Chapter 343 343. Olena - Surprise 3

Chapter 343 343. Olena - Surprise 3
I press a palm to my son’s cheek, and he wraps his fingers around my wrist, leaning into my touch. “Maybe because I’m so very happy.”
Ivan pulls me into a tight hug and presses a kiss to my temple. “Good. Because you deserve all the happiness in the world.” He also warns Artemiy and Vasiliy, “If you make my mother cry, hurt her in any way, I will personally hunt you down and skin you alive. And that is not a threat. It’s a promise.”
“We would never do anything to hurt our bonded,” Artemiy reassures my son.
“Bonded?” Ivan asks, pulling away from me.
“I am a Lord,” Artemiy lets everyone know. Pointing with his thumb at his cousin, he adds, “He is also a Lord. Well, sort of. He just got his demon in the craziest way possible.” Everyone raises their eyebrows at that. “From a fucking demon tree.”
Andrey blinks. “A what?”
“Oh, everyone needs to hear this,” Artemiy muses.
Vasiliy growls, but Artemiy dismisses him with a flick of his wrist, and while we return to the table, he tells everyone about the maze, but thankfully, he leaves the part about Yuily out.
Everyone is quite taken aback by how Vasiliy got his demon, and more than one insists that he needs to go to the Blood Lodge to see if any of the demons there waiting for a vessel recognize Mahith and what they have to say about him. Vasiliy reluctantly agrees, but not before insisting that there’s no reason to worry about Mahith because he’s on our side.
The rest of the dinner proceeds without any more problems—except for Zana asking what happened to Artemiy and us coming up with an excuse for why his nose is broken—but I still feel nauseated from the lingering garlic smell. I mention several times that he needs to go to the ER, but Artemiy refuses, claiming his demon will take care of it and that by morning, he will be a lot better. When he doesn’t budge, I decide to drop the matter and just enjoy the rest of the evening.
Both Vasiliy and Artemiy drink, and we decide to call a cab, but Theodore insists we spend the night over. Eventually, we agree.
Even though almost everyone is in bed, Ivan finds me sitting on a porch swing, a blanket wrapped around me, watching the stars. He quietly sits beside me, and for a while, we just look up at the sky, which is slowly being covered by clouds. And then it happens—snowflakes start dancing in the air, slowly floating to the ground.
Ivan places his head on my lap, and I drape a part of the blanket over him, just like when he was little, as we watch the first snow.
For a while, no one says anything. Words aren’t always necessary, but eventually, he wonders, “Are you truly happy?”
“I am,” I reply without hesitation.
He’s silent one more time, and some minutes later, he adds, “No matter how hard I try, I can’t stop worrying about you. I’m afraid they are taking advantage of you somehow, that they pressured you into being with them.”
“That’s not the case at all,” I tell him. “Artemiy and Vasiliy have been nothing but kind and very patient with me. I am with them only because I love them.”
“Do they know?” he inquires.
I know exactly what he’s referring to. “They do. I was hesitant to tell them at first, not wanting them to see me as something broken, but it didn’t take long to realize that all of us were broken, each one in different ways. We helped each other heal, the love between us stronger than whatever has happened to us in the past.”
“It is the same for Isla and me.” He sits up straight. “Not quite. I broke her, time and time again, and she still chose to forgive me, healing something fundamentally wrong with me. I don’t deserve her, nor my blood-brothers, and I’m grateful for every moment I get to be with them. And I am also happy you have found the men meant for you. They don’t know how lucky they are to have you as their bonded.”
I am the lucky one, but I don’t say that out loud because I know Ivan will disagree with me.
“They are going to ask me to marry them soon,” I let him know.
He lets out a heavy breath. “And what is your answer going to be?”
A smile touches my lips. “I’ll probably say yes.”
“You should say no,” he huffs.
I laugh softly at that. “You really don’t like the idea of me being in a relationship.”
“I don’t like having to share you,” he grumbles.
“That is absurd,” I huff. “And by the same logic, I am sharing you with many people.”
“It’s not the same,” he quickly protests. “They are temporary. I am not. No matter what happens, I will always be your son.”
“They are not temporary,” I correct him. “They are the fathers of my baby.”
At that, Ivan says, “I still can’t believe you’re pregnant and that I’m finally going to have a sibling. All my life, I wanted one.”
Him telling me that makes me feel guilty because I was never able to give him the family he deserved. The reason why he was lost, why he hurt Isla, is because of me, because I didn’t protect him as I should have. 
“After I had you, I was never able to conceive,” I admit. 
Not that I would have ever wanted a child with any of the men from my past, but having another baby would have been nice. Looking back, it is good that it never happened, given all that I had to endure. Not to mention that I spent many years in prison, and while it was better than being locked in the apartment, it was still a hard life, with the guards treating me horribly because they were convinced I was a criminal. And I never told them the truth, because that was my burden to carry, not theirs. Besides, I doubt they would have believed me. After all, many prisoners lied daily. I would have just been one more. So, I kept my mouth closed, took my punishment, and kept enduring, because I was convinced that one day, I would be reunited with Ivan.
I keep talking, “I never thought this would happen to me ever again, and having you was enough. It still is. But I’m also excited about the future, about the little family I’m creating with the men I love.”
“You’ve changed, you know,” he murmurs.
A crease appears between my brows. “How?”
“You are more confident now. No longer leaning on me for strength because you have already found your own.”
“It’s all due to Vasiliy and Artemiy.”
Silence follows for several seconds as we keep watching the snowflakes fall, a white blanket starting to cover the garden as, little by little, it begins to snow heavier.
“We should head inside,” my son says.
“Yeah,” I agree.
Once inside, he says, “They are good men. But you should still say no when they ask you to marry them.”