Queen (Chaos #3)
By Claire Farrell
Editing by Red Adept Publishing Services
Three kings.
Two queens.
One heir.
Chaos will rule…
Copyright © Claire Farrell
[email protected] Cover by CCR Designs
Licence Notes:
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold.
Chapter One
Zoe yanked the duvet off me. “That’s enough. It’s been a month, Cara! No more moping around like a mahoosive loser. Get up and look for a job, or find a way to go back to college.”
I curled up in a ball and closed my eyes. “They won’t let me.”
“Then explain to them where you’ve been! Or better yet, explain it to me. Because I think I deserve to know more than anyone. I’m sick of you keeping secrets from me, and worse, forcing me to keep secrets from everyone else. I don’t know why we can’t tell anyone you’re back.”
“Because I’m not ready to deal with the drama yet.”
“Well, get ready because I have a fuck load of drama to unleash on your skinny arse.”
I rolled over, glaring at my best friend through blurred vision. “What are you so grumpy about today?”
“I’m PMSing all over the place,” she snapped. “But even if I wasn’t, I’d still be mad at you. There’s no statute of limitations on my anger, Cara Kelly!”
I sat up. “Fine. Jesus.” Then, something managed to get through my haze of heartbreak. I stared at my best human friend in horror as her words sank in, and the walls came tumbling around my shoulders.
She was PMSing. But I wasn’t. In fact, I hadn’t had my period since… some time before Drake became king—before I slept with him. By human standards, that had been over a year ago, but for me, only months had passed. I hurriedly counted on my fingers. Two missed periods. Oh, my God!
“What?” Zoe frowned. “Why’d you go all pale?”
“Holy shit, Zoe.” My stomach churned. “I haven’t had a period since I last saw you.”
“Um, that’s not right. Are you feeling okay? Cramping or anything?”
“No, you don’t understand. It’s been over a year for you, but only a couple of months for me since I last… since I had… oh, my God.” I barely made it to the bathroom before I threw up.
Zoe followed and rubbed my back. “Hey, bestie. Why are you puking? Please say you weren’t busy acting like a slut while you were gone, because that would kind of diminish all of the worrying I did.”
I finally stopped retching and leaned against the bath. “I slept with Drake.”
“And you didn’t use a condom?” Her face turned red as she pointed at me. “I warned you, Cara! We sat in my kitchen, and we talked about this.”
“Not really. I mean, it wasn’t like that. It was…” I bit my lip, feeling ridiculously idiotic. The thought of possible pregnancy had never occurred to me.
“How could you be so stupid? I’m supposed to be the immature one. I’ve never had to take a pregnancy test! And now you are, and you’re acting like a fourteen-year-old about it.”
“I have to take a test?” I said dumbly.
“Jesus.” She sat next to me. “Stop panicking. Let’s both just calm down for a minute. We’ll go get a test. You’ll take the test. It’ll be negative, and I can go back to hating you. That’s the plan.”
I laughed. “I really hope you’re right.”
“I’m never wrong. Except about you being the smart one, obviously. And Drake? I mean, he was cute and all, but meh. Your kid will be all kinds of scrawny.”
I glared at her.
“Except there’s no kid,” she added hurriedly. “I mean, you said yourself you haven’t had a period in over a year. That means there’s something wrong with you, not that you’re pregnant.”
“You don’t get it. It hasn’t been a year for me.”
“You keep saying that.” She sighed. “You’re starting to freak me out.”
I held her gaze. “Just trust me on this, Zoe. There are things going on that I can’t tell you about. You wouldn’t want to know.”
“Does this have to do with that lecturer? And Drake?”
“It has everything to do with them. I want to tell you, but I know you won’t believe me. I know you won’t be able to understand. Let’s just say some crazy shit happened, but now it’s over. It’s done. And I’ll have to deal with the consequences myself.”
She studied my face then shrugged. “So are you going to tell him?”
I shook my head. Getting in touch with the faery king was out of my power. And if I was pregnant, how did that work? The time issue alone was confusing enough to… no, there was no pregnancy. It was stress. Stress was the root of all of my problems. I was losing weight. That didn’t happen during a pregnancy. I cheered up. I probably had some parasitical disease from drinking filthy fae water. That was all. I would be fine.
“It’s unlikely anyway,” I said with a teary smile. “One time with him and I get caught? How pathetic would that be?”
She hesitated. “Why don’t you have a shower? I’ll run out to the chemist to get a test.”
“Yeah, maybe that would be good.” As she made to stand up, I grabbed her hand. “Thanks, Zoe. For everything.”
“You would do the same for me, idiot.”
When she left, I jumped into the shower and thought of all of the reasons why I couldn’t be pregnant by a faery. I had been so consumed with worry about my friends that I hadn’t even considered the possibility of a pregnancy. And that was probably because it was extremely unlikely. Extremely.
Zoe returned with four pregnancy tests. She gave me a sheepish smile as she spread them across the bed. “You never know.”
I picked up one of them. “Three minutes,” I said, looking at the instructions. “A cross if it’s a yes, a line if it’s a no.”
