Vetta’s eyes slowly opened. Everywhere was blurry to her. She heard words, but she couldn’t make out what they were. She closed them again, wondering where she was.
Slowly, her eyes fluttered open again. Vetta saw Baski sitting on a chair at the foot of the bed, directly in her line of vision.
What was Baski doing in her bedroom? Her eyes fluttered to the side and landed on—
Angie?
Her heart panicked as the memories of her moments with Danika filled her mind. She’d been shouting at her. Then she’d felt a storm in her belly as if some horses were running inside her. The unbearable pain she’d felt. That was all she remembered, and her head was clanging too.
If Baski and Angie were there, then that meant...
The king got in the line of her vision. His eyes on her were very strange.
She wet her lips. “M-my king.”
“You flushed my child!?” The intensity of that one question, filled with so much rage, was enough to make her vulnerable mind go blank for a few seconds.
“I’d never flush your child!” she cried out, shocked at the accusation. How did he find out about her abortion?
“Don’t you dare lie to me, Vetta. Angie found the drug you used in your system. How do you explain this?” He was not shouting, but he might as well be.
“N-no.” She shook her head miserably as she tried to put together a lie. But her head was so foggy and blank. She never expected to find herself in this position.
“Vetta.” He lowered his head then. “How could you?”
“My health was failing! I had to flush the baby, or I would be in so much danger!” she managed to lie, pulling herself into a sitting position.
“And you did not think I have a right to know something like this!? You did not think I should know that my seed germinated in you, and you had to flush it out!?”
The calmness of those words was scary to Vetta. It would have been better if he was shouting out his rage. She did not know what to expect at all.
‘My seed germinated in you.’ Those words sounded so familiar to Baski, but for the life of her, she could not remember where she had heard it from before. Not when she was so scared of the scene playing out in front of her.
“King Lucien. It’s not like tha—” Vetta tried again, her eyes pleading with him to understand.
“Then how is it? Make me understand Vetta because I do not understand.” He crossed his arms and stared at her with eyes so cold she felt the chill down to her bones.
She swallowed visibly. “I told you that I was sick—”
He came closer to her and leaned down from the waist until he was at eye level with her. “Vetta, that is not enough reason to flush out my child! Even if you’re dying, it is still not enough reason to flush my child without informing me first!” This time around, he raised his voice. Not only that, but he was also up to her face.
Vetta lost all her nerves instantly. “It wasn’t your child!” The hysterical words tore from her lips.
He stilled.
She realized what she had just revealed to him and her eyes widened in sheer horror. His face looked like it was carved out of granite when she stole another glance at him.
He pulled back like she burned him. “What!? What did you just say?”
Baski and Angie looked as horrified as she felt.
She backpedaled. “N-no...what I meant was that the baby was barely two weeks old, so it wasn’t a child yet, but just b-blood. That is what the healer told me. I d-did not mean to l-lose my baby—our baby. I was just so stressed! And I have health issues too! Angie...” At the sound of his name, the older man jolted. He glanced at the mistress dreadfully. “Angie, tell the king that I have health issues. Y-you can explain to him how bad it is...”
Angie knew the main reason she was having health issues was due to the flushing. So he snapped his mouth shut. There was no way he was getting in the middle of that.
King Lucien could barely think. His head could hardly form thoughts as he stared at the woman he had known for so long flutter and fumble. Vetta could not even look him in the eyes again because she had done something she knew she should never have done. She flushed his child! And now she was saying some things he did not understand after flushing his child? His seed germinated in her and—
The words came to him then. Whispers in his mind. In his heart.
“Do not forget, your seed has never germinated elsewhere. Only in one land...”
He froze. Danika was carrying his child. That could only mean…
No. No way. It couldn’t possibly mean what he thinks it did. His eyes found Vetta, and he remembered her outburst not more than two minutes before.
No. There’s no way Vetta...
And yet, it was looking like it.
King Lucien refused to believe it. Refused to believe she’d slept with another. She’d carried another man’s child. He just couldn’t believe it.
Not until she made him believe it and he knew exactly what to do....for he has known Vetta for long.
His legs took him closer to her again and he bent down like before, getting into her face again. “Look me in the eyes, Vetta. Look me in the eyes and tell me that the child you carried was my child. Look me in the eyes and tell me that you flushed my child.”
Vetta really wanted to come out of this mess because she knew it wouldn’t be good for her if she didn’t. So she looked him in the eyes. Eyes, so blue—so dark, they saw into the soul. Her mouth opened, but no words came out. Then she glanced down at the bed in defeat, breaking eye contact with him. She had never been able to maintain that eye contact with him—especially when she was lying. It was as if her lies were right there for him to see through his eyes.
King Lucien felt a hand grab his chest and squeeze tightly at the guilty look on her face. “You have had another lover,” he said as he straightened.
It wasn’t a question, but Vetta felt obliged to answer. “It was just one time!” she burst out.