Unknown POV

As I lift her small frame off of the gritty ground, the first thing I notice was how cold she was, the warmest parts of her body being her hands. I tuck them close to her slightly stretched abdomen, radiating the heat towards the baby.

Her head lolls back like a ripped rag doll, her dry mouth hanging open, shuddering breaths making their way in and out of her lungs at a rattling pace. Her body was shaking with the effort.

I curl her closer to my body, my tall frame easily engulfing her as she unknowingly snuggles closer.

She was still unconscious, and I still needed to get her to the healers as soon as possible. I was just as worried for the life in her stomach as I was for her. Who knew how they had been affected by not being able to grow under the sun and the stars. What the eternal darkness had done to them.

Hopefully the light they had absorbed during the month before my queen was kidnapped had been enough to prevent any lasting damage.

My body and hers were now warming since we had been reunited, and my violet eyes looked down at her in adoration, silver melding into the mix. The dragon was trying to force its way to his mate, to curl her up around his tail, listen to two strong heartbeats that he should have been listening to for the past seven months.

I run my fingers through her ginger curls, not caring if it was the dirtiest I had ever seen it.

She was coming around as we walk through the hallways that didn't seem quite so cold anymore with my queen in my arms.

We walk for over half an hour before I sense even a sliver of light from up ahead.

The light of green fades behind us as the light of stars engulfs us instead.

The hole we had so desperately chipped away at appears to have been chipped away at desperately again, for it was definitely bigger than the last time I saw the light of the sky. How long had I been away for? I had departed early afternoon.

I step into the crisp, fresh air, the light breeze dancing through the strands of my blonde hair in a joyous dance as though to greet me.

My queen stirs below me, the beam of moonlight cutting across her face as her eyelids flutter, struggling to open in the light after being in the shadows for so long.

At last, I greet those beautiful emerald eyes beneath the gaunt face, still as bright as ever, even if slightly more wary. Which was to be expected. I don't know about you but I don't think the cuts and bruises along her arms and legs were from struggling against chains, the ugly red marks circling her wrists and ankles speak for themselves.

Her hands nervously flutter to my arms, clutching them as tightly as she could with her brittle bones and weakened muscles.

"Cicero..." she croaks, her sing-song voice once so lively now a shell.

"Yes my love... I'm right here.. don't worry. You're safe now," I attempt to calm her down, her weak heartbeat now thudding so hard against her ribcage, I could almost see the outline of it racing.

"No!" She shouts, as loud as her body would let her, that is, "No! No one is anymore... your... your..."

"My what, sweetheart?" I soothe, brushing the overgrown bangs back from her terrified face.

"Your... Your.. brother.." she whispers, her words looking as though they were almost sapping her of energy completely.

My heart stops. He couldn't be... He couldn't have. No. He was dead. I had made certain of it. I try to keep a calm exterior for my trembling wife. She was clutching my arms so tightly now her broken fingernails were almost drawing blood. I felt like doing the same to my brother, only they were knives. And they were in his eyeballs.

"He- he's helping t-the hunters t-to wipe us out." She was wheezing now, and I reach for my flask, barely containing my jitters as the metal clanked against the sword strapped to my waist, and press it to her lips and she drinks greedily.

Her heartbeats rejuvenate immediately. I count them one by one, out loud, to calm my wife down.

"One... two..." I move my hand from just below her collar bone to her swollen belly, my hand resting at the top while she giggles.

"Three," she finishes. I glance at her face in shock, then back to her stomach, and back again. She smiles shyly up at me as I feel a grin tugging at my lips as I kneel, dumbstruck in the soft grass with my beautiful mate curled against my chest. Her eyes swirl with a molten gold of love, mixing with the green to match the colour of the snow-capped grass below us, in the darkness looking like the palest shade of green possible.

"Wha-what?" I can't help the grin splitting my face in half.

She nods, a slight twitch of her lip showing that she was trying not to giggle at my dumbstruck features.

Twins were common among shifters, more common than a single pregnancy anyway. But I had never heard of it happening with a royal. It was impossible. There could only be one heir to the throne.

I was so wrapped up in my bubble with my mate and my unborn children that I barely notice the absence of the general and the warriors, who said, very certainly, that they would be waiting for us at the entrance.

My queen warned a second to late before an arrow was shot through my lower back, just barely missing my pregnant mate, who still lay, stiff in shock, with her head leaning on my shoulder.

My hands loosen around her frail body, even though my only instinct at that moment was to hold her and my unborn hatchlings to me to protect them.

But it seems impossible now that my vision is swirling with black spots as i register my wife slipping- No, being pulled off of my body, as we try to cling onto each other for dear life. Whoever was doing this, I could barely make out their face as they bent down to separate us only an hour after we had found each other.

She's screaming for me and my arms are limp by my side. Not by choice, may I add.

The last I see of my beloved is her hanging off of a shoulder of a tall, buff, bald man, her pleas fading as she disappears into the thick forest.

"Carly..." is what I manage to whisper, and I feel pathetic as the blood wells in my throat.

I try to ignore the physical pain as much as I can, and it may be easy, but the heartache is not. The possibility of never seeing the love of my life again was very likely.

The crunching of boots on frosted leaves sounds from behind my still kneeling body, my arms desperately trying to recreate the shape they were curled around my wife, haunting me with their emptiness.

A blurry figure leans down to face me at the same level of my slumped shoulders. I don't even have to look up to know who it is.

"You have to know you'll never win, brother.." the words were practically spat in my direction before he spins up onto his heel and strides away.

Derek was walking away with my queen and my heirs. And he was going to make them his own.