Chapter 72 It's all coming back to me
Maureen Laskovic
My palm settled over the full, warm curve of my belly again, instinctive, reverent.
The little kicks answered immediately, small but fierce, like tiny flames dancing under my skin.
A soft laugh bubbled out of me before I could stop it.
Vuk’s head rested heavy against my thigh, his white-gold hair spilling across the black silk like spilled moonlight.
He hadn’t moved in what felt like hours — just breathing me in, murmuring the same broken litany over and over.
“I miss you… I miss you so much, little moon…”
I threaded my fingers through his hair, stroking slowly, the way I knew soothed the beast inside him.
“That’s the hundred and fiftieth time,” I teased gently, voice thick with affection. “I’m literally right here, Vuk. Feel me. I’m not going anywhere.”
He lifted his head at last.
His eyes were molten silver, shimmering with unshed tears that caught the low torchlight like stars drowning.
For one perfect heartbeat he looked at me the way he had that first night on the throne-room floor — wrecked, utterly mine.
Then the tears spilled.
They tracked down his scarred cheeks in slow, silent rivers, and something inside my chest twisted so hard I almost couldn’t breathe.
I cupped his face with both hands, thumbs brushing the wet trails away.
“What is it?” I whispered, voice cracking despite myself. “Why are you crying like that? Tell me.”
He leaned into my touch like a man starving for it, eyes fluttering closed for a second.
“You have to wake up, my love,” he said, so softly it barely carried. “Come back to me… please… come back…”
The words hit like ice water in my veins.
I blinked.
The room flickered — just once, like a candle flame caught in a sudden draft.
When my vision cleared, he was smiling again.
That soft, crooked, adoring smile that always made my heart stutter.
No tears. No desperation. Just love. Pure, uncomplicated love.
But something was wrong.
His smile stayed fixed a fraction too long.
The gold in his eyes didn’t quite reach the edges — it flickered, dimmed, flared again like a faulty lantern.
My thumbs froze against his cheekbones.
“Vuk…?”
He blinked once. Slowly. Too slowly.
“I miss you,” he said again — same tone, same timbre, but flatter now. Like an echo of the words rather than the feeling behind them.
My throat tightened.
“I’m here,” I insisted, louder this time, pressing his palm harder against my belly so he could feel the kicks. “Feel that? That’s us. That’s real. Stop saying you miss me when I’m right in front of you.”
For a heartbeat his hand was scorching — the familiar wildfire heat that always made me melt.
Then it turned cold. Bone-deep, graveyard cold.
Then scorching again.
The shift was so fast my stomach lurched.
He smiled wider — too wide — lips stretching in a way that showed just a hint of fang.
“Come back to me,” he repeated, voice layering now: his low growl underneath something thinner, more distant, like he was shouting from the other side of a wall I couldn’t see.
Panic bloomed sharp and bright behind my ribs.
“No,” I breathed, shaking my head. “No, that’s not— Stop it. Stop glitching.”
I leaned down and kissed him — hard, desperate, trying to anchor him with my mouth, with my breath, with everything I had.
His lips were soft at first. Warm. Tasted like pine and hellfire and home.
Then they tasted like salt.
Like tears.
Like blood.
I jerked back.
His face was still smiling — serene, perfect — but a single tear slipped from the corner of his eye and traced down his cheek again.
Except this time it didn’t stop at his jaw.
It kept falling, impossibly slow, like it was made of mercury.
When it hit the silk sheet, it spread into a dark, wet stain that smelled faintly of iron and smoke.
My hands started to shake.
“Vuk… please…”
He reached up — slow, careful — and brushed a strand of hair from my face with the same tenderness he’d used a thousand times before.
But his fingers trembled.
Just once.
A tiny, involuntary tremor that the Vuk would never allow.
Because the real Vuk — the one who carried me through fortresses and knelt for me and begged gods he hated — never trembled unless something was tearing him apart.
My breath hitched, sharp and painful, like a blade slipping between my ribs.
The kicks in my belly stuttered — once, twice — then went still.
Too still.
Far too still.
I pressed both hands there, frantic now, fingers digging into the soft curve as if I could force life back into it.
“No… no, no, no — don’t you dare stop. Don’t you leave me too—”
My voice broke on the last word, turning into a choked sob.
Panic clawed up my throat, hot and suffocating.
This couldn’t be happening. Not to us. Not after everything we’d fought for.
The room dimmed at the edges, shadows creeping in like thieves.
The jasmine scent thinned, fading to nothing but cold, empty air.
“What’s happening…?” I whispered, my voice trembling as I looked around the room.
My heart sank deep into my stomach, a heavy weight pulling me down.
Heat and pain flooded my chest — burning, aching, like my soul was being ripped in two.
The walls felt alive, pulsing with wrongness, and the air grew thick, pressing on me until it hurt to breathe.
