Pregnant With Alpha’s Genius Twins

#Chapter 190 – Sand in the Hourglass

When Victor opens his eyes, there are spots in his vision. He blinks, trying to get them to clear, but then groans with the effort.

God, does it seriously hurt to blink?

But then he realizes that it’s not the blinking that’s causing the pain – that the pain was there already. It comes, sharply, with every breath, with every beat of his heart, which he can feel pounding in his head and his chest and his veins.

Victor groans again, turning his head to the side, pressing his eyes closed – doing anything he can to fight against the pain – anything he can to lessen it, ignore it, move on from it –

But he can’t – it’s there, in every piece of him. Taking over his body, his mind.

Victor tries to breathe more slowly, to pull the breath in through his nose and out of his mouth, to form thoughts around the pain, or through it –

But god damnit, it’s everywhere. All encompassing.

He grits his teeth, but can’t help the whimper that escapes through the tiny spaces left between them.

God, is this what it feels like to die? Is that what’s happening here?

He hears the whimper again, knowing that it’s him, but somehow – bizarrely – distanced from it. Is he dying?

If he is, then part of him wishes that he would just go ahead and do it already. Because this pain, radiating throughout his body and centering itself, sharply, high in his back, just to the left of his spine – the pain is just too much.

No, he thinks, clenching his jaw tighter, finally getting a clear word into his head. No.

He can’t give into this. Not now, not when he’s come so far –

Not when…

was so close. So close to her, to his children. So close to having them all back. He wouldn’t

Joyce back in the room. Part of him – some strange, ever-attentive part – had been listening even as he’d suffered the

long. Victor had left enough of his Beta

was at their head, and he would be coming. He would be coming at any moment, to break through the final pieces of Walsh’s control and take the pack from Joyce by

see the look

a bitter smile coming to his lips. That, alone, would be

get a bearing on his surroundings. He’s laying on the cement floor

said upstairs. But Joyce’s

he really did pass out,

is agony. He gives a sharp gasp and a little cry and then stops moving. The pain abates, but just barely. Still. He won’t be trying to move again anytime

again, trying to slow his breathing so that he can hear

three sets, he’s sure – two sets in boots, and then

feels lighter at the sound of her voice. “Get your god damn hands off of me, or I swear to god, when we

him, but he regrets it, groaning as it twinges the muscles around

of keys against metal, the creak of old hinges swinging open. The sound of a body shoved, and then her small cry of pain as

saying another word as

calls after them, and he hears the slight clang of her bars, meaning she’s pressed herself up against her door. “Play chopsticks one last time, or whatever it is you like to do with your fingers, because when I am out of

his lip, working hard to stifle a

he hears

for the first time.

Alive?

furnishes the word for her. He opens his eyes again

he says, the word light against his

bars of her door clanging as she shakes them, trying to find any weakness, trying