Chapter 99 Even my baby hates me
Maureen Laskovic
My knees hit the floor before I even realized they were giving out.
The cold stone barely registered.
All I could see was the sphere.
All I could hear was the faint, rhythmic hum of the magic holding it together.
Three small forms floated inside the glowing liquid, curled in fragile stillness, their tiny limbs shifting just slightly as if dreaming.
My babies.
My chest tightened so violently it felt like my ribs might collapse inward.
Milk leaked again, soaking into the silk of my robe, warm against my skin.
My body knew them.
Even after everything.
Even after he had taken them from me.
My hands trembled as I pressed them against the glass-like surface of the sphere. Heat pulsed beneath my palms, alive and powerful.
“They’re real…” I whispered.
Behind me, Vuk said nothing.
Not a single word.
The silence stretched until it began to suffocate me.
Slowly, I turned to look at him.
He was watching me like a condemned man waiting for the blade to fall.
My tears didn’t stop, but something inside me shifted.
The grief didn’t vanish.
The love didn’t vanish.
But the anger sharpened.
“You know why I’m angry?” I asked quietly.
His jaw tightened.
“I know,” he said hoarsely.
“No,” I said, shaking my head slowly. “You don’t.”
I pushed myself to my feet. My legs felt weak, but the fury holding me upright was stronger.
“You think I’m angry because you saved my life.”
He didn’t answer.
“You think I’m angry because you removed them from my body.”
Still silence.
I laughed again — that same broken, hollow sound.
“That’s not it.”
I wiped my face with shaking fingers and stepped closer to him.
“What you did…” My voice wavered, then steadied. “It was a choice made out of love. A terrifying choice. One I might have made myself if the roles were reversed.”
His head lifted slightly, surprise flickering across his face.
“But that’s not what broke me, Vuk.”
My chest tightened.
“What broke me was waking up every day with a hole in my soul and thinking I was losing my mind.”
His expression crumpled.
“You stood there,” I continued, my voice rising despite myself. “You watched me question my own body. My own instincts. My own sanity.”
I pointed toward the sphere behind me.
“I felt them,” I said, my voice shaking. “Even when I didn’t understand it. I felt that something was missing.”
Tears spilled down my face again, but I didn’t stop speaking.
“And you told me it was nothing.”
The words echoed in the chamber.
“You let me believe my grief was an illusion.”
Vuk’s shoulders sagged.
“I was trying to protect you—”
“No,” I snapped.
The word cracked through the room.
“You were protecting yourself.”
He flinched like I had struck him.
“You were afraid that if you told me the truth, I might hate you for it.”
My throat burned.
“So instead, you lied. Every day. Every time I asked you what was wrong with me.”
I pressed a trembling hand to my chest.
“You made me doubt my own mind.”
Silence swallowed us again.
The sphere behind me pulsed softly, the glow washing the room in pale light.
Vuk finally spoke.
His voice was so quiet it almost disappeared into the low hum of the chamber.
“I’m sorry… but I was afraid.” He swallowed hard, his throat tightening. “If I told you the babies only had a fifty percent chance of living… I thought you would blame yourself. I thought you would carry that guilt forever.”
For a moment I just stared at him.
My heart twisted painfully in my chest.
“You don’t get to decide that for me,” I said.
The anger that had been burning through me began to drain, leaving behind something far heavier—exhaustion… heartbreak… a deep, hollow ache.
“That was my choice.”
I turned my head slowly, my gaze drifting back toward the glowing sphere.
Three small shapes floated inside the luminous fluid, their tiny bodies curled in fragile stillness.
“My body,” I whispered.
My throat tightened.
“My babies.”
The words shattered before they could fully leave my mouth.
Then I looked back at him.
“My trust.”
A tear slid silently down his cheek.
The sight should have softened something in me.
It didn’t.
My chest rose and fell sharply as another thought crashed into my mind.
“How many people knew about this?” I demanded.
His expression shifted—guilt flashing across his face.
“How many, Vuk?”
My voice rose.
“Livia?” I snapped.
He looked down.
“Eryz?”
Silence.
“Nyxara??”
My voice cracked into a shout.
“Tell me!”
“Yes,” he breathed.
The word fell into the room like a stone.
My stomach dropped.
“Yes,” he repeated hoarsely. “They knew.”
For a moment I couldn’t speak.
I turned away from him slowly, my gaze falling back on the sphere.
The soft glow illuminated the faint outlines of the three tiny bodies drifting inside.
Something about them was… different.
A faint movement.
My breath caught.
“They’re awake,” I said quietly.
Behind me, Vuk inhaled sharply.
“Yes,” he admitted.
I turned toward him again, disbelief flooding my veins.
“When?” I demanded.
His eyes flickered away.
“I found out yesterday.”
The words hit me like a slap.
My hands trembled.
“Yesterday?” I repeated slowly.
My voice rose again, sharp and incredulous.
“So when were you planning to tell me, Vuk?” I asked.
“Next week?”
“Next year?”
“Or were you just going to wait until they were grown and I was already dead?!”
“Maureen—”
“Enough.”
The single word cut him off.
I pointed toward the door.
“Leave.”
His face paled.
“Honey—”
“Leave,” I repeated, my voice cold enough to freeze the air between us.
For a moment he didn’t move.
Then, slowly… reluctantly… he obeyed.
He stepped backward, his eyes never leaving my face, as if hoping I might change my mind.
I didn’t.
The door closed behind him with a heavy metallic thud.
The silence that followed was suffocating.
My legs gave out almost instantly.
I collapsed onto the floor.
A sob tore out of my chest, raw and violent, echoing through the chamber.
Everything hurt.
My chest.
My head.
My heart.
I cried until the tears burned my eyes and my throat ached from the sound of it.
Eventually the sobbing slowed.
Then stopped.
The only sound left was the steady hum of the incubator.
I lifted my head slowly.
My babies floated quietly inside the glowing sphere.
Three small lives.
Three pieces of me.
I dragged myself closer, my movements unsteady, until I was kneeling directly in front of the sphere.
For a long time, I just watched them.
My breathing slowly steadied.
My fingers trembled as I reached forward.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered softly.
“I didn’t know…”
My hand pressed gently against the surface of the incubator.
The reaction was instant.
A violent surge of energy exploded from the sphere.
CRACK.
A sharp shock shot up my arm like lightning.
I gasped as my body jerked backward, pain ripping through my nerves.
The force threw me onto my back against the cold stone floor.
My arm burned, tingling painfully.
For a moment I just lay there, stunned.
Then anger flooded my chest.
A bitter laugh escaped my lips.
“Yeah,” I muttered hoarsely, staring up at the glowing sphere.
“Of course.”
I pushed myself up slowly, wiping the tears from my face with shaking hands.
“Now even my own babies hate me.”
The words echoed quietly through the chamber.
But my eyes never left them.
Not even for a second.