A voice sliced through the silence — soft but urgent, not quite Vuk’s, yet familiar enough to send chills down my spine.
“Listen to me, Maureen. You’re in a dream…”
“What??” I gasped, whipping my head around, eyes wide with terror.
My heart hammered so hard I thought it might burst.
“No… that can’t be right. This is my life. Our life. It’s real!”
Denial surged through me, hot and desperate.
How could this be a dream?
The warmth of his touch, the kicks of our baby, the safety we’d built — it was all I had left after the pain, the betrayal, the chains.
If this wasn’t real, what was?
“I need you to wake up… look for a door…”
“Vuk? Is that you???” I pleaded, my voice cracking with raw hope.
Tears stung my eyes, blurring the empty room.
No response. Just echoing silence that mocked me.
“Who is this? Who’s messing with me?!”
Anger mixed with the fear now, boiling up like venom.
Someone was toying with my heart, twisting the knife deeper into wounds that had barely healed.
“Run, baby… you have to find the door. Okay, baby? You have to wake up…”
The voice faded, dissolving into whispers that lingered like ghosts.
I looked around the room — our room, the sanctuary where we’d shared whispers and promises under moonlight — and gasped, a sound torn from the depths of my soul.
It was empty. Dark. Nothing remained.
The bed vanished.
The walls stripped bare.
Shadows swallowed everything we’d built.
I looked down.
My belly bump was gone.
Flat. Empty. No curve. No life pulsing beneath my skin.
“What is this??” I screamed, hands clawing desperately at my stomach, nails digging in as if I could summon it back.
Panic exploded inside me — wild, all-consuming.
“My baby! Where’s my baby?!”
Sobs wracked my body, shaking me to my core.
It felt like a piece of me had been ripped away, leaving a gaping hole that bled endless grief.
Our child — the symbol of our love, our future — gone.
Just like my family.
Just like everything good I’d ever touched.
Tears poured down my face, hot and unrelenting, mixing with the cold sweat of terror.
I was hollow. Broken. Lost without that warmth, that promise of something pure amid all the darkness.
A sudden change hit — wind howling from nowhere, cold rain lashing my skin like whips from the past.
Thunder roared, shaking the ground like the fortress crumbling around my heart.
I ran.
Blindly. Desperately. Into the void ahead.
Plain, endless darkness.
No paths. No light.
Just black stretching on forever, swallowing my screams.
My feet pounded against uneven ground — sharp stones cutting into my soles, but I didn’t stop.
My breath came in ragged gasps, lungs burning with every inhale.
Tears streamed, blinding me further, but I wiped them away furiously.
I had to keep going.
For the baby that wasn’t there.
For Vuk.
For the life that had slipped through my fingers like sand.
Something was behind me now.
I felt it deep in my bones — a presence, dark and relentless, chasing me.
Hungry.
Its breath hot on my neck, claws whispering against the air.
Fear gripped my heart tighter, squeezing until I could barely think.
What was it?
The past?
The pain?
The emptiness I’d tried so hard to escape?
Faster.
I pushed harder, legs aching, muscles screaming in protest.
My foot caught on nothing — just the uneven dark — and I fell hard.
Knees slammed into the ground, pain exploding up my thighs.
I screamed loud, the sound raw and primal, echoing into the void like a plea to forgotten gods.
“Vuk!!! Vuk!!!”
No response.
Just the endless black mocking me, amplifying my loneliness.
The chase didn’t stop.
I scrambled up, hands bloody and trembling, and ran again.
Kept running.
Sweat mixed with tears, soaking my skin.
My chest heaved with sobs I couldn’t hold back — deep, wrenching cries that tore from my soul.
Why was this happening?
Why was everything always taken from me?
The thing got closer.
I heard it now — heavy, ragged breaths syncing with mine, claws scraping louder.
Wind whipped colder, carrying whispers of loss and regret.
It grabbed me.
Cold tendrils wrapped around my ankle, yanking hard.
I slammed down again, dragged backward across the rough ground.
Skin tore.
Pain flared bright and hot.
“Let go! Let me go!”
I kicked wildly, screamed until my throat burned raw.
But I saw nothing.
Just black.
Infinite, suffocating black.
It pulled stronger.
I slid faster, nails scraping uselessly at the ground.
Hope drained away like blood from a wound — slow at first, then all at once.
I was going to die here.
Alone in the dark.
Without him.
Without our child.
Without the family I’d lost long ago.
I cried harder, body convulsing with sobs.
“Please… no… where am I? Where am I??”
The darkness pressed in, no up, no down, no escape.
I was utterly lost, drowning in grief and terror.
Every memory flashed — Silas’s betrayal, the auction’s humiliation, Vuk’s fierce love — all crumbling to nothing in this void.