Chapter 198

With nothing to do to get rid of those flutters except take the test and prove to myself that I wasn’t really pregnant, I climbed from the bed and headed into the bathroom. I did my business, following the instructions and left the test in there, coming back to sit on the edge of the bed and wait until the timer on my phone beeped.

“We never really got a chance to finish our discussion,” Monk Blythe said in a low voice. “There were some things that I needed to warn you about aside from just your personal safety. Because even though I’m positive I know who ordered the poison given to the late Queen Rosemary, I don’t know who the actual poisoner was.

“You still have time to walk away, especially if you have a baby on the way. I want you to seriously consider it because it’s not just your life at that point. It’s the life of your unborn child, as well. No one here at the temple will give you away. You can slip quietly into the north into the other shifter countries and disappear from there.

“Because if the one who ordered the poisoning is who we both assume it was, I don’t think either one of us has any doubts that he will strike again.”

The alarm on my phone chimed, and the weight of everything left both my stomach and my head turning. I silently made it back to the bathroom and then threw up before I got a chance to look at the little strip.

After wiping my mouth, I came up and clutched the strip in my trembling hands, looking at the lines on it.

“What do two lines mean?”

I flipped the packaging over, reading the directions. Yet again, my heart sank. Two lines meant I was pregnant.

The moment disappointment hit me, anger at myself joined it. I should be thrilled to have Charles’ baby.

No, wait. This couldn’t be right. We’d use the condom during the time of the month that it was most likely I’d get pregnant. I think.

I counted backward, trying to add up all the dates.

Someone knocked on the door. “Everything okay?” Monk Blythe asked.

I opened the door and started shivering, sure my utter disbelief showed on my face. He gave me a sympathetic look.

“I have the means to run a blood test here on the temple grounds. Not in this infirmary. This one is for the monks and initiates, but we run a charity hospital. I know the last thing you want to do is have any sort of blood test and pregnancy on record where the king might find it, but he’ll never think to look at a charity hospital.

“As I’m sure you’re aware, we guard everything about this temple complex very fiercely. Besides, I haven’t seen the king here ever. I don’t think he cares much for the goddess since she only puts rules on him, and he’s not the kind of man to tolerate others telling him what to do.

I nodded mutely before finding words. “This… This has to be a false positive. Let’s do the blood test,” I agreed.

He let me out of the infirmary, and the two of us walked quiet halls through the middle of the night. Everything was dark and even more silent than it had been when we arrived.

Oh my gosh! That reminded me... Theo.

I turned and whispered to Monk Blythe, “My bodyguard. Where is he? He must be panicked.”

Monk Blythe gave me a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “Not to worry. I’ve had a chance to let him know that you’re all right and that you’re in good hands. He has a comfortable room for the night. I will reunite you with him first thing in the morning. No one is going to try and keep you separate.”

“Can you tell that he means that much to me? Or that I feel that safe with him?”

“It’s fairly obvious,” the doctor said quietly, chuckling a little.

We crossed an open courtyard and arrived at the charity hospital, where a lone nurse waited at the desk. “Monk Blythe,” she said, smiling. “It’s good to see you. What can I do for you?”

He gave her a smile in return. “Good to see you, too, Sabrina. I just need to run a blood test on my young patient here. I’m afraid she might be a bit anemic.”

The nurse’s eyes got a knowing twinkle in them. “Of course, Monk Blythe,” she said, her voice holding a good deal of innuendo.

I scowled at her back, not liking what she seemed to be hinting. Did she think this was an STD test so the monk and I could be involved?

After following the monk down several other hallways that were mostly deserted, he took me into an exam room and came back a few minutes later with the necessary supplies for a blood draw.

“When will I know the results?” I asked as he filled the vials from the needle in my arm.

“It’s going to take a couple of days. I can try to rush the results, seeing as how the situation is what it is. But I don’t want to draw too much attention to you or the test. I don’t want to arouse unnecessary curiosity in anyone who works here.”

“Well, thank you for that,” I said, silently thinking the nurse was already way too curious. “I guess I’ll just have to be patient.”

Monk Blythe nodded in agreement. “Until then, definitely treat your body like you’re actually pregnant.”

He spent the next few minutes, while he cleaned up after the blood draw, explaining some of the dos and don’ts of early pregnancy, most of which I didn’t need to worry about, anyway. I didn’t smoke, and I rarely drank anything.

The one thing that I couldn’t control was stress, which he recommended trying to alleviate, but I had no good way of doing that. And he knew it.

Since it was the middle of the night, Monk Blythe took me to a spare bedroom in the monk’s quarters, and when I woke the next day, Theo was waiting outside the door.

“You can come in,” I invited him. “I’m just finishing up brushing my hair and such.”

“Is everything okay?” he asked, shutting the door to the room. “Monk Blythe seemed like the nice sort, but that didn’t keep me from worrying about you. Especially when I found out that you’d passed out.”

“It’s nothing,” I said. “He thinks I’m a little anemic. Which, with all the stress and travel we’ve been doing, not to mention I haven’t been eating properly, is probably the case.”

I told those lies to Theo as much to avoid the topic of a possible pregnancy with him as it was to reassure myself that such a condition was unlikely. That test had been incorrect.

And didn’t people say that it was more difficult to get pregnant when your body was stressed? Like the kind of stress that I’d been under, the mortal stress where your life is in danger. I’d certainly had enough of that in the past few weeks…months…half a year.

Goodness gracious. When were we going to be done with this mess?

Theo must have assumed that I was tired because he didn’t pester me on the walk back to the car, and he let me ride all the way back for the five hours in silence to our hotel room with Charles.

And then he turned on me. That rat went and blabbed about me, telling Charles that I passed out at the monastery.

Charles whisked me into the bedroom at the hotel, demanding to know if I was all right.

“I’m fine,” I tried to reassure him, “just anemic, and tired, and not eating well, not sleeping well, stressed, you name it. Pick one because they could all do the same things.”

Charles looked at me carefully. “Are you sure?”

I nodded. “Queen Rosemary’s old physician is the one who diagnosed me,” I said.

“And you trust him.” He crossed his arms, looking dubious.

“Yes. Actually, I do.”

All of a sudden, another secret that I was keeping from Charles came to mind. How was I supposed to tell him that not only had the doctor said I was pregnant, but he also claimed I was a lost princess?