“Come here,” I state.
Pecking Elijah on the nose, I set him on his feet. Athena immediately starts licking his face. Elijah makes a dash for it, laughing when Athena chases after him. It took no time for boy and dog to become best friends.
When Remi is standing in front of me, I snag her around the waist and haul her to my chest. Her look of annoyance disappears as soon as my lips are on hers. Her body sags against mine, just as it always does, and she grips my shirt, like she never wants me to let go. I never will.
“I need to make an appointment with my doctor,” she says throatily as I attack her neck.
“Oh, yeah?” I trail my lips to her collarbone. “What for?”
I’m her doctor and she doesn’t need an appointment, so I’m curious why she said she did.
“To confirm the positive test results from the home pregnancy test I took today.”
She says it so nonchalantly, like it’s no big deal, when in fact, it’s a huge fucking deal.
I jerk my face from her neck and stare down at her. She has her bottom lip between her teeth, but her eyes are smiling.
“Are you serious?”
She nods, letting her lip go and smiling so big all of her teeth show.
My eyes leave hers and move to her flat stomach. I drop to my knees and lift her shirt, then graze my hands over the smoothness of her lower abdomen.
“There’s a baby growing in there? I’m going to be a father again?”
Tears make her eyes shine bright. “Yes, but I want to confirm it before we get too excited.”
Too late for that. I’m already ecstatic and over the moon happy.
Remi’s hands thread through my hair as I kiss the spot where my baby is tucked safely inside its mother. We’ve only been trying to get pregnant for a couple of months, and we expected it to take at least a few more.
I think back to when Remi first came to town. I was floored with the instant attraction I felt toward her. I ignored it at first, then fought it when I couldn’t disregard it anymore. I wanted her gone, out of Malus and away from me as soon as possible. If it wasn’t for her piece of shit car, she would have been.
Divine intervention is what brought Remi to Malus. Desperation is what forced her to stay longer than she was welcome. Love is what will keep her here forever.
I’ve never really believed in fate, because I’ve lived in hell due to my past for most of my life. But looking up at Remi, hearing the giggles of Elijah, and knowing she’s carrying my baby, I know I was wrong.
Remi, Elijah, and our unborn child are my fate.
They are my destiny.
TURN THE PAGE FOR A SNEAK PEEK OF
BITTER SWEET HELL
JW
THE PAST
TONIGHT IS HELL NIGHT. The one night a month that me, my brothers, and all the other kids in Sweet Haven walk through hell and come out on the other side broken and feeling lost. It’s a night that the adults change from sweet and loving parents, to the monstrous evil that normally lays dormant.
Tonight isn’t the usual Hell Night though. Tonight, it’s not the kids that are suffering the horrors and pain of being forced to do things they don’t want to do. It’s the adults that are screaming and crying for a reprieve. It’s the adults that are begging and fighting against the hands that are holding them down. Tonight, the adults are walking through Hell.
It’s late. Like after four in the morning. The official Hell Night, or what the adults call The Gathering, ended a couple of hours ago. I’m sore all over. My brother was rough earlier. More so than normal.
Only wearing a t-shirt and boxers, my hair still wet from my shower, and barefoot, I creep along the side of my house. I make sure to stay in the shadows.
My heart pounds in my chest and nerves makes my stomach feel queasy. I whip my head around when I hear a scream a few houses down. It’s an adult. A woman. I briefly wonder who it is. I push the thought to the back of my head because I don’t have time to think about it. I need to get to my brothers. We’re all supposed to meet Mae and Dale behind The Hill.