Page 32 of Elodie's Library of Second Chances

But Damen was nothing like his family.

Or was he?

I still wasn’t sure on that score.

My right hand rubbed against my lower belly as I trudged up the stairs to the top of the south tower with Venetia trailing behind me, muttering about stairs and how unnecessary they were.

Could I really get pregnant with Damen’s child?

An impossibility, I hoped.

Part of why Triaten had chosen me for this mission was that I was a breeder without any breeds.

Lyle and I—though we were an approved match by Helen—never managed to create offspring. And we had been together for years.

Whether my womb had been barren, or he had been shooting blanks, had never been determined. He was dead before Helen could investigate, or thrust another panthenite male upon me.

My fingers twitched, digging through my black tank top into the skin of my belly. I couldn’t let it happen. Having his child.

Touch my body? Yes.

Impregnate me? No.

Not that I could stop it. I hadn’t been able to stop myself from screwing him and sleeping in his bed every night.

The tiny voice in the back of my head that I constantly tried to ignore kept encouraging everything I was doing with him, no matter how I tried to shut it down. Telling me that maybe I truly did want Damen—want his child. A child.

I’d always had.

But after Lyle was killed, I could never again take that chance of having a child. Not with what could happen to that child ifthey were born with the wrong powers like I had been. Not with the torture that this world could dole out.

Venetia’s exaggerated panting pitched to a new height behind me in the circular stone staircase. “Really, how much farther, Ada? You didn’t say there would be this many stairs.”

“It’s good exercise. And maybe we’ll spend less time on the training field today.”

“But I don’t want to spend less time on the training field. More time there. Less time on the stairs.”

Curving around the center stones of the staircase, I grinned to myself. Grumble all she wanted to, teenage angst had no effect on me. I’d worked with far too many teens on the cusp of adulthood that had drama and angst in spades above her whining.

Damen had given me permission to work with Venetia, to teach her reading skills and other basic school topics, though she didn’t need any help in the math department. How her mind worked around math was high level. She didn’t understand mathematics like most that had been standardly schooled—she worked problems differently—but she always came to the right answers. By the time I was trying to teach her concepts in math that I barely understood, I realized the futility of it—her skill was already well past mine in that regard.

We reached the upper room of the south tower and I shoved open the ancient black iron-studded oak door.

Stepping into the room behind me, Venetia’s wide brown eyes shifted about, calculating, just as she did anytime I taught her something new. Trying so hard to place everything as quickly as possible in case it was a threat to her. A practice I couldn’t blame her for with her past.

“What is this place?” she asked.

“Other than a painting room, I honestly don’t really know. You’ve never been up here?”

She shook her head, her fingers trailing over the stark black lines outlining a face that had never been finished on the canvas closest to her.

I stepped into the center of the room. “I found your father up here a few weeks ago. He didn’t tell me anything of what this room is and who used it, but there’s enough dust to tell me that no one has come up here in years to actually paint.” My hand flipped around the room. “Whoever originally painted all of these was talented, though.”

“And dark.” Venetia motioned toward a giant canvas on the left side of the room that had emaciated horned demons falling down from a black sky onto an idyllic scene of a family sitting in a field of wildflowers having a picnic. No clue a rain of demons was blowing in.

As I studied the painting for a long moment, ice wrapped around my spine. I glanced to Venetia. “You do realize what type of beings your family consists of? That their general goals in life are death and destruction?”

“Yeah.” She scoffed a laugh, turning from the painting. “You’re right about their goals. That’s the part I’m always trying to forget.”