city of dragons 03 - fire magic Read Online Free PDF Page B

felt that the last two pregnancies were consistent with traumatic injury, but you didn’t seem to have any.”
    “I thought…” I took a deep breath, trying to steady my voice. “I thought that if I shifted it would heal injuries.”
    “Heal your injuries, yes, but not the baby’s.”
    I bit down hard on my lip. I couldn’t speak.
    “In general, there’s nothing wrong with shifting during pregnancy,” the doctor continued. “The influx of magic is good. Your body creates a magical barrier of protection around the uterus and each shift brings that back to full capacity. So, you should definitely shift at least every two weeks if you can manage it. It obviously becomes a bit more difficult in the final trimester, getting in and out of a pool with a belly isn’t always feasible, so don’t feel as if you must, but I do encourage expecting mothers to shift.”
    I parted my lips, and a tiny painful sound came out.
    “Penny?”
    “I have to go,” I said. I hung up.

 
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER FIVE
     
    “Penny.” Lachlan stood up from his desk at the station. “What are you doing here?”
    “Can you take lunch?” I said. “I know it’s a little early, but I just… It’s daytime, so Connor’s asleep, and every time I try to call Felicity, I get her voicemail, and I need to talk to somebody, and I didn’t know where to go, and—”
    “Sure,” he said. “It’s fine. Let’s go.”
    I sucked in an unsteady breath.
    He put his arm around me. “Are you crying?”
    “No,” I said, but my voice cracked.
    “Hey.” He brushed my hair away from my face. “What’s wrong?”
    I shook my head. “Let’s go somewhere else?”
    He nodded.
    He drove us back to the hotel, and we went upstairs to my apartment.
    I sat down on the couch in the living room, put my head in my hands, and started sobbing. I couldn’t stop. The waves of sadness just kept racking me, and I thought I might cry forever.
    It was hormones, partly, I knew that. But there was also something deeper underneath it all.
    Lachlan held me, but it was like before, like he was holding himself back, afraid to touch me.
    Finally, my sobs subsided enough that I could talk. “I found out today that it’s my fault that my babies died.”
    “What?” he said.
    “Because they were getting traumatized by Alastair’s beatings, and I thought that every time I shifted, they were healing, but they weren’t. And I just stayed there and let him hurt us, and he killed them. He killed my babies.” I was overtaken by a wave of fresh sobs.
    Lachlan pulled me against his chest. He kissed the top of my head. His voice rumbled. “That wasn’t your fault, Penny. It was Alastair’s.”
    I yanked away from him. “But I stayed .”
    “Still not your fault.”
    I got up off the couch. I felt like I needed to get out of here, just go and run and hide someplace from all of this.
    Was that what the therapist had been talking about? Was this the shift in my thinking I was going to have to do? I hadn’t really listened to her much after all that. I’d just gotten out of there.
    I thought of the way that I’d been sobbing, how the pain of this new knowledge had brought me to my knees.
    No, if I had to sit and wallow in that, it would kill me. I needed to get away from it. Numb it somehow. I turned back to Lachlan, who was still on the couch.
    “Listen, you can’t blame yourself,” he said.
    I went back to the couch, and I climbed into his lap. I kissed him.
    He kissed back, but carefully.
    I thrust my tongue into his mouth.
    He pulled away, surprised. “Penny?”
    “I just…” I swallowed. “I need to be close to you. I want to feel something good right now. And we’ve been apart for so long, and now here you are, and I…” I kissed him again.
    He sighed against my mouth. He responded, his lips and tongue sweet against me, but then he pulled back again. “I feel like I’m getting whiplash here. One second you’re crying, the next you’re—”
    I