I take in her words dully, my gaze slipping from her face to the name tag pinned to her chest. Dr. Cobakis. Something about that seems familiar, but I’m too tired to figure out what.

Listlessly, I look up again. “Thank you,” I murmur, hoping she leaves the topic alone. I understand what she’s trying to do. The doctor’s probably run into this before—a woman’s automatic tendency to blame herself when something goes wrong with her pregnancy. What she doesn’t realize is that in my case, I am to blame.

I insisted on going to that club. What happened to Rosa and the baby is my fault and no one else’s.

The doctor gives my forearm a gentle squeeze and steps back. “I’ll get your friend ready for discharge while you get dressed,” she says, and walks out of the room, leaving me alone with Julian for the first time since our arrival at the hospital.

As soon as the doctor is gone, he releases my hand and leans over me. “Nora…” In his gaze, I see the same agony that’s tearing me up inside. “Baby, are you still in pain?”

I shake my head. The physical discomfort is nothing to me now. “I want to go home,” I say hoarsely. “Please, Julian, just take me home.”

“I will.” He strokes the uninjured side of my face, his touch warm and gentle. “I promise you, I will.”

28

Julian

I’ve never known an emptiness like this before, a burning void that pulses with raw pain. When I lost Maria and my parents, there had been rage and grief, but not this.

Not this awful emptiness mixed with the strongest bloodlust I’ve ever known.

Nora is still and silent as I carry her up the stairs to our bedroom. Her eyes are closed, her lashes forming dark crescents on her colorless cheeks. She’s been like that—all but catatonic from blood loss and exhaustion—since we left the hospital.

As I lay her on the bed, I catch sight of her bruised cheekbone and split lip, and have to turn away to regain control. The violence seething within me feels so toxic, so corrosive, that I can’t touch Nora right now—not without it marking her in some way.

After a few moments, I feel calm enough to face the bed. Nora hasn’t moved, still lying where I placed her, and I realize she’s fallen asleep. Inhaling slowly, I bend over her and begin to undress her. I could let her sleep until morning, but there are traces of dried blood on her clothes, and I don’t want her to wake up like that.

She’ll have enough to deal with in the morning.

When she’s naked, I take off my own clothes and scoop her up, cradling her small, limp body against my chest as I walk to the bathroom. Entering the shower stall, I turn on the water, still holding her tightly.

She wakes up when the warm spray hits her skin, her eyes flying open as she convulsively clutches at my biceps. “Julian?” She sounds alarmed.