Aris collapsed back into her chair, then slid right off it, hitting her knees on the floor. She grabbed the edge of my hoodie, her face wet with sudden, ugly tears.
"Please!" she sobbed. "Please, protect me! He'll kill me. He has records... he has things on me from years ago. I didn't want to do it, I swear!"
"Do what?" I growled, grabbing her by the shoulders and hauling her up just enough to look me in the eye. "What didn't you want to do?"
"The surrogacy," she gasped out, the words tumbling over each other. "It's a lie. It's all a lie. There was no surrogacy. Elowen Goldbane never lost her womb. She's perfectly intact."
The world seemed to tilt on its axis. I felt a roar of fury build in my chest, a heat so intense it felt like my blood was turning to lava.
"What?"
