Page 155 of Vow to Claim You

Kirill arrives like a force of nature. He’s been the Vold family doctor for years. He’s stitched me back together more times than I can count. And now he’s going to save my wife. There is no alternative.

“Out,” he says. “Everyone out. Except—” His eyes find my blood-soaked hands, still pressed to her wound. “You. Keep pressure until I tell you otherwise.”

The room empties. Naomi, crying. Ingrid, grim. Eero, looking at me like he’s never quite seen me before.

The door closes, and Kirill goes to work.

The next hour exists in fragments. His hands, steady and sure, cutting away her dress. Instruments out of the bag. IV lines. Monitors beeping a rhythm I learn to hate. My hands, still pressed where he tells me to press, covered in blood that’s drying on my skin.

Her face is still and pale and peaceful in a way that terrifies me—because peace is what comes after. Peace is what waits on the other side. And she is not allowed to go there. Not yet.

Not without me.

“Pulse is stabilizing.” Kirill snaps me out of my thoughts an eternity later.

“The bullet?” I glance at him.

“Extracted. No major organ damage. The wound itself won’t kill her. She’s strong. She’ll heal.”

I let out a breath of relief, but then I see Kirill’s face. I see he isn’t finished, and there’s something in his face I haven’t seen before.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

His hands go still, and he looks at the monitor instead of at me.

“When did your wife last bleed? Her cycle.”

The question makes no sense. “Why?”

“Aric.”

“Why, Kirill?”

He exhales. “I ran routine bloodwork while we were stabilizing her.” He finally looks at me. “It showed elevated β-hCG.”

He watches me for a beat. My expression doesn’t change.

“Your wife is pregnant. Based on the hormone levels, I’d estimate she’s around eight weeks.”

The world stops.

Pregnant.

For one suspended second, it’s the only word in the room. Eight weeks. A child. Hers. Mine. Ours.

And something—terror and wonder, hope and joy braided so tight I can’t pull them apart—moves through me. A flash of a future I never once let myself picture, because men like me don’t get those. A small dark-haired thing with her chin and her temper. A reason. Something to protect… a gift.

Eight weeks. The contract I signed without reading demanded exactly this—an heir, conceived and delivered inside a year, or her life forfeit. I tore that clause out with my own hands. Burned every copy. Swore no child of ours would ever be a blade held to her throat. And somewhere in these eight weeks, the thing that began as a death sentence had quietly become the one thing in this world I would have laid down my life to⁠—

I look at Kirill, and it all goes out of me at once. Because he isn’t looking at me like a man who’s just delivered good news. He’s looking at me the way he looks at the dying. His hands are still, eyes hollow. He hasn’t said the word congratulations, and judging by the look on his face, he isn’t going to.

My eyes drop. To the bandage. To the gauze taped over the right side of her abdomen, where the bullet went in. Where the blood came out.

I know before he says it.

“No.” My voice is barely a sound. “No.”

My head drops, and I cup it in my hands.