I pressed my body into his.
He immediately wrapped me up.
His chest against my back.
His arm tightening around my waist.
His other hand slid up slowly — resting over my stomach — where our child had once existed.
He began stroking slow circles across my bare skin.
Skin to skin.
Warm.
Grounding. Protective.
“I will never leave you again,” he said quietly against my hair.
His voice vibrated through his chest into my body.
“Not until death do us part.”
He tightened his grip slightly.
“And even then... I’ll fight the devil himself to stay with you.”
The promise wasn’t poetic for show.
It came from guilt.
From fear of losing me again.
From love so intense it carried pain inside it.
From a man who had almost lost everything.
And refused to let it happen twice.
“How many days was I gone?” I asked quietly.
The question slipped out before I could stop it.
My fingers traced absent patterns across Ruslan’s scarred chest — following the ridges of old wounds, feeling the steady rise and fall of his breathing beneath my touch.
He didn’t answer immediately.
His arms tightened around me instead.
Not in avoidance. But in hesitation.
“It’s best if you don’t know,” he said at last.
The calm in his tone was intentional.
He leaned down and pressed a slow kiss against my forehead — lingering longer than necessary, as if trying to replace the memory of every second I had spent away from him.
“You’re safe now.”
