116-VELVETY NIGHTS

ELENA’s POV

It was strange how fast my life could have flipped downside up in what seemed like a split-second.

If anyone had told me seven nights ago that I would be sitting in one of the most luxurious royal rooms of Gotham Palace with gifts piled around me and my legs hefted up in a handmaid’s lap, I would have tagged the heifer a lunatic.

But that was exactly what I was doing, plopping juicy purple grapes one after another in my mouth and moaning when the sweet tangy flavor cooled my tongue and throat.

Pregnant. Fedora’s words had changed the course of my life entirely. I was a new woman, more loved…more fearful.

“Is there any news about the Alphas yet? Emily? Rosa?” I asked, glancing up from Emily’s bowed head to her wide-eyed friend Rosa who stood stiffly by the corner, watching her bathe the length of my bare feet in oils and tonics.

It had been two nights since Anthony came up into my quarters with somber hazel eyes and a handful if roses and told me about their reckoning in a