Chapter 8 - The Weight of the Bloodline
Marcus did not look up at the ceiling. He thought she was delirious, slipping into shock from blood loss and the onset of premature labor.
"Don't talk, Elena," Marcus said, his voice tightening with an edge of suppressed panic. He reached into his tuxedo jacket, pulled out his phone, and dialed three digits with a furious, slamming thumb. "I'm calling the private medical team. They're ten minutes away."
"Marcus!" Victoria cried out again, taking a step toward him, her voice rising in alarm. "You can't bring them here! If the press finds out—"
"I said shut your mouth, Victoria!" Marcus roared, his voice erupting with a terrifying, primal thunder that rattled the remaining glass panes in the room. He pointed a trembling, authoritative finger at her face. "If my son dies tonight, I don't give a damn whose daughter you are! Stand over there and don't speak another word!"
Victoria flinched as if she had been struck. She backed away slowly, her back slamming against the mahogany sideboard, her eyes wide with a mixture of shock and rekindled hatred.
Marcus brought the phone to his ear, his chest heaving. "Dr. Harrison? This is Marcus Blackwood. Get the trauma team to the estate immediately. My wife has suffered a severe fall. She’s pregnant... eight months... there's massive hemorrhaging. Move!"
He threw the phone onto the floor, where it bounced off a thick piece of glass.
He turned back to Elena. He reached down and slid his arms beneath her body—one under her knees, the other supporting her shoulders.
Elena screamed.
The movement shifted the shattered glass embedded in her clothes and skin, sending a jolt of agony so sharp through her body that her vision turned completely white for three terrifying seconds.
Marcus lifted her easily off the stone floor. As he stood up, the white silk of her nightgown trailed behind her, drenched in deep crimson blood that dripped steadily onto his polished leather boots and the legs of his black tuxedo.
He walked past Victoria without looking at her. He carried Elena out of the grand dining room, through the echoing foyer, and laid her down on the long leather sofa in the formal living room near the grand fireplace.
The fire was dying, reduced to glowing red embers that cast a warm, sickly light across the room.
Marcus knelt beside the sofa, grabbing a clean wool throw blanket from the armchair and pressing it firmly against Elena’s abdomen to stem the bleeding.
"Stay with me, Elena," he ordered, his voice cracking slightly despite his desperate effort to maintain control. "Listen to my voice. The doctors are coming. Stay with me."
Elena opened her eyes slowly. The room was spinning, tilting on its axis as coldness spread through her limbs, starting at her fingers and toes and creeping inward toward her heart.
She reached up with her bloody right hand, her thumb brushing against Marcus’s jawline.
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"You... didn't... believe me..." she whispered, every word a agonizing effort that tore at her chest.
Marcus looked down at her, his gray eyes shadowed with a dark, terrible guilt that he could neither process nor acknowledge. "Just hold on, Elena. Please."