“So in less than five minutes, we’ll know.” She looked even more nervous than I was, if that were possible. “Go for it.”
In the bathroom, I peed on the stick then left it face down on the floor. I ran out and slammed the door behind me as if all of the hounds of hell were on my heels.
“And now we wait,” Zoe said. Both of us lay on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. “Should we time it?”
I shook my head. “I’ll check in a bit. Just… what’ll happen if… if…”
“Then your baby will have two mamas.” She rolled over on her side. “I mean, between the two of us, we can figure out how to take care of a baby, right?”
I shivered. “I’m not really cut out to be a parent, Zoe.”
“Who is? I mean, really, it’s not like people take a test for it.”
“I’m unreliable.” My voice shook on the word. “And I don’t know how to love properly. Look at my parents. Look at my life. I’m a mess. Seriously.”
“Of course you know how to love. And your parents are just great examples of the things you won’t want to do as a mother.” She smiled. “You love me, right?”
I wheezed out a shaky laugh. “Drake said he loved me before he sent me away. He said that, and I wanted him to want me, but I never even considered saying it back. I’m broken. There’s something missing inside of me.”
“Is that why he sent you away?”
I shivered. “He said he had to keep me safe. But he took everything with him. He left me with no way of knowing if anyone is dead or alive. Anya was… she could be dead. And the last time I saw Líle, she was in a bad way, and I left her to take care of myself. What kind of person am I?”
“You’re a good person. You’re my best friend. I don’t know what the hell has been going on with you, but I know you better than anyone. You deal w
ith everything life throws at you. You always have.”
“But a baby? I’m never going to see Drake again, and even if I did, he’s not exactly father material. It’s bad enough that I screw up my own life, but screwing up a baby’s life before it even starts? That’s a pretty big sign that I’m not capable of pulling this off. So what do I do?”
“We’ll figure out how to—”
“But I don’t want a baby. I mean, I never really thought about it. I just kind of assumed that motherhood was going to be one of those things I missed out on. Maybe I would change my mind someday, like far off into the future when I have half a clue what I’m doing, but now is the worst possible time.”
“What if Drake wanted to see it? What if he wanted to take the baby?” She cleared her throat. “The hypothetical baby.”
I touched my stomach. How could a life form in there? “He wouldn’t. He sent me away and then disappeared. He made sure I had no way of contacting him again.”
“But why? None of this makes any sense to me.”
I shrugged. “He said I didn’t belong in his world. Technically, he was right. We weren’t sleeping together. I mean, we did once, obviously, but that was ages ago and kind of because we thought he was going to die. I mean, it’s not like I regret it or anything, but it seems like a lifetime ago. There was someone else I grew close to, and then… then everything changed, and I couldn’t ignore how I felt about Drake.”
“And the other dude?”
“I think maybe I didn’t really know him like I thought I did. He said I could come to him for anything, but I’ve no idea how to find him. They all left together and left me behind.”
“I’m sorry, Cara.”
I looked at her. “I want to tell you everything, Zoe, but I doubt you would believe a word of it.”
“You could try.”
I got off the bed and brushed my hair off my face. “I think it’s time to check the test. Let’s hope it puts us out of our misery and lets us get back to our normal state of anxiety.”
She gripped my shirt as we crept toward the bathroom.
I giggled, kind of hysterically. “You’d swear there was a rat in there.”
“Yeah, but it could be worse,” she said with a snort.
My hand froze on the handle of the door. “Holy crap, I think I’m gonna shit myself.”
“Want me to look?”
“No. I won’t believe it unless I see it for myself. I’m just… this can’t happen. I can’t have a baby.”
I pushed open the bathroom door. Kneeling next to the test, I flipped it over and stared at the result for a long time.
A cross. Positive. As if having an unwanted baby was a happy event. I was carrying a faery baby. I leaned forward, feeling faint.
Zoe gripped my shoulders and kept me upright. Tears were pouring down her face.
I shook my head, breathing heavily. I couldn’t let it sink in because then it would be true. There would be no going back.
“Stop it!” She shook me. “Stop freaking out.”
I snapped out of my little trance, shoved her aside, and threw up again in the toilet. “I need to take a second test,” I said when I had finished retching. “I need to make sure.”
“Yeah, of course. Um, I’ll get you some juice or water or… I’ll be back.” She hurried out of the bathroom.
I sat against the bath, sweating buckets. Had I been suffering with morning sickness on the journey to the Fade? Had the Miacha congratulated me on my pregnancy? It all made too much sense. I was shivering by the time Zoe returned with a glass of water.
When she offered it, I pushed it away. “It’s no use. This is really… really happening.”
“You don’t know that. Tests can be wrong.”
“When I was travelling with him, I kept feeling weak and sick.” I thought of Sorcha, how she had planned on letting me walk away until she touched me. Maybe a bringer of death could sense new life. Maybe she knew I was pregnant, and that was why she wanted to kill me—to sacrifice royal blood. Royal blood. I leaned over the toilet and threw up again. I was carrying a king’s child, royal blood, and she had wanted to spill it for power. What would the likes of Sadler do?
