
Was it that I wasn’t sure that I’d heard her correctly, or that I wasn’t sure that I wanted to hear her correctly?
Even as my stomach kept sinking, my heart was trying to leap out of my chest. Pregnant. If I’d heard her right, I was going to be an aunt, my brother would be a father—they would be a family, something that she’d been seeking all her life, ever since hers had been ripped away from her centuries ago by Olympium.
The very same people that at every turn seemed to appear to destroy her happiness every time she found it.
I sucked in a deep breath as Matt echoed her, “Pregnant?”
I saw her nod, drawing back enough to look at him. She searched his face, watching him, traces of fear and need in her eyes, so huge that it made my throat tighten. Matt took her face gently between his hands, his brows knitting.
“Really?” he whispered, thumbs stroking her cheeks. “You’re—we’re—?”
She nodded hard.
Matt started at her only half a second longer before his arms were around her. He was laughing, though I was sure I could see tears gathering in his eyes.
I’d never seen him so happy.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Phelan look at Leinth. “How did you figure it out?” he asked her. A chill shot through me and I looked at her, too, canting my head to one side. Leinth just smiled weakly.
“I didn’t know,” she said softly. “I just strongly suspected—as I imagine at least some of the others did.” Her gaze slanted toward me and I looked away, back to Matt and Hecate. I shook my head slightly.
“We only dared,” I whispered, watching them, and said nothing more.
