My face must go very pale. I feel the blood drain and watch him watch me.

“But, as you know, I have standing within The Society.” He gives a dark smile and brushes his knuckles over the stenciled side of my face. “Since your crime was against me, as your husband, I offered an alternative.”

“The tattoo.”

He nods. His phone buzzes again and he silences it. “Considering the fact that you are carrying my heir—”

“But I’m not…”

“I know that.”

“You lied to save my life.”

His eyes narrow again. He takes a moment to answer. “For selfish reasons, Ivy. Do not be fooled.”

“What if I can’t get pregnant?”

“Can’t?” He cocks his head to the side. “Is there something I should know?”

I shake my head quickly. Too quickly. And as I rise to my feet, for the first time in my life, I am grateful for the vertigo, for the dizziness, because when I stumble into his arms, he catches me and I hear the curse he mutters as he easily lifts me off my feet.

For a moment, just one moment, I close my eyes and lean against him and just let him hold me, cradle me, give in to this illusion of safety. I can give myself that, can’t I? I can have just this little stitch in time.

He lays me down on his bed, on the bed in which we just made love. It still smells like us.

“Let me clarify then, if there’s nothing you have to tell me. If there is no baby, their sentence will stand. They will not accept mine.”

“What happens to you if they find out you lied?”

He’s quiet for a moment. “There will be a reckoning, I’m certain, but I will live.”

“And I won’t.” I can't think about that part. “And you’ll be punished because of me. If I can’t get pregnant, I mean.”

He doesn’t reply but I don’t need him to.

“And the tattoo…my face, it still happens. You’re still going to do it.” It’s not a question. The pregnancy, this non-existent, impossible pregnancy, it doesn’t get me or him out of this. Me to take the punishment. Him to deal it.

“Why did you do it?” he asks, looking wretched, sounding even more so.

I can’t control the emotion, the tears that come. I don’t even try. Because I’m doomed. We both are.

17

Ivy

Back in my room I study my face by the dim light in the bathroom mirror. The stencil is smeared but not completely gone. It matches his but is somehow more feminine.

In a grotesque way, it’s beautiful. Like his.

Like him.

I turn away, fingers tightening around the counter. I can't think that. I am his enemy even if he was never mine. He hates me.