“Are you okay? Is there anything I can do?” She helped me to my feet. “Let’s just get out of the bathroom. Away from the test.” She thrust the water glass into my hands.
Nodding, I let her lead me back into the bedroom. I sipped the water while sitting on the edge of her bed. “This is fucked up. So much makes sense, even though I really don’t want it to.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I have no idea. I’ve been miserable because I didn’t have a clue how I was going to take care of myself, and now this?”
“I’m here for you,” she said. “You don’t have to be scared. You’re not alone.”
“But look at me.” Tears formed in my eyes. “I don’t have a job. I don’t have a plan. I can’t have this baby, Zoe. Any other baby would be a struggle. But his baby will be a nightmare. I can’t cope with this. I can’t do it.”
“Whatever you decide to do, I’ll be with you.”
I looked at her. “Even if I get an abortion?”
“I won’t like it, but I’ll be on the boat to England with you.” She took my hands in hers. “It’s not about what anyone else wants, Cara. It’s about what’s best for you. If you think you’ll give this baby a shitty life, then don’t keep it. Just don’t jump into a decision based on the father, you know? You have options.”
I licked my cracked lips. “You don’t understand. It wouldn’t be a normal baby.”
“That isn’t very fair,” she said softly. “I was joking about the scrawny thing.”
“No, that’s not what I mean. I can’t explain. I’ll just… I want my mam.”
“I could call her for you.”
I shook my head. I had to wrap my head around things first. “I need… I need to get a job. No matter what I do, I need money. I’ll have to… have to…”
“You could think about adoption. Or maybe talking to someone at a crisis centre.”
“I can’t do that.” I couldn’t answer questions, and I most certainly couldn’t let an unsuspecting family adopt a baby with faery blood. I felt as if I had a time bomb growing inside of me.
“I’ll make you a doctor’s appointment.”
I gave her a blank look.
“You have to get a check-up to see if you’re okay. What you’re feeling right now, I think it’s kind of normal. I mean, it must be shocking to learn there’s a new life growing inside of you.” Her expression softened as she glanced at my belly. “You did that, Cara, made a little you. Isn’t that kind of amazing?”
I closed my eyes. It might have been amazing if I had help. If the baby had a father who wanted me around. If a million other stars had aligned and made life perfect. But life would never be perfect, and the pregnancy terrified me. What if faery babies were born different? What if I was growing a monster inside of me? What if it clawed its way out or something? What if it had no feelings, no morals? How would I cope?
Tears leaked out as I remembered Ronnie and Drake’s mother. One had lost her mind over her faery pregnancy; the other had lost her life. I highly doubted Drake was going to murder me to take my child, but losing my mind was a definite possibility. “I feel like I’m going crazy,” I said. “Like this is going to just break me.”
“Nothing’s going to break you.” She wrapped her arms around me. “I’m here with you, no matter what happens. Okay, it’s a shock, but we’ll figure this out. We’ll work out a way to do this. You’re not alone.”
I felt entirely alone. I stupidly hadn’t even thought of the repercussions of sleeping with Drake. Now I couldn’t avoid them.
Chapter Two
The doctor checked my urine sample. “Congratulations,” he said, sounding bored. “You’re going to be a mother.”
Zoe squeezed my hand, but my head was spinning off my shoulders at the confirm
ation of a nightmare. I could really do with some oblivion water to help me forget everything. Faery baby, a voice in my head taunted, with murderers for parents. I felt sick again. It had been two weeks since I took the first test, and I was no closer to coming to terms with the pregnancy.
“I’ll write you a referral for the maternity hospital of your choice,” the doctor said, not making eye contact. “They’ll organise a first appointment. There, they’ll take a history of the parentage and any possibility of hereditary diseases. They’ll take blood samples and organise a scan. You’ll be further along by then. Too far along to change your mind, do you understand me?”
I flinched, startled. “What?”
“If you’re planning on doing any travelling to end this pregnancy, then the sooner, the better.” A tinge of pity flavoured his voice. “You have choices. They might be costly and inconvenient, but they’re there. I’m going to give you a card. Call the number to talk to someone who can take you through your options.” He handed me the card and squeezed my shoulder. “You’re not the first young woman to be surprised by something like this.” He smiled. “So stop looking like the world is crashing around you. There are worse things.”
I nodded, feeling numb. He talked some more before letting us go, but I barely heard a word. I left the surgery, scarcely noticing Zoe following me.
“Okay,” she said. “I think we might as well hand in the letter now. The sooner we get an appointment, the better.”
I looked at her, terrified.
“Unless… unless you want to do something different.”
“I don’t know what to do.” I blew out a shaky breath. “Nothing feels right.”
“So we’ll make the appointment and find out more. Everything will feel much better once we understand what’s going on.”
She smiled, and I realised she was months ahead of me, thinking of blue or pink. I was still in that bathroom, waiting for a line or a cross. I was still with the fae. I would never truly leave them.
I was addicted to them, and my baby could be born with the same addiction. I would always long to go back, and that wasn’t fair on a child. And was it fair on the human world to unleash a faery baby on it? I had changed with the fae, grown darker, and I was in no position to raise a child. What kind of person would I even be capable of rearing?