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…

he was so close. So close to her, to his children. So close to having them all back. He wouldn’t give in now. There was still so, so much to do.

room. Part of him – some strange, ever-attentive part – had been listening even as he’d suffered the pain, been so close to

had said that the Walsh forces still held the house, and that was true. But not for long. Victor had left enough of his Beta army outside that

his Betas were prepared. Rafe was at their head, and he would be coming. He would be coming at any moment,

the look on Joyce and Walsh’s faces when he took

his lips. That, alone, would be worth living

then, on the stairs, and Victor opens his eyes, trying to get a bearing on his surroundings. He’s laying on

up with what his Betas had learned about Walsh’s house, with what Joyce had said upstairs. But Joyce’s words had been fuzzy – Victor can barely remember the tail end

he really did pass out, at the

noise is coming from, but the movement 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

so that he can hear over the

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

voice. “Get your god damn hands off of me, or I

through him, but he regrets it, groaning as it twinges the muscles around the wound in his back and causing pain

the clang of keys against metal, the creak of old hinges swinging

the door behind her, not saying another

her bars, meaning she’s pressed herself up against her door. “Play chopsticks one

his lip, working hard

then, he

apparently falling on him for the first time. “Victor!” She says

Alive?

mind furnishes the word for her. He opens his eyes again and takes as deep a breath

he says, the word

rush from her in relief and he hears her moving around, the bars of her door clanging as she shakes them, trying to find any weakness, trying