Chapter 9: Kinn roughly spreads Porsche's shaking legs, his fingers coming away slick with blood and semen. 'Fuck, you're bleeding,' he snarls, pressing a trembling hand to Porsche's swollen belly where the child kicks frantically. The scent of iron mixes with sex as Porsche whimpers, his hole still gaping from Kinn's violent fucking.
The silence after Kinn left was a physical thing, thick and suffocating, broken only by the ragged, torn sounds of Porsche’s breathing. He lay where he’d been dropped, cheek pressed into the stained silk, the aches in his body layering themselves: the deep, throbbing burn between his legs, the sharp sting of the cut on his stomach, the heavy, alien ache in his core where the baby, his baby, now twisted in distressed agitation.
He couldn’t move. A vast, numb hollow had opened inside his chest, wider than the physical violations. This was his life now. A canvas for their blades and their cocks and their legacy.
Then, a fist clenched deep within his womb.
It wasn’t a kick. It was different. A hard, cramping vise that locked around his middle and squeezed the air from his lungs in a sharp gasp. It passed after a few seconds, leaving a tremor in its wake. He tried to push himself up, his arms wobbling. Before he could find his balance, another one hit, stronger this time.
A low moan escaped him. He curled onto his side, knees drawing up instinctively. The pressure was immense, a wrong, punishing tension. A warm trickle seeped from between his thighs, and when he looked down, he saw a faint, pinkish smear on the pale sheets. Then another trickle, darker.
Blood.
Panic, clean and electric, burned through the numbness. "No," he whispered, his hand pressing against the great swell of his stomach. "No, no, no."
He tried to call out, but his voice was a frayed thread. The third contraction seized him, and this time he cried out, the sound muffled by the room’s oppressive luxury. The blood flow increased, a slow, sinister leak staining the silk a deep rust red.
Kinn made it to his private study down the hall before the shaking started. He poured two fingers of whiskey, his hand unsteady, and knocked it back. The burn did nothing. The image wouldn’t leave him: Porsche’s naked body bowed in submission, the thin red line welling up under his father’s blade, the feel of that same body, hot and tight and violating around him as he’d tried to fuck his own fury into oblivion.
He was replacing the crystal decanter when his phone buzzed. The security feed for the south suite. He’d almost dismissed it, but something—a prickle at the base of his skull—made him open the live video.
Porsche was on the bed, writhing. Not in post-coital sleep, but in clear distress. He was curled in a fetal position, one hand clawing at the bedding. Even in the grainy monochrome of the night-vision camera, the dark patches spreading beneath him were unmistakable.
Blood.
Kinn’s heart stuttered, then launched into a frantic, pounding rhythm that echoed in his ears. The glass slipped from his fingers, shattering on the teak floor. He was out the door and sprinting down the hallway before the last shard had settled.
He burst into the suite, the locked door meaningless against his own override code. The metallic scent of blood hit him first, cutting through the lingering smell of sex. Porsche was panting, his skin slick with sweat, eyes wide with animal fear. The blood was a shocking crimson against the ivory sheets.
"Porsche." Kinn’s voice was foreign to him, stripped of all authority, edged with raw panic.
"The baby," Porsche choked out as another contraction visibly rippled through his abdomen, a hardening wave that made him arch and gasp. "Something's wrong."
Kinn was at the bedside, his mind, usually a battlefield of strategies and contingencies, utterly blank. He fumbled for his phone, his fingers slipping on the screen. He called the family doctor, Pol, a man who had dealt with bullet wounds and poisonings and discreet disappearances.
"Pol. The south suite. Now. He’s bleeding. There’s… there’s a lot of blood." He heard the tremor in his own command and hated it.
He dropped the phone. His hands hovered over Porsche, unsure where to touch, what to do. The cut from the dagger was a minor thing now, a superficial token over the real crisis blooming beneath it. He saw the tears tracking through the sweat on Porsche’s temples, saw the desperate, uncomprehending fear in his eyes, and a cold, terrifying void opened beneath Kinn’s ribs.
