KEISHA’S POV

I wasn’t paying attention to where I was walking.

I was paying attention to the folder inside my coat and the conversation with Dr. Fenn.

I was walking on autopilot, feet finding the path back toward the estate without requiring conscious direction, and I was deep enough in my own head that I almost didn’t hear it.

Almost.

Suddenly, there was a sound. It was wheels on the path, fast and getting faster, and a small voice going— "I can’t stop it I can’t stop it I can’t—"

I looked up in time and a bicycle was coming directly at me.

Not fast enough to be dangerous to me so I stepped sideways without thinking and it missed me by about a foot, but fast enough and with clearly no one in control of it.

The boy on it was maybe seven years old, knuckles white on the handlebars, feet doing something frantic that was definitely not braking, his face a perfect expression of terror and concentration.

"Oh shit—" I turned and watched him go past.

The bicycle was picking up speed down the slight incline of the path and wobbling badly and the boy was screaming.

From somewhere behind me— "Theo! Theo STOP!" 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

I turned.

A woman was running up the path with a small girl of about three on her hip, the girl’s arms locked around her neck, both of them looking at the bicycle in terror.

I looked at the bicycle and I looked at the path ahead of it.

It curved sharply in about thirty meters and beyond the curve was a low stone wall and beyond the stone wall was a drop into the flower beds and the bicycle showed absolutely no signs of stopping.

Fuck.

He was going to dive into that if he didn’t stop.

I ran after the bicycle.

I wasn’t a runner. That became clear approximately four seconds into my terrible decision. My lungs gave up on me almost immediately and my foot caught something on the path.

With a yelp, I went down hard on one knee and one palm and felt the skin scrape on both but I came back up still running because there wasn’t time to assess the damage.

The boy was twenty meters ahead.

Fifteen.

The curve was coming.

"Lean left!" I shouted. "Lean left and put your foot down!"

He looked back at me over his shoulder with enormous eyes and the bicycle wobbled violently and I thought— that’s it, he’s going over— and then somehow, miraculously, he leaned left and his foot came down and scraped against the path and the bicycle slowed and then stopped about six meters from the wall and the boy sat there on it breathing very fast and not moving.

I got to him and grabbed the handlebars.

"Okay." I was also breathing very fast. "Okay. You’re okay."

He looked up at me. His face was flushed and his hands were still gripping the handlebars even though the bicycle had stopped. "I couldn’t—" He started.

"I know." I assured him. "You stopped though. You did it."

He looked at the wall, his body trembling. "I almost hit that."

"Almost." I let out a sigh of relief. "But you didn’t."

He looked at his hands on the handlebars. "My hands are shaking." He said and he sounded genuinely surprised by this.

"That happens." I said carefully. "When your body has a fright. It goes away." I crouched to his level. "Are you hurt anywhere? Did you hit anything?"

He shook his head slowly.

"Are you sure?" I said. "Legs? Arms?"

He looked at himself. "I’m okay." He said and then, he looked at me. "Are you okay? You fell."

"I’m fine." I nodded.

"You’re bleeding." He said, looking at my arm.

I looked down.

The palm that had hit the path was scraped and bleeding, not badly but enough to be visible, and there was a tear in my sleeve where my arm had caught the edge of something on the way down.

"It’s fine." I shrugged it off. "Nothing serious."

"Theo."

The mother reached us at a run and nearly dropped the small girl in her arms, grabbing the boy off the bicycle and checking him over.

The small girl had started crying, possibly from being jostled or possibly from the general atmosphere of crisis, while the mother was checking Theo’s head and his arms.

She looked at me over his head.

"You stopped it. Thank you so much." She sounded like she might cry. "You ran after him."

"He stopped it himself." I straightened. "He listened to what I said and he leaned and he put his foot down."

"You fell." She noted as she looked at my arm.

"It’s nothing." I waved it off again.

"It’s not nothing." She shifted the small girl to her other hip and looked around and then at me. "Come. My house is just there. Let me clean that up properly."

"Really it’s—"

"Please." She pleaded. "I need to do something. You ran after my son and you fell and I need to do something." She looked at me with a soft expression in her eyes. "Please."

I looked at my arm.

That was kinda bad.

"Okay." I agreed.

Her name was Amaya and she lived in one of the pack houses on the residential path, three minutes from where we were standing. Theo walked the bicycle beside us and the small girl— her name was Brenda, she had stopped crying and was now very interested in my scraped palm— rode on her mother’s hip as we walked back together while Theo explained in detail exactly what had gone wrong with the braking system and why it wasn’t his fault.

"The lever was stiff." He scratched his neck. "I told Dad the lever was stiff and he said it was fine."

"Your dad is going to hear about the lever." Amara said flatly.

"I told him." Theo whined.

"And I’ll say it myself." She cut him off.

I pressed my lips together.

Inside, Amaya sat me at the kitchen table and cleaned the scrape on my palm quietly.

Theo sat across from me and watched with the serious attention of someone who felt responsible. Brenda climbed into the chair beside me uninvited and looked at my arm with enormous eyes.

"Does it hurt?" Brenda asked.

"A little." I looked at her.

She looked very concerned about this. "I’ll blow on it." She said.

"Brenda—" Amaya started.

"It helps." Brenda said firmly.

She leaned over and blew very seriously on my arm and then looked at me. "Better?"

"Much better." I chuckled.

She nodded, satisfied, and went back to watching.

Amaya laughed under her breath. "Thank you." She whispered to me. "For saving my son."

"He’s okay." I said.

"He could have—" She stopped and looked at Theo who was now examining the bicycle brake lever, then she looked back at me. "Thank you." She said again.

"How old is she?" I said, nodding at Brenda who had found something interesting in the middle distance and was staring at it.

"Three in January." Amaya said as she looked at her daughter. "She’s been walking since ten months. Getting into everything since ten months and one day." She smiled. "Theo was the same."

"He’s brave." I said. "He actually listened when I shouted at him. Most kids that scared would just freeze."

"He’s stubborn is what he is." Amaya said. "Gets it from his father." She paused. "But yes. He’s brave." She tied off the bandage on my palm and sat back. "There. That should hold."

I looked at the neat bandage.

Brenda leaned over and examined it. "Good." She said approvingly.

Amaya walked me to the door when I left and Theo appeared beside his mother in the doorway and looked at me with serious eyes.

"Thank you." He bowed slightly.

"Look after the bicycle." I smiled. "And tell your Father again about the lever."

"He already knows." Amaya said. "Believe me."

I smiled and walked back out onto the path.

But all I could think about was both children. A smile tugged at my lips and I put my hand on my stomach without meaning to.

Again, I thought about what the doctor had asked me.

Did I want the pregnancy?

Yes.

I had said yes and I had meant it. Now, standing here on the path in the late afternoon with a bandaged hand and the prenatal folder inside my coat I meant it still.

Even with everything else, I still meant it.

Nobody was going to take this from me.

I kept walking back to the mansion.

The estate came into view and I went through the gate and took the path toward the mansion.

I pushed the door open and the house was quiet and I thought— good, nobody’s back yet, I can go upstairs and put the folder somewhere safe before anyone sees it.

"You’re back." A sudden voice sounded.

I stopped in my tracks. .

It was Callum’s voice, from the direction of the wine cellar corridor.

He hadn’t turned to look. He was at the small table with a glass in front of him and papers spread around him and his back was mostly to me but he had somehow known it was me before he saw me.

The bond, probably.

He still didn’t turn to me. "Let’s talk."