No, this was going to take careful planning and execution if it was to work.

And time was running out…

“While the League refuses to comment on whether or not they’ll intervene, we did hear from a source who doesn’t want to be identified that the League is rallying their soldiers and assassins for an attempt on the palace.”

She could hear the seconds ticking away. If she didn’t persuade her people to see the truth, Darling was going to be fed to the wolves.

God help him.

To save his life and his throne, she was about to throw herself straight into the heart of his enemies.

She placed her hand on her stomach as she considered the baby Nero had told her about. She still didn’t have any symptoms at all.

Darling will kill me when he finds out.

If anything happened to the baby, she would never forgive herself.

But what choice did she have? There was no way she could stand by while he was attacked repeatedly because of her.

They’d been lucky this time. His eyesight had been normal when the assassins struck. But what if she’d been with Maris and they’d attacked an hour ago?

Darling would be dead.

His nosebleeds disoriented him. His eyesight crippled him. The two combined…

He couldn’t make it to the bathroom alone. Never mind fight off a trained assassin. If those two had been League assassins and not Resistance fighters, tonight’s attack might have had a different ending, too.

There was no way she could stand by and do nothing while he was under attack. It just wasn’t in her.

The door that connected their rooms opened. Darling paused in the doorway, staring at her with an adoring gaze that set fire to every part of her. Shadows played across his beautiful features as he watched her watching him. As always, he held so much intensity and command of everything around him that it sent a chill over her.

He was every bit the fierce soldier and regal politician.

Most of all, he was the one person she couldn’t live without. If his capture had taught her anything, it was that her life was empty and miserable without him in it.

And as she stared at him, she remembered how good his lips tasted. How much she loved being in his arms.

How much she loved him.

This was the father of her child…

The only man alive she would kill or die to protect.

“Are you all right?” He approached her slowly, almost bashfully. Something so out of character for him that it instantly charmed her.

It also struck her as odd that he’d ask after her well-being when he was the one who’d been stabbed. Her gaze dropped to the bandage on his side that was already marked with his blood. “Worried about you,” she admitted.

“Don’t be. I have no intention of leaving you anytime soon.”

But she was going to leave him. She had to. If she was lucky, and the Resistance cooperated, she’d be able to return to his side.