The Incubus's Secretary (Dark Council Series Book 2)

Chapter 24

Sanaya’s P.O.V

“I’m right here…”

“Lance?” I asked groggily as the fog slowly cleared from my mind.

Everything that had happened flashed before my eyes as the fog cleared and I pressed my fingers to my temples to stop the sudden throbbing, only to notice wires hooked to my arm.

Keith.

He was back.

I remember seeing him at the charity dinner…and then…

“Did I faint?” I asked hoarsely.

“No. You had a stress attack.” Lancelin told me, squeezing my arm lightly.

His hand was warm, comforting. I didn’t feel as stressed when he was around. It felt like I could take on the world. Slowly, I tightened my fingers around his a fraction, a bit hesitant at first, but when Lance put another hand on top of mine, I released the breath I had been holding.

“You’re not going to ask me anything?” I asked Lance after a long moment of silence.

“I’m still debating if I should go back and rip out that filius canis” throat.” Lancelin said through gritted teeth, startling a laugh out of me as he called Keith a SOB in Latin.

“So…” Lance began a bit unsurely. “What happened?”

“Do you remember when I told you about the man I had been in love with for eight years?”

“You mean the douchebag who left with without any explanation?” Lance’s eyes widened as he realized the truth. “That was him?”

I nodded my head, feeling tears well up in my eyes. I didn’t want to cry anymore. I was too tired, too worn out physically and emotionally to shed tears, but they just kept flowing from the corners of my eyes.

I felt Lance wipe my tears away with his thumb. The roughness of his palm was a welcome touch.

“You shouldn’t waste your tears for someone who doesn’t even understand their value.”

His words surprised me. It wasn’t something that I expected Lancelin Eustein to say. Acelin was more likely to say them; I had always thought him to be the more sympathetic brother. But Lance was compassionate too, the only difference was, he knew that sometimes you had to be cruel to be kind. That sometimes, harsh words worked better than sweet nothings.

“I’m not crying because of Keith.” I cleared my throat to loosen the tightness, but it didn’t help. “I’m crying because of something that I’d lost…someone, actually.”

“Someone?” Lance looked into my eyes confused, his iris a pale topaz colour.

My hands involuntarily went to my stomach, my fingers curling around the covers. Lance followed the movement with his eyes, his brows furrowed in confusion…and then his eyes widened. The pale yellow becoming bright amber.

“The day that Keith left me…was the day I found out I was two months pregnant.” My voice broke, but I knew I had to say it. I had to lay rest to the demons that had haunted me for the past five years. And maybe…just maybe, sharing it with Lance will help lessen some of the pain. I didn’t want to hide anything from Lance anymore.

“I came home with the blood test results from BlueStar’s recruitment examination.” I continued; ignoring the icy hands that were squeezing my heart. “I’d passed the interview and I was to join work the next day. But you know what the funny part is? Twenty-three year old foolish Sana was ready to let everything go. I was ready to quit work and become the dutiful housewife that waited on her husband and took care of her kids all day.

“I waited for him that night too. I had cooked all his favorite dishes, decorated the dining room with flowers and candles and dressed up just the way he liked me to…but he never showed up. I was disappointed at first, thinking that maybe he had some problem at work but then I started to get worried the next day. Even his parents had no idea where he was. I was about to go to the police to file for a missing person’s report on the third day when he sent me a text message.

“He said that he didn’t see a future with me anymore and that he wanted to break up in person but didn’t want to make it hard on me and himself. He said that he got an opportunity to work overseas and he took it without informing me and forbade his parents to get involved. The final line of his text said that, I could keep the engagement ring as a remembrance of what we meant to each other.”

I wiped my eye angrily as the tears continued to flow. “I felt so lost and alone. I had no idea what to do. For an entire week I was locked up in the apartment I shared with him. I couldn’t eat or drink or sleep. I was like a zombie sleepwalking through life…until Acelin came to visit me on the sixth day.

“I had completely forgotten that I had to join work the next day and since Acelin had read the reports about my pregnancy and tried to contact me the last four days, he had gotten worried. I still remember the first time I saw him; I was just staring blankly at his face like I couldn’t focus on anything. Acelin had taken one look at me and taken me into his arms. And that’s when I’d broken down. It was also the day that I’d lost my son.

“Acelin took me to the hospital when my stomach began to hurt right in the middle of my break down. They tried to save the baby but it was already too late. My emotional stress and malnutrition had led to a miscarriage. It felt like my life had ended…like I had nothing else to live for.”

“What happened?” Lance’s voice was rough with emotion as he squeezed my hand reassuringly.

“Acelin showed me a picture of my mother.” I gave a rueful smile. “He told me that if I let go now, I’d be killing my mother with me, because she wouldn’t be able to take the pain of losing me either. He asked me if I was willing to commit murder. If I was willing to take another life. So I decided to live on and fight back.

“The grief stayed with me but thanks to Acelin, I started to accept the circumstances. So the first thing I did after I came to my senses was to flush the engagement ring down the toilet. He even pushed the plunger for me.” I gave a small laugh as I remembered Acelin’s proud daddy face when I came out of the toilet. “I don’t think I could’ve survived without Acelin in my life. He truly came like a blessing from the Gods when I had no hope left.”

“No wonder Acelin practically adopted you.” Lancelin said with a rueful smile.

“Huh?”

What did he mean by Acelin practically adopting me? Why wo-And suddenly, everything became crystal clear.

“Acelin lost a child.” It wasn’t a question.

Lance nodded silently. He didn’t say much but I knew that the incident had left him scarred as well. Acelin had never told me his story either, but it was evident in the way that he loved me, that he practically saw me as his child. As for Lance, he was always making sure that his little brother never got hurt.

“Almost two centuries ago, one of Acelin’s Scribt’s got pregnant with his child.” Lance told me, much to my surprise. “A human-Incubus hybrid baby is called a Cambion and they are very unstable. They almost always end up killing the mother they are born from. It’s why Incubus have stopped having children with humans. Well, that and the fact that human blood dilutes our bloodline.”

“What happened?” I asked cautiously. Lancelin wasn’t a talker. The fact that he even mentioned Acelin’s loss came as a big surprise to me. I was sure that he would just shut down again and decide I wasn’t qualified for that information. But he surprised me once again by continuing the story.

“Dilayla was a very gentle woman. She never raised her voice and she was always kind and forgiving.” Lance gave a small smile as if remembering the woman who was no longer on this earth. “So it was no surprise that she wanted to keep the baby even after she was warned about the dangers. Timid little Dilayla fought like a lioness to give birth to her child. She was already frail to begin with, but as the baby grew inside her, she became even frailer, until she was only skin and bones.

“She died only a month later, when she was only three months pregnant. We tried, but we couldn’t save the baby, although Acelin insisted on saving the mother first. But it was already too late for the both of them. The only thing we were thankful for was the fact that she died in her sleep. We found her lifeless body the next morning, almost seven hours after she had left us.”

“I’m sorry.” I whispered, knowing exactly what it felt like to lose a child. “She sounds like a beautiful soul.”

“She was.” Lance turned those intense eyes towards me. “And you are too…a beautiful soul.”

He brushed his fingers on my cheek, the touch as light as feather and yet, I felt the tingles down to my toes. “So don’t let anyone darken it. Let you light shine so bright that it blinds every darkness. I’ll be right here beside you…till the very end.”