Page 38 of Bound

She doesn’t know the dragon has two heads.

I have to defeat Carlos in the world, and the Isobel inside me.

I don’t want her tied to me any longer.

The guilt, the hatred, the betrayal that cuts me deeper than anything Erin has ever done or planned on doing.

Erin and I were strangers.

Isobel and I were together and had something between us that no one knew about. Something that tied us tighter than anything.

She was pregnant.

With my child.

I was young, stunned, lost, yet fiercely protective of the tiny being in her belly. It was early, she was joyous, and we chose to keep the secret to ourselves as long as we could.

She lost the baby just before the fire.

Later I learned this can happen, especially with first pregnancies.

But then, it felt like a punishment had been handed down.

I didn’t know how to handle it. Nothing like this had ever happened to me where I had to go through it with someone else. With Gregory, I was the older one, shielding him.

With her, there was nothing I could do.

And maybe in her weakness, Carlos moved in. Maybe he offered her a new life and that’s what she needed.

I don’t know.

I only know she remembers, too.

I saw her hand pass over her womb that first night she showed up on the doorstep at Red Shutters.

She’s kept it to herself, all this time. Then, at the table, I feared she was about to tell everyone.

To tell Erin.

It never occurred to me that Erin might even need to know. I thought the less I talked about that part of my past, the more I protected her from it.

Looking back, maybe cracks were formed between us then, ones that made it easier for Carlos to poison her against me. It still haunts me; what lie did Carlos tell her about me to make her do what she did?

That’s the dark inky poison that leaks into every corner of my mind.

Poison I don’t yet have the antidote for.

And I have to tell Erin. About the baby we shared.

She’s just begun to trust in our forever.

But if she finds out any other way, from anyone else.

It might be too much. It might break something in her.

And she might leave me too.

That fear grips me, and it’s why I haven’t told her before now.