"Don't look at me like that," Porsche sobbed, his body tensing for another wave. "Don't just fucking stare!"
Kinn acted without thought. He climbed onto the bed, sliding behind Porsche, pulling the shaking man back against his chest. He wrapped his arms around Porsche’s heaving middle, one hand splaying over the hard, distended stomach. "Breathe," he commanded, his mouth close to Porsche’s ear. "You have to breathe through it."
Porsche whimpered, his head lolling back against Kinn’s shoulder. The next contraction hit, and Kinn felt it. Felt the powerful, spasming rigidity of Porsche’s abdomen under his palm. Felt the life within, fighting, struggling. A profound, terrifying connection lanced through him, electrical and absolute. This wasn't just a thing he had made. This was a part of him, tied inextricably to the man gasping in his arms. The horror of losing it—losing them—was not a strategic blow to the legacy. It was a yawning chasm of personal dread.
"Where is he?" Kinn snarled toward the door, as if his will could summon the doctor faster.
Pol arrived moments later, a compact man with a calm, unreadable face, followed by a nurse wheeling equipment. His eyes took in the scene: the heir in bed, cradling the bleeding vessel, his usual composure shattered. Pol said nothing, just got to work.
"Sir, I need to examine him," Pol said, his voice neutral.
Kinn didn’t want to let go. The feel of Porsche’s body, racked with pain, fused against his own, felt like the only anchor in a sudden, storm-churned sea. Reluctantly, he disentangled himself, moving to stand at the head of the bed, his hand finding Porsche’s damp hair, fingers carding through it almost compulsively.
Pol’s examination was swift, clinical. He hooked up a fetal monitor, the rapid, erratic whoosh-whoosh-whoosh of a tiny heartbeat flooding the room. He exchanged a brief, loaded glance with the nurse. An ultrasound machine was rolled in, its screen a ghostly blue.
"The trauma and stress have triggered preterm labor," Pol stated, squeezing cold gel onto Porsche’s stomach. The image flickered to life. "The placenta is partially abrupting. That’s the bleeding." He pointed to a dark smudge on the screen. "The fetus is in distress."
"Fix it," Kinn said, the words a low, dangerous growl.
"I can try. Medications to stop the contractions. Steroids for the fetal lungs. Strict, absolute bed rest." Pol looked directly at Kinn. "But no more stressors. No more physical exertion. His body is not… conventional. We are in unknown territory. Another episode like tonight…" He let the sentence hang, his meaning clear.
Kinn’s gaze dropped to Porsche, who was staring at the grainy ultrasound image, his face pale with awe and terror. His son. A tiny, curled form, heart hammering against the odds. The bond he felt wasn't a choice. It was a brutal, biological truth, as inescapable as his own bloodstream. He had spent the evening trying to prove his ownership through violence, and all he’d done was nearly destroy what was already, irrevocably, his.
The medical team worked, injecting, adjusting IV lines, talking in low tones. Slowly, the contractions spaced out. The bleeding lessened to a trickle. The frantic heartbeat on the monitor steadied into a strong, rhythmic gallop.
Exhaustion finally pulled Porsche under, his body going limp, his breathing deepening into troubled sleep. The room cleared, leaving Kinn alone again with him. The silence returned, but it was different now. Charged with the echo of the monitor’s beat, the coppery scent of fear, and the ghost of Kinn’s own panic.
He didn’t leave. He pulled a chair to the bedside and sat. He watched the slow rise and fall of Porsche’s chest, the protective curve of his body around his stomach. The cut from the dagger was just a thin, dark scab now.
Kinn reached out, his fingers stopping just shy of touching Porsche’s stomach. He could feel the heat radiating from it, the subtle, living movement within. His throat tightened. This vulnerability was a weakness his father would exploit, a flaw in the armor of a future king.
But as he sat in the quiet dark, the city’s distant lights glittering like indifferent stars, Kinn knew the flaw was already permanent. The bond was set. It terrified him more than any enemy, more than his father’s disapproval. Because it meant the thing he had been ordered to control was now the only thing he couldn’t afford to lose.