Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
Ilya
Standing by the open door to my son's room, I watched him without blinking. The doctors had been here when we had arrived, one for each of them. The one assigned to Alec had given him the all-clear pretty quickly. My son was traumatized, dehydrated, and had lost some weight, but all in all, he wasn’t physically hurt.
Mentally still remained to be seen. The doctor had given him a shot so he could sleep and promised to come back in the morning before he had left.
The doctor with Daisy was still in there, and that worried me. Hell, her passing out in my arms had caused such panic to rise up in my chest that I had almost thrown up.
I would take her shouting and screaming at me over that. Hell, even running away from me was better.
An hour went past. So slowly that it felt like a year, and I remained leaning against my son's open door. My eyes glued to him, but my ears trained for any sound behind me.
Finally, I heard it. The soft click of a bedroom door opening and closing behind me.
"Mr. Popovitch?"
I turned, closing the distance between us, and my heart lurched at the look on his lined face.
"Is she—" my voice cracked and then broke altogether.
A look of sympathy passed through his eyes. "Miss Daisy is fine. She’s severely malnourished and dehydrated, and that’s what caused her to pass out. It looks to me like she hasn’t eaten or drunk anything in several days."
Of course she hadn’t. I knew Daisy. She would have given it all to Alec.
"She’s going to be okay?" I whispered. And for the first time in my life, I let my real emotions show. "And the baby?"
“The baby’s heartbeat is still strong, but it’s early days, Mr. Popovitch, and Daisy has been through a great deal.
She will need plenty of care, quiet rest, and close monitoring if her body is going to carry this baby to term.
” His gaze swept over me. Not in a hostile way, but in the kind of way that told me he meant business.
"I’ll keep that in mind." This time when I spoke, my voice was more like its old self. Not because I hadn't realized that the two most important people in my life were going to be okay, but because I couldn’t allow the weakness to keep showing.
It just wasn’t natural for me to show how I was feeling.
"Thank you, Doctor." Holding out my hand, he shook it for a second before heading towards the elevator.
"Oh." Lashing out, I stopped the metal doors from closing in on him. "Is she up for visitors?"
He eyed me coolly. "This is your house, Mr. Popovitch," he reminded me. "It’s not my place to tell you which rooms you can enter." Lined eyes behind round glasses narrowed. "But."
I waited for him to continue.
"I stand by what I said. She is in a very weakened state. She may be able to talk for a little while, but," he cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable, "any physical visits are totally off limits. Miss Daisy is to rest and heal."
I stared at him in shock, completely taken aback that he would think I wanted to fuck her at a time like this. Nodding my head curtly, I stepped back and let the doors slide shut. "Completely understandable. Talking only. Good night."
I hesitated then, not because I didn’t know what to do, but because I did, and it terrified me. Taking in a deep, shuddering breath, I padded silently through the quiet apartment and pushed open my bedroom door, just an inch. Just enough to see her sleeping form.
Daisy was curled up in bed on her side. Her eyes shut with sleep, but her face kept twisting, almost like she was reliving all the trauma in her dreams.
I didn’t want that for her. Her dreams were meant to be safe spaces. Not the place of nightmares.
As quietly as I could, I went to her, pulling up a chair so I could sink into it. Under the light of the lamps and being this close to her, I could see just how thin she had become.
Her eye sockets looked hollow, the smudges under them so dark it looked like she had been punched in the face, but I knew it was from lack of sleep.
Had she slept even one hour, or had she been guarding our child?
My eyes darted down her body.
Not our child. Our children.
Reaching out, I stroked my thumb down her cheek. As gently as I could because I didn’t want to wake her. She needed to sleep, to rest, and then eat so she could regain her strength.
I knew I should leave the room and just let her sleep, but I couldn’t stand the idea of leaving her, especially when she was clearly having a bad dream.
Instead, I settled back in the chair and took her hand gently in my hand. My thumb swiping back and forth over her skin. Her cold skin. It wasn’t cold in the apartment, but her skin was clammy after her ordeal.
"You’re so—" I began to say. You’re so beautiful was what I was going to say, and that was the absolute truth.
Even broken like she was, she was still the most stunning creature in existence.
Maybe it was because she was so broken that I found her so exquisite.
Because she was a fighter. It didn’t matter what life threw at her, she survived.
My brave, strong, gorgeous woman.
Her scream cut off my words and my thoughts. Shocking me backwards into the chair, it was so loud and terrified.
"Alec!" She screamed our son's name so loudly I flinched away. Yanking her hand away from mine, she sat bolt upright in the bed. Her eyes as round as saucers and wild as she looked around sightlessly, thrashing her arms left and right like she was fighting some unseen force.
I was off the chair and pulling her into my arms in an instant. "Shh, it’s okay." I wrapped my arms around her frail body. Holding her to my chest and rocking her back and forth like I did Alec when he had a nightmare.
"Get off me, get off me!" she screamed so loudly that I was sure she burst my eardrum. "You won’t hurt him. I won’t let you." She clawed at my arm with her ragged nails, leaving deep red scratches down my forearms. I didn’t feel the pain, and I didn’t loosen my grip on her either.
She was still asleep, I realized in a rush. At the very least, she was locked between her nightmares and reality. In her head right now, I was the enemy, and I was threatening her boy.
Even delirious after days of captivity, she was trying to protect him.
Because that’s what mothers did. And Daisy was a mother.
"It’s okay. Daisy, it’s okay." I tightened my grip on her but was careful not to crush her thin frame. "Baby, it’s me. It’s Ilya."
Maybe it was the wrong thing to say because she just struggled even more.
"It’s your Ilya. Come back to me." I roared.
Her eyes were open, but she wasn’t seeing anything around her. I didn’t even want to know what memory she was fighting against or what kind of torture they had put her through.
One day I would listen to her story, but tonight I just needed her to come back to me.
Cupping her tear-stained cheeks in my hands, I did the only thing I could think of. The only thing that might bring her back to me.
I kissed her.
Sliding my lips over her chapped ones over and over again until finally she relaxed. It happened slowly, until she finally sagged in my arms, and it was only the fact she was propped up against my chest that kept her upright at all.
"Ilya?" she croaked in a broken whisper. Her lips barely moved against my shirt. She sounded like she was still in a dream, but at least she wasn’t screaming and fighting anymore. "Ilya, is that you?"
Leaning my head against hers, I smiled. "Yeah, baby, it’s me. Just Ilya. I’ve got you. You’re safe, I promise." God, I hoped that was a promise I could keep because I could feel her heartbeat pounding away against her ribs, and it was beating too fast.
Fast enough to have a heart attack.
She sucked in a wet breath. "Alec—"
Smoothing back her tangled hair, I forced her to look at me with those red, bloodshot eyes that were still the prettiest eyes I had ever seen. "He’s fine," I swore. "Asleep just down the hallway."
She stared up at me, uncomprehending.
Sighing, I kissed her forehead. "You’re home, Daisy, and Alec is sleeping in his room just down the hall."
She was relaxing