The Devil's Favourite Obsession

She tried to count, in the fast, disorganised part of her brain that was now working faster than any other part of her brain had ever worked, the number of times Cassian had placed food on her plate during breakfast. Three times the eggs. Twice the toast. Once a bowl of berries. Once, a bowl of fruit she did not remember the name of. Once a small pastry with sugar on top. Once the pot of tea, and again the pot of tea, and once more.

Could food do this to a body?

How was that possible?

With that thought, another terrified reflection arrived.

Sex!

They had sex!

They had had sex the previous evening. Many times. Without condoms. Not a single one. Wait, why did he not use one? And why did she never once think to ask him to use one?

Was she — was she pregnant?

Could a belly swell in 12 hours from a pregnancy?

She gave her racing mind a break!

Was this why Cassian had asked her to wait until tonight to show her who he was?

She knew she was thinking stupid things. She knew the part of her brain producing the thoughts was not the part she should be consulting in a serious medical emergency. But what else was she supposed to call this?

What else was she supposed to do ot think?

She raised one trembling hand to her stomach.

She touched it.

It felt real. It felt like a pregnant belly.

Yet, another terrified thought arrived.

She remembered the alien movies she had watched on Marion’s couch. The memory arrived exactly with the wrong piece of information at exactly the wrong second.

Is Cassian Alien?!

What if Cassian was an alien?!

What if Cassian was not, in fact, from this earth? And she somehow makes him human?

There had been a movie. She had watched it a year ago. A woman had become pregnant with an alien. The baby had grown inside her at a speed nature did not normally permit. The baby had torn its way out of the woman’s body. The woman had died.

Was she going to die?

Each thought brought its own facial expression to her face. A sweat broke across her forehead. Oh God. Oh God. Was Cassian waiting for the baby to come out so that it could kill her? Would he show his real face only in her last moment? The alien face?

She knew she was thinking stupid things. Who would not have been, in the circumstances? A swollen belly. After sex. In twelve hours.

Oh Lord. Oh Lord. Oh — Wait!

She remembered something important!

She could not die!

Thank god!

She breathed out. The breath she had not realised she had been holding throughout the spiral left her chest in a long, uneven rush of relief.

She could not die. She was immortal. The Reaper had not given her the full instructions of the curse, but the Reaper had been very clear about that part.

’I cannot die. The baby cannot kill me. The alien cannot kill me. Nothing can kill me.’

”Cixi. Why are you giving funny expressions?” Emily was watching her. ”I mean — I have heard about hormones going crazy. But I am not understanding. Are you going through emotions because your belly is growing fast and you cannot go back to your previous figure?”

Cixi, who had been panicking even after the small, uneven relief of remembering she could not die, tried to look composed. It did not, by any honest reading of her face, work. ”Yes. I am worried about my figure. And the baby’s growth....”

She delivered the reply with every ounce of calm she could muster. Inside her head, she was crying. Inside her mind, she was also screaming.

She needed to talk to Cassian.

She looked at the door of the study. Cassian was not making any noise. He had not, in the long minutes Emily had been inside the suite, emerged from the study to rescue her. He had not, by any sound she could hear, even noticed that Emily was here.

She needed to finish the conversation with Emily and make her leave. She needed Emily gone before the panic returned. She needed —

”Do you need something?” she asked.

Emily, who had not yet sat down, looked at the long couch in the centre of the living area.

Cixi did not offer it to her.

She was not, just now, in any state of mind to offer hospitality to a woman she barely knew in a suite where her baby might be an alien.

”I came here to talk about your fifteen percent share,” Emily said.

Ofcourse, she did, Cixi thought.

The conversation was going to take a long time, Cixi concluded. She did not have much time. Cixi had, by every honest accounting of the panic, still climbing the back of her neck, and about three minutes before the spiral about the alien baby returned.

”Can we have this discussion later?” she asked politely.

”No. I need to talk to you now. Before Rafael gets everything.”

In the study, Cassian Crown was seated in the long armchair beside the window with a hardback book open in his lap, his thumb resting on the page he had marked the previous evening, and he turned his face toward the closed door of the living area at the sound of Emily’s name.

He muttered, low, against the spine of the book. ”Things are happening too fast.” His mouth pulled at one corner. ”It is time I burn down this Palace for real. And let everyone get killed.” He grinned wider.

He could hear Emily through the door. He could hear, more clearly than Emily could, what Emily had been holding in her chest for the better part of the last year without ever having found the room to deliver it.

”I have worked so hard.” Emily had begun to pace the length of the living area in front of Cixi. Her hands moved at her sides. Her voice rose at the edges. ”I have worked harder than anyone else in that office. And fucking Cassian — who has not shown up to half the meetings in the last year, who has been too busy with his illegal deals to attend any conversation that actually mattered — fucking Cassian took my work. He signed his name to it. And now —” She stopped and turned. She paced in the other direction. ”And now this Brat Rafael is going to take everything. He will take the chairmanship. And I will remain — as I have remained for three years now — the vice president of a company I am the only person actually running.”