Broken hearts

*Zac*
I stand beside the crib, staring down at my son. It’s long past midnight. I had awoken the nurse and told her to find comfort elsewhere. I’m just drunk enough after stopping at the club with Draco to not give a damn about my rudeness.

My mind is foggy from too much drink and the red haze of betrayal. So much makes sense now. Her encouraging me not to remember the past. Had we been involved at all? Had I ever taken her to my bed? Not according to Fancy.

So little makes sense. Fancy has told me that she had been taking the money Calliope offered because she feared if she didn’t, Calliope wouldn’t believe her claims that she wouldn’t reveal that she was Zane’s mother. Calliope is checking on her, has hired someone to keep watch on her activities. In addition, she took the money because she is terrified that Calliope will turn on her, will destroy her as she threatened.

“I must prepare for a rainy day because when it comes it will be a raging storm.”

She wept when she recounts how she awoke one morning to find the babe gone. “I should have known she had taken it to use to her advantage.”

I almost retort that Zane isn’t an ‘it’… something Calliope would have no doubt jumped on like a bird on a bug.

The boy awakens with wide eyes and a wail, just as his mother had on numerous nights. Horrors from the war, she claimed. Or had it been guilt that had prodded her restless nights?

I touch my finger to Zane’s cheek. “Shhh, now. All will be right soon.”

The child quiets.

“You know my voice, don’t you? You know who I am. Do you know your mother, I wonder? Your true mother?”

“I didn’t know you were home.”

My body, traitor that it is, reacts instantly to the sleepy rasp of her voice. My heart feels like a painful block of ice. I don’t turn. I can’t. Every nerve ending I possess might be calling out for me to take her in my arms, but I won’t. I never will again.

“What are you doing?” she asks softly, coming up behind me, flattening her palm to my back. I stiffen at the familiar touch that has the power to send me beyond the edge of desire.

“Studying my son’s eyes.” I say.

“I think they’re exactly like yours.” She says.

I shake my head, “I think they favor his mother’s more. A subtle difference in blue. Almost violet.”

Her fingers jerk against my back, right before her hand falls away. I turn to face her then. She appears drained of blood, almost as white as the silk of her nightdress.

“I know everything, Calliope, everything.”

*Calliope*
His voice is as frigid as the winters in the east. It freezes the blood in my veins. The hatred and disgust in his eyes shatters my heart. He can’t know, he can’t possibly know.

“You remember?” I whisper.

He releases a harsh laugh. “I only just realized that there is always a frisson of fear accompanying those words whenever you voice them. Now I know why. No, my little cunning wife, I do not remember my time in the war. I do not remember you."

I force out the words. “She told you."

“In spite of your threat to destroy her. Try to carry through on it, and it is I who will destroy you." He growls.

He makes no sense. “I don’t understand. What are you talking about?"

“I know, Calliope, I know that you stole the babe!”

“What? No, she abandoned Zane, left him with me one morning never to return. She wanted nothing to do with him.” I tell him.

I think I detect a dimming in his anger and hope flares like a newly lit flame.

“Then why didn’t you tell me this in the beginning?” he demands, his voice still harsh, hurt.

I want to touch him, to comfort him, to soothe him. But he is not touchable. Everything in his stance yells for me to retreat, to steer clear of him. But I cannot. For Zane’s sake, for my love of him, I will face down Lucifer himself.

“Because I was afraid you would take him from me, and I love him so very, very much. I could not love him more if I had, in fact, given birth to him." I say.

He shakes his head, “You lied, Calliope. Our whole marriage is based on lies.”

“No!” I reach out to touch him, jerk back my hand, curl my fingers until my nails bite into my palms. Zane begins crying. The child has to be sensing the tension shimmering between me and Zac. It is thick enough to pierce with a bayonet. “I never lied to you. Not once. I never claimed to have given birth to Zane. I only said I was his mother. In my heart, the words were true."

“Lies. Dress them up as you will, deny it if you want, but no honesty exists between us. You forced me to marry you." He all but spit.

Frantically, I shake my head. “I never demanded that you marry me."

“But you ensured that I would ask. With your innocence and your constant nearness. Were the nightmares even real, or just a means to get me into your bed?”

Zane is wailing now, his screams for attention making it difficult to think, to determine how best to convince him that I’ve not come to him with ulterior motives.

“How can you doubt me so? How can you think so poorly of me?" I ask.

“You never wanted me to remember. You did nothing to help me remember!” He hits his balled fist on the side of the crib.

Zane shrieks. I have had enough. I shove Zac aside and lift Zane into my arms, cuddling him close.

“Answer me this: did I ever make love to you in Scutari?” he asks.

Knowing what it will cost me, the dear price I will pay, still I cannot lie to him. So I say nothing.

He barks out harsh laughter. “That’s the reason you didn’t want me to remember. Because then I would know that you were not his mother, that this wondrous night you spoke of was nothing but fiction."

“It was real. It happened. You stayed with me, you comforted me. We just didn’t...” I shake my head. “It was all innocent."

“Damn you, damn you to hell for giving me a false memory. You have a week to say good-bye to him, and then I want you gone," Zac commands, his voice seething with barely controlled rage.

I go numb with disbelief. “You are banishing me?”

“From my life and his. Fancy is his mother. By the Goddess, she shall have him back." He says.

I shake my head, “And you? You are what she wants. Now that you are knighted, now that she may be a lady. She cares not one whit for this child."

“She claims differently. And she will help me remember. She will tell me everything of our time in the East. Memories will spark. I will regain what I have lost."

“Why do you believe her and not me?" I ask.

“Because I knew her before I left for the Crimea, I knew her well. You, madam, I know not at all."

He spins on his heel and charges from the room as though the enemy wait in the hallway to engage him in battle. I want to call after him, rush after him, grab him.

But my battered pride keeps me rooted to the spot. With tears pouring down my face, I crush Zane to me. Zac has ripped out my heart. And in a week, it will be irrevocably lost to me when my dear, sweet child is taken from my arms.