“Almost there, little one,” Lucetta croons, her voice tight but calm.
She’s the only one here who doesn’t sound like she’s about to cry, puke, or break furniture.
She’s seen worse.
She’ssurvivedworse.
Lucetta’s still healing both physically and emotionally. The kind of healing that happens slowly, one breath at a time, like scar tissue blooming under skin. The kind of survival that earns you your own quiet corner of the world. I see it in her eyes sometimes, the hell she went through that she refuses to speak about.
The only thing I know is that it was bad. Really, really bad.
But she’s here.
She’salive.
And that’s a weight I didn’t know I was carrying until it fell off my chest.
Misha leans against the far wall, arms crossed, his expression unreadable. He’s a darker echo of Sunniva, just less glitter andmore blade. His eyes scan the room, always cataloging every possible threat. Quiet and dead-eyed, loyal to his Bratva boss, but watching me like I’m blood. Not his bosses bonded. Not the Pakhan’s wife. Just . . . me. Something in the way he shadows me now says it all. He’s become a brother to me. Not by birth, but by blade. By war. Just one more person who refuses to ever let me be haunted by the ghosts in this place.
Another contraction hits, and my world splinters as I scream.
“Well, that’s a sound,” Sunniva mutters, wiping sweat from my forehead as I crush her hand in mine. “Very banshee of you. Love the commitment to the aesthetic, dark queen.”
“I swear to goddess,” I growl, “if you don’t shut up.”
“You’ll what? Bleed on me?” she chirps. “Too late, Princess Doom. Already ruined these leggings.”
I let out something between a sob and a laugh, then promptly bit down on a curse as another contraction shreds through me.
“You are doing so good,Lisichka,” he breathes, his lips at my temple. “She is almost here.”
“She’s trying to kill me,” I pant.
“She is my daughter. Of course, she is.”
Sunniva snorts. “Born feral. Like mother, like spawn.”
“She’s not feral,” I hiss, my breath catching. “She’s a queen. A tempest. A Kirovsky.”
“Same thing,” Sunniva says.
I screech as the sudden urge to push overwhelms me. “Bloody hell, it’s finally time to meet the little hellion.”
“Push, Cressida,” Lucetta orders in her now permanently husky voice.
It feels like hours that I push, but it’s worth it when I hear that first sound.
That first, thin, furious cry that says she’s going to rule all our worlds.
Sunniva holds up the furious, perfect little bundle that the midwife passes to her. “She looks like you,” she says, her voice wet with emotion but still grinning like a bloody lunatic. “Poor thing.”
“Give her here,” I demand.
The second she’s in my arms, the bond wraps around us like a second heartbeat. A different thread than the one I share with my monster man. This one is smaller, brighter, like someone rewrote my DNA in fire and satin baby skin.
My daughter curls against my chest, her tiny fist clenching in my hair like she owns me.
“Hello, Calypso Kirovsky. Welcome to the world,” I croon.
