Chapter 60 For the love of gods
Vuk Laskovic:
The door to the study closed behind me with a soft, final thud.
I didn’t remember walking here.
One moment I was in our bedchamber, holding Maureen like she might dissolve if I let go; the next I was here—alone—in the room no one else entered unless summoned. The fire had burned low in the grate, casting long, restless shadows across the bookshelves, the maps pinned to the walls, the desk still scattered with reports from the council I hadn’t touched in days.
I crossed to the sideboard. Poured whiskey into a heavy crystal glass—two fingers, then three, then four. The amber liquid caught the dying firelight and looked like molten gold. I didn’t sit. Just stood there, glass in one hand, the other braced on the edge of the desk as if the wood could keep me upright.
I pulled a thin black cigarette from the silver case on the desk. Lit it with a flick of my thumb—hellfire blooming small and obedient between my fingers. The first drag burned my throat, sharp and familiar. Smoke curled upward, lazy, indifferent.
I exhaled slowly.
The room smelled of old leather, aged tobacco, and the faint metallic bite of my own blood from where I’d bitten the inside of my cheek earlier without noticing.
I took a swallow of whiskey. It went down like liquid fire—fitting. Then another. The glass trembled once in my hand. I set it down before it could spill.
Silence pressed in.
No servants. No guards. No physicians begging for mercy. Just me. And the weight.
I stared at the map on the wall—the Northern Dominion spread out in cold ink and gold leaf. Kingdoms I’d conquered. Borders I’d redrawn in blood. Thrones I’d claimed because I could. Because power was the only language I’d ever truly understood.
Until her.
Until moonlight on black ice. Until quiet laughter in the dark. Until the way she looked at me like I wasn’t a monster—just Vuk.
My chest ached.
Not the sharp burn of hellfire. Something duller. Deeper. Like a blade lodged between ribs, twisting every time I breathed.
I took another drag. The smoke stung my eyes.
I thought of the tiny heartbeat I’d felt against my lips when I kissed her stomach. That fragile, defiant rhythm. Ours. A miracle no one in my bloodline had managed in centuries. A child. My child.
And I had just ordered it taken away.
The glass cracked in my grip.
Whiskey spilled over my knuckles, mixing with the blood from the cuts. I didn’t feel it.
I set the broken pieces down. Watched the amber pool spread across the desk like a wound.
My knees buckled.
I caught the edge of the desk, then slid to the floor—back against the wood, legs stretched out in front of me like a stranger’s. The cigarette fell from my fingers. I didn’t pick it up. It smoldered against the rug, forgotten.
The first tear came hot and sudden. I swiped at it like it was an insult.
Then another.
Then I couldn’t stop.
They fell silent at first—tracking down my face, dripping onto the collar of my shirt. Then the sobs came—low, guttural, ripping out of me like I was being torn open from the inside.
I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes. Hard. As if I could force the tears back in. As if I could force everything back.
“I’m sorry,” I choked out—to the empty room, to the child that would never know my voice, to Maureen who would wake to a body that no longer carried our future. “Gods, I’m so fucking sorry.”
My shoulders shook. My breath came in ragged, ugly gasps.
I hated it.
Hated the weakness. Hated the grief. Hated the fire in my blood that had made this possible and impossible at the same time.
I hated myself.
Most of all.
I hated the man who had burned worlds and never flinched. The man who had killed without remorse. The man who had finally found something worth more than power—and had to destroy it to keep her alive.
“Fuck,” I whispered.
Then louder.
“Fuck!”
The word tore out of me—raw, broken. I slammed my fist into the floor. Once. Twice. Stone cracked under my knuckles. Blood smeared the rug.
I curled forward, forehead to my knees, arms wrapped around my head like I could hold myself together.
“I would have given anything,” I rasped into the dark. “Anything. The crown. The Dominion. My fucking soul if it meant you could live. Both of you.”
But there was no one to hear it.
Just the dying fire. The dying cigarette. The dying part of me that had dared to hope.
I cried like I hadn’t since the day I was made—great, wrenching sobs that hurt my throat, my chest, my everything. A grown man on the floor of his own study, weeping for a future that had lasted only long enough to break him.
Eventually the sobs slowed.
The tears kept coming—silent now, unstoppable.
I stayed there.
Curled on the cold stone.
Alone.
Because that was what I had always been.
Until her.
And I would be again—if she didn’t wake up.
