Page 56 of The Pakhan’s Hidden Heir

Ingrid rushes in with her sleeves shoved up, dropping onto the bed beside me and taking my face in both her hands.

She looks tired, like Bastian’s shouts tore her out of a dead sleep. “There now, there now, I’ve got you,” she says. “Breathe with me, love. In through your nose, that’s it going to be just fine.”

“It hurts, Ingrid.” I claw at her arm as another wave crests. “It’s too fast. Something’s wrong; it’s too⁠—”

“Nothing’s wrong. Your boy’s just impatient, same as his father.” She smooths my hair back off my sweaty forehead. “You breathe, and you let me worry about the rest.”

Bastian’s gone, though—vanished as soon as I need him.

I twist toward the empty doorway, looking for him, and panic climbs my throat because he left me. But before the contraction subsides and I can ask where he went, he’s back with Demid at his side.

“I’ve got you.” He works one arm behind my back and the other under my knees, then he lifts me like I weigh nothing at all. “Look at me, Raina. Keep your eyes on me. We’re getting you to Dr. Nikitin right now.”

“God, I’m scared,” I whimper, clinging to his shoulders as he carries me down through the house and out to the car.

“I know you are, but you’re going to be fine. Women do this every day, okay?”

Demid holds the doors as we move, and Bastian carries me all the way to the car, where he folds himself into the back seat after me and pulls me across his lap.

I get a brief respite from the pain as Demid climbs into the driver’s seat and starts the engine, but the next contraction is the worst one yet, making me scream.

“Breathe out,” Bastain says calmly, but I can feel the tension in his body now too. “Three short pants and one long breath out, right? You’ve got this.”

The cold man from the nursery is nowhere to be found. My Bastian is back now, cradling me and pressing his fist into the sore spot in my back, coaching me with every contraction that passes, and, when I think I’m about to give up, he reminds me how strong I am.

“Almost there,” he tells me as the streets blur past the window. “Two more minutes. Stay with me. You’re doing so well, Raina.” Who is he and where did this man come from? Because I want to keep him forever.

The clinic door is propped open when we pull up, and Dr. Nikitin stands on the sidewalk with a wheelchair and two nurses. Bastian carries me straight to them and sets me into the chair.

“Everything’s moving quickly, is it?” Dr. Nikitin guides the chair through the doors, and his people fall in around us. It tears my hand out of Bastian’s, but I sense him following. “I’ll ask you to wait in the waiting room, Mr. Dravenko.”

My chest clenches when I hear that, but another contraction hits me and all I can do is scream and breathe. There is so much pressure in my groin I might split in two.

“I’m not leaving her.” Bastian shakes his head, moving in front of the doctor, but Dr. Nikitin nudges him aside.

“This is the way things go. Now go sit down and wait like you’re told.” I’ve never heard the doctor talk to Bastian that way, but I don’t get a choice either.

“Please,” I whimper, but the chair keeps moving and the nurses and Dr. Nikitin crowd around me.

This is really happening now. I’m having the baby and I can’t even have Bastian at my side while I do it. I wasn’t prepared for this, and I wish my grandmother were here—or Lada. God I wish Lada was here.

21

BASTIAN

I pace the waiting room from one wall to the other, listening to the muffled voices in the next room.

Every time Raina screams or cries my heart gets a jumpstart, like an electrical charge that shocks me into reality again and again.

It’s painful, and I’m chewing my nails just trying to keep myself from storming in there.

Demid sits in the corner chair with his elbows on his knees, watching me wear a path into the carpet. He’s offered me coffee twice and a cigarette a few times.

I keep waving him away, too anxious to sit still or take a break from this panicked vigil I’m keeping. Raina needs me; I can sense it in my gut, and the last thing I want is for her to call for me and I can’t come because I’m distracted.

The thought of her voice reaching out in that moment keeps me rooted in this endless movement, my body refusing any rest while she endures this.

Only once in my nearly forty-one years of living have I ever felt this fear, this cold and disarming. I feel it again now, for two more people.