Chapter 97 Give me an answer
Maureen Laskovic
I stood in the narrow, shadow-drenched passage like a ghost that had forgotten how to move on.
My arms were locked across my chest so tightly that my fingers ached, nails biting into my own skin as if pain could keep me upright. I welcomed it. The sting was something real. Something solid. Unlike the hollow cavern yawning inside my ribs.
Anger burned in me—slow, steady, controlled.
But beneath it… beneath it was something far worse.
Disappointment.
It wasn’t loud. It didn’t scream.
It was cold.
It was the kind of ache that settled deep in your bones and whispered that something precious had cracked beyond repair.
“My lady—”
“No, Livia.” My voice cut through the corridor like shattered glass. Low. Controlled. Poisoned. “Not now.”
She bowed immediately. No argument. No hesitation. Just retreat.
And then I was alone.
Alone with the silence.
Alone with the relentless pounding of my heart.
I didn’t move. I didn’t sit. I didn’t cry.
I just waited.
Hours crawled past, each one heavier than the last. The night deepened until the world felt suspended in a breath it refused to release. Three in the morning came with a mechanical groan as the gates finally opened.
Headlights sliced through the darkness.
A familiar car rolled into the courtyard.
My stomach twisted.
The engine shut off.
The driver’s door opened.
Vuk stepped out.
His hair was disheveled. His collar crooked. Exhaustion carved harsh lines into his face, shadows bruising the skin beneath his eyes. For a split second, he didn’t see me.
Then he did.
He froze.
Surprise flickered first.
Then something softer.
Something fragile.
Fear.
“Honey…” His voice cracked around the word, like it hurt him to say it. “Why are you still awake?”
The question hung between us.
Heavy.
Laughable.
Cruel.
I didn’t answer.
When he stepped forward, I stepped back.
Measured.
Deliberate.
A boundary drawn in stone.
“Care to explain,” I said, my voice eerily calm, “why my breasts are leaking milk?”
The words echoed in the courtyard like a curse.
His eyes widened.
I didn’t give him time to recover.
My fingers trembled—not from shame, but from fury—as I reached up and slid the silk of my robe off one shoulder. The cool air kissed my exposed skin. My nipple was swollen, flushed, and glistening. A bead of milk trembled there, fragile and humiliating.
Then it fell.
A thin, slow trail down the curve of my breast.
I felt it like a brand.
Vuk crossed the distance in two strides.
I flinched.
But he didn’t grab. He didn’t force.
He caught my wrist gently. So gently it made something inside me splinter. He pulled the robe back into place, covering me as if modesty mattered now. As if hiding the evidence could erase the truth.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
The words were raw.
Wounded.
Almost childlike.
“I’m so sorry I lied to you, honey.”
Something sharp and broken escaped my throat—a laugh that didn’t sound like it belonged to me.
“Oh, that’s perfect,” I said, voice trembling despite my effort to steady it. “That makes five.”
He blinked. “Five?”
“You’re the fifth person to tell me ‘sorry’ today.” My chest tightened. “Five different mouths. Same useless word.”
I stepped closer.
Close enough to see his pulse hammering in his throat.
“Look at me,” I said softly.
He did.
“Look me in the eye and tell me everything you’ve been hiding.”
He opened his arms, that familiar gesture he always used when he wanted to dissolve conflict into an embrace.
“Come here…”
My eyes burned.
I wanted to go.
God help me, I wanted to fall into him and forget this ache.
But I didn’t move.
He moved instead.
He closed the gap and wrapped his arms around me anyway—firm but careful, like he was holding something cracked. His hand slid into mine, warm and steady, and he began walking us forward slowly.
As if pacing could soften devastation.
“You went into a coma pregnant with our babies…”
The world stopped.
“What?”
The word tore out of me. My knees weakened so fast I thought I might collapse. Ice raced down my spine. I shoved him back, ripping my hand from his grasp.
“What are you saying?” My voice fractured. “What happened, Vuk? What did you do?”
His face… gods.
He looked terrified.
“The doctors came,” he said quietly. “They ran every test. There was nothing wrong. Not until they realized you were pregnant.”
The air left my lungs.
Pregnant.
“The babies weren’t normal,” he continued, voice reverent and horrified all at once. “Demon and Lunar energy intertwined. They were feeding on you. Draining you. Your body couldn’t sustain them. You were dying, Maureen.”
My vision blurred.
“I let you carry them for three months,” he said. “Three. I hoped your body would adjust. It didn’t.”
My heart was beating so hard it hurt.
“So I made a choice.”
My stomach dropped.
“I removed the embryos. Placed them into a spiritual incubator. Infused it with my own demonic energy to stabilize them.”
Silence swallowed everything.
“You… took them out of me?”
“It was the only way to save you.”
My hands began to shake uncontrollably.
“Why,” I whispered, though it felt like I was screaming from underwater, “didn’t you tell me?”
Tears spilled over before I could stop them. Hot. Relentless.
“Why did you let me wake up empty? Why did you let me feel that hole inside me and not understand it?” My voice rose, cracked, broke apart. “I thought I lost something. I felt it. I felt it every day, Vuk. I mourned something I couldn’t name.”
His eyes filled too.
“You had babies,” he said hoarsely. “Three.”
The word detonated inside me.
“Three?” My hands flew to my mouth. “Three?!”
I staggered back.
“I’m so mad at you,” I sobbed. “I’m so fucking mad at you I can’t breathe.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know!” I cried. “You stole that choice from me. You stole my body, my pregnancy, my grief—”
“I saved your life!”
“And it was mine to risk!” My voice shattered on the last word. “You should have told me. Even if it killed me, you should have let me choose.”
The courtyard echoed with my sobs.
He stepped closer again, slower this time.
“They’re safe,” he said softly. “Alive. Growing. Stronger every day. I would never harm them. And I would never keep them from you forever. I just… I couldn’t lose you.”
His hands found mine again.
This time I didn’t pull away.
My fingers were trembling too badly.
“Come,” he whispered.
I let him lead me.
Through corridors I barely saw. Into another wing of the estate I’d never entered. My heart pounded harder with every step, grief and hope tangling into something unbearable.
He lifted his hand and murmured a spell.
The air tore open.
A portal shimmered into existence.
I squeezed his hand so tightly I thought my bones might crack.
He guided me through.
The chamber beyond was vast. Dim. Humming with power.
And then I saw it.
Suspended midair.
A transparent sphere of glowing energy, pulsing softly like a second heartbeat in the room.
Inside—
Shapes.
Small.
Curled.
My breath hitched violently.
The world narrowed to that sight.
To the faint outlines of three tiny babies floating in luminous fluid.
My knees buckled.
“Is that them?” My voice was barely sound anymore. Just broken breath. “Is that… are those my babies?”
Tears streamed down my face in relentless waves, blurring the light into halos.
“Vuk,” I whispered, my voice splintering entirely. “Answer me.”
Because my heart already knew.
And it was breaking all over again.