This is the sequel to "Unbreakable - A Beautiful Lie". Hence, if you have ended up here without having read "A Beautiful Lie", go to my main page and look up the first book before reading this one.

To all of you leaving comments and feedback during "A Beautiful Lie". THANK YOU! I hope you'll enjoy the sequel.

PRELUDE

Her arm was covered in blood, the red fluid dripping from her fingertips as she stretched her hand towards me. "It's not about you, Liz. This is not about you."

The tears were wet against my cheeks. "Mom, you're bleeding."

She was calm as she nodded. "They're all dead. They all died. But not you. You survived."

I followed the red trail of blood down her body, saw how it was drenching her clothes, fearfully noting how blood was dripping from between her legs.

I swayed, nausea running up my esophagus. Blood. Too much blood. Blood everywhere.

The frightening large amount of blood made the clothing stick to her body, revealing the small bump in the center of her body. The visible sign of pregnancy.

"We need to get you to a hospital!" I was desperate, my voice breaking with fear. She was bleeding out. No one could survive losing that much blood.

Her hand clamped down on my upper arm, smearing warm blood on my skin, fingers digging into my shuddering flesh.

"Mom," I tried again. She was so close now, I could smell the blood. The metallic, sickening smell of fresh blood.

On instinct, I reached out and grabbed her arm, feeling like I should steady her. But maybe it was I who needed support to remain standing, because mom looked absolutely fine. If it wasn't for all that blood, I wouldn't have suspected that anything was wrong. Her gaze was level with mine, her lips soft in a loving understand line, and she was exuding calmness.

"You're losing the baby." My own observation rung false in my head. Mom had never had a baby after me. As far as I knew, she had never been pregnant after having me. So why was she pregnant? And why was she miscarrying? Because that was obviously what she was doing. Something must be ripping her apart from the inside, considering the amount of blood everywhere.

She blinked, sadness filling her eyes, and said resolutely, "No."

I frowned. "Mom, listen to me. You need to go to-"

"It's not me, it's you," she interrupted.

Her nonsensical interruption burrowed into my heart like a dulled knife. Her words brought back reality and I directed my gaze downwards, down my own body, while mom's next words struck my eardrums, "You are losing the baby, Lizzie."

To emphasize her harsh statement, I felt warmth between my legs and the accompanied nausea threatened to overtake me. My hand was shaking as I wiped it down over my flat abdomen and I barely noticed the distortion in my mother's voice as she repeated, "You are losing the baby, Lizzie," her female voice growing hoarser and more masculine towards the end of that observation.

Next I knew, mom was gone and so was all the blood. Instead, I was in bed with Max's dark worried eyes fixed on my face, the soft shine from the bedside light shrouding his face in haunting shadows.

"It's happening," he told me, gently cradling my cheek.

I sat up with a start, almost pushing him over, ripping the sheet to the side only to see the blood saturate the white sheet, while I felt its warmth cling to the insides of my thighs.

I was aware of his calm concern as the air left me.

I put my hands in the blood, as if the baby was there somewhere, panic rolling through me in waves. Somewhere at the back of my head I knew that I at most would find a ball similar to a clot. I knew because I had seen the baby inside my uterus and I knew that it was small.

Still, I wanted to see it. I wanted to feel my baby.

He was kissing my bare shoulder, cautiously touching my back, telling me things in a soothing voice, things I neither heard nor registered. I felt the love from him barging through my mind, trying to fill me up through the connection.

But I was losing a baby. We hadn't planned for a baby, we were still kids ourselves, but the fact remained that I was losing a baby. A baby that had died inside of me.

As I cried - my fingers covered in blood, my uterus cramping to expel the membranes - I cursed Command. Over and over again. He had killed our baby. There was little doubt that the fetus had died when Max and I had died. The chance of a pregnancy - even the one created by two parims, tied together by a connection - being able to survive the mother being dead for several minutes was slim.

He was telling me he loved me. Over and over again. He was sending healing energy into my uterus, his hand pressed up against my lower abdomen, lessening the sensations of the cramping, ensuring that I was not losing too much blood.

Max was taking care of me. In every way possible. In any way he could. Which made me cry even harder, my shoulders shaking with the wrecking sobs.

Despite Max's efforts at calming me down, my mind was determined to wander. When he carried my shivering and sobbing body into the shower to wash the blood away, my thoughts fled into darkness. Sergeant Steven Carter had tried his best to break me when I was in captivity, casually informing me of how he had repeatedly raped my mother, how every single baby conceived from some of those horrible acts had died in the womb. He had wanted me to doubt a happy life with Max, because Max was alien and I was not. He planted the insidious seed in my mind that a gaea would never have a child with an alien, hybrid or pure.

Max had managed to talk me out of those thoughts a while back, but since finding out about my pregnancy and the subsequent information about an impending miscarriage, my whole world had been shaken.

The water was running down my body, his hands moving gently across my naked skin to help in removing the blood, while I stood dazed and apathetic, watching the pink water swirl down the drain.

Max was trying to reach me through the connection, but my own mind was screaming too loudly for me to hear him.

You will never bear Max Evans' children. You will never have a child with Max. Never.

Never.

Never.