To my family.
I stare at Cressida’s stomach, at what we almost lost, and at what we still have.
And I swear it again.
Not to gods.
Not to the fates.
To her.
To the daughter I haven’t met but already bleed for.
I will burn cities before I let fear touch her. I will carve law into the bones of men who look at her wrong. I will end the fucking world before it can touch what’s mine again.
The Bogeyman has a daughter now.
And that doesn’t make me weaker.
It makes me fucking unforgivable.
thirty-five
Cressida
Fourmonthsago,Iwas chained to a concrete floor, staring into the eyes of a woman I once called a sister while she rode a power trip so high it got her killed. Four months since fire swallowed the warehouse and her screams went silent. Since I looked the devil in the eye and watched my husband tear her heart out mid-beat.
Konstantin’s love is not gentle. It’s primal, feral . . . endless. And he gave her a death in the only language he speaks fluently—violence.
But our daughter . . . she gave us life, and today, I’m having her in my living room.
Because apparently trauma makes you weird about hospitals and paranoia runs in my bloodline. Or maybe it’s just Konstantin’s need to control the uncontrollable. He doesn’t trust anyone else to keep me safe, not after everything.
Not after Lucetta.
Not after the warehouse.
Not afterher.
That night still echoes in my dreams sometimes.
But this . . . this is noise. Beautiful, terrifying noise.
Sunni is screaming louder than I am, though. “You’re doing amazing, bitch. Don’t die now.”
“Sunniva, shut up,” Konstantin snaps.
“Oh, bite me, Daddy Dagger.”
“I will sedate you myself.”
“Rude.”
Konstantin growls something vicious in Russian, kneeling behind me so I can lean against his chest.
My back bows as another contraction hits, and I snarl at Konstantin. “Your bloody demon child is chewing her way through my vagina.”
“Lettuce pray for the dark queen’s va-jay-jay,” Sunni quips, putting her hands together and bowing her head.
