“No,” he says. “I’m not leaving her.”
She tries again, voice soft. “Just ten minutes.”
“No.”
His tone ends the conversation. Keira steps back without pressing further and leaves us alone. He drags his chair closer to the bed. His hand finds mine. He lowers his forehead to the back of my fingers, holding his breath like any wrong move mightbreak me. I want to curl my hand around his, but my body still doesn’t respond.
The darkness steals me again.
Music wakes me this time.
Soft piano notes. Slow, steady, achingly beautiful. The air smells faintly of antiseptic and fresh linens. An older nurse is helping Gustav dress me, lifting my arms carefully through the sleeves of a nightgown. She moves with calm confidence, but every time I’m shifted, Gustav’s hands track her movements possessively, guiding, adjusting, protecting.
“You’re a good husband,” the nurse murmurs, fastening a button. “Most men would have left her to rot.”
His reply is gravel-dark. “She was my light in a very dark world. It was brief, but she burned herself into me.”
“She won’t turn out like your mother, dear,” she assures.
“No, she has to live,” he replies softly. “She promised she would not leave me. That we would not leave each other.”
The nurse pauses. Tears gather in her lashes. She wipes one away quickly and excuses herself. The door clicks shut behind her.
Gustav sits on the edge of the bed and brushes his knuckles along my forehead. The touch is featherlight. Loving. Ache radiates through my chest. He takes my hand and kisses each knuckle, slow and reverent, as though my fingers are sacred relics.
“I beg you,” he whispers. “Wake up and come back to me. I am half a man without you.”
My body fights hard for consciousness. I force air into my lungs. He presses my knuckles to his lips again, but freezes when he catches my lashes fluttering.
His eyes widen.
He stops breathing.
He stares at me with raw fear, as if he is terrified this is a hallucination. I try to move my lips. They crack. No sound comes.
He leans closer, voice so quiet I barely hear it. “Devushka…”
I swallow fire and try again.
“Gustav,” I rasp.
He makes a sound, one I’ve never heard. Relief and pain woven together. He cups my head with both hands and kisses my forehead, my cheeks, the tip of my nose, every inch he can reach without jostling me.
“Thank you,” he breathes against my skin. “Thank you for coming back.”
I smile weakly, tears slipping down the sides of my face. “How long… was I asleep?”
He hesitates.
“Five months.”
The breath leaves me in a startled gasp. Fivemonths. My body feels foreign. My limbs thin. I try to move, but he beats me to it. He takes my palm gently and... lowers it onto my stomach.
“Peighton,” he says softly, voice breaking at the edges. “You are pregnant.”
Warmth floods beneath my hand. A swell. Not small. Real.
A sob rises in my throat.
