My hands are shaking as I reach for her. While I was busy making sure Giselda could never touch her again, my men were getting her and Sunniva free. I gather her into my arms like she’s spun from glass and hers wrap around my neck, her sobs burying themselves against my throat.
“I’ve got you,Lisichika,” I whisper into her hair, carrying her out of the room. “You’re safe now. I’ve got you.”
Misha follows behind me, carrying Sunniva over his shoulder like she weighs nothing. Her legs dangle, but she’s swearing the whole way.
“Put me down, you bloody wanker,” she growls, thumping weakly at his back. “I’m injured, not unconscious.”
“You are annoying,” Misha mutters, completely unfazed. “But you are not bleeding out anymore, so you are welcome.”
Their banter is sharp, almost ridiculous considering the wreckage around us, but it’s enough to make Cressida let out a shaky laugh against my collarbone.
“Burn it down,” I bark to my men as we pass. “Salt the fucking earth so there is no chance for her to return as something even more monstrous. Tomorrow, we right our city.”
There’s silence before a loud whoosh as the building catches fire behind us. It roars louder as I flow through the doors and into the night.
I don’t look back because the only thing that matters is in my arms, alive and breathing.
thirty-four
Konstantin
Thehospitalreeksofantiseptic and anxiety. Of people who die quietly while machines pretend they’re not.
I’ve never trusted them, and I never will.
It clings to my nostrils, wraps around my throat, and sets every nerve on edge. I pace the sterile tile floors like a caged animal while doctors and nurses bustle past, too slow and too fucking calm.
My hands are stained with blood that isn’t mine, but I can still feel it drying in the creases of my knuckles. I can still hear the crack of Giselda’s bones beneath my fists.
But none of it matters except my wife.
I almost lost her.
Tonight, I want to burn this one fucking down because Cressida is inside it, pale and shaking, her wrists bandaged from the where the chains torn them to shreds, her lips split, and our child . . . a heartbeat I haven’t heard yet.
I’ve painted entire cities in blood.
Burned empires to ash for less than what they did to her.
But now I’m standing outside a fucking sterile white room, shaking like a goddamn leaf while machines beep and I fucking wait for someone to tell me my wife and baby are okay.
I don’t think I have taken a full breath since I carried her out of that warehouse.
Misha leans against the wall nearby, arms crossed, a gash on his forehead stitched shut by one of our men like a crude joke. He’s got bruises blooming along his jaw, but the bastard is grinning. “You look like shit.”
I glare at him, but the tension in my jaw cracks. “You do not look any better,mudak.”
He chuckles. “She is fine, you know. Tougher than you give her credit for. And the baby has got your stubbornness. It is probably flipping off the ultrasound machine right now.”
I grunt, half-amused, but still half-feral. I tune into the bond, letting it lull me into a calmer state as I feel her on the other end, low and steady, alive, exhausted and safe.
“You are really going to be a papa, yes?” Misha muses, doing his best to keep me distracted.
I glance at him. “You are planning to be an uncle or a pain in my ass?”
“Why not both?” he smirks.
Before I can respond, the door creaks open and a nurse peeks out and nods. “You can come in now.”