If she hated me for the choice I’d made.
If she looked at me and saw only the monster who had taken our child to save her life.
I didn’t move.
I just breathed.
In.
Out.
Waiting for the dawn.
Waiting for her to open her eyes.
Waiting to find out if love had been enough—or if it had only been another thing I’d burned to ash.
I didn’t know when sleep took me.
One moment I was on the floor, back against the desk, tears drying to salt on my face, whiskey pooling sticky on the rug. The next, gray light was slicing through the curtains again, colder than before. My body ached like I’d been beaten, but my mind was clear. Razor-sharp.
One month.
I would give us one month.
I rose. Ignored the cracked glass, the blood on my knuckles, the cigarette stub long burned to ash. I straightened my shirt, ran a hand through my hair, and walked out like the night hadn’t happened.
The young doctor was waiting in the antechamber—still there, still pale, still trembling. He’d not dared leave. When he saw me, he dropped to one knee so fast his forehead cracked against the stone.
“My lord—”
“Stand,” I said.
He rose slowly.
I looked down at him. No hellfire this time. Just quiet certainty.
“One month,” I told him. “You will prepare everything you need for the procedure. But you will not touch her. Not yet. I am giving us one month. I am a demigod. Alpha of devils. Lucifer’s blood runs in my veins, Selena’s starlight in my bones. If any power in this frozen world can sustain her and the child, it is mine. I will warm her. I will keep the fire balanced. And the child will live.”
The doctor’s eyes widened. Not with hope exactly—more like the awe of someone staring into an open furnace and realizing it might not burn them after all.
“My lord… everything is possible with your power,” he whispered. “The hellfire could… it could temper the divine strain. Slow the drain. For a time.”
I nodded once.
“But this stays between us,” I continued, voice dropping to the register that made men forget how to breathe. “The court. The council. The whispers in the halls. If one rumor reaches the nobles that the queen carries my heir—and that it might kill her—I will burn this palace to cinders with everyone still inside it. You understand?”
He swallowed. Nodded frantically.
“Yes, my lord. No one will hear it from me. Or from any who still draw breath in this wing.”
“Good.”
I turned. Left him there on his knees.
Back in the bedchamber, the air was thick with the scent of herbs and dying fire. Livia stood by the bed, holding a basin of steaming water and a folded towel. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but she didn’t speak—just offered the towel when I approached.
I took it from her.
“I’ll clean her myself,” I said.
Livia bowed and retreated without a word.
Maureen lay still, breathing shallow but even. The cold had eased slightly from the night before—my fire had done that much—but her skin was still too pale, her lips cracked. I knelt beside the copper tub the servants had already filled with hot water scented with pine and rosemary. I tested it with my hand; the heat was perfect. Not scalding. Just enough to chase the frost from her bones without shocking her.
I lifted her carefully—arms under her knees and shoulders, like she was made of glass—and carried her to the tub. She stirred faintly at the movement, a small sound escaping her lips, but her eyes stayed closed.
I lowered her into the water inch by inch.
She sighed—a soft, unconscious sound of relief—as the warmth seeped in. I kept one arm behind her neck so her head rested against my shoulder, the other hand cupping water over her shoulders, her arms, her chest. I washed her slowly. Reverently. Washing away the sweat of fever, the traces of tears, the invisible weight of what she carried.
Her hair clung wet to her neck. I smoothed it back, fingers lingering at her temple.
When the water began to cool, I lifted her out again. Wrapped her in thick towels warmed by the hearth. Dried her with careful strokes. Dressed her in soft linen and settled her back under the furs with Gold curled protectively at her feet.
Then I climbed in beside her.
I pulled her against my chest. Palm flat over her abdomen. Felt the tiny, defiant heartbeat again—stronger now, as if it knew I was listening.
“I will find a way,” I whispered into her hair. “To save you both. I swear it on every flame I’ve ever carried. On the blood that made me. On the love you forced into this dead heart of mine. One month. Give me one month, little moon. And I will rewrite fate itself if I have to.”
I kissed her forehead. Long. Lingering.
Then I kissed her mouth—soft, slow, tasting salt and warmth.
Then lower. To her stomach.
I rested my lips there, over the place where our child grew.
“I’m here,” I murmured against her skin. “Both of you. I’m here.”
The hellfire in my veins answered—slow, steady, flowing into her like a promise.
One month.
I would make it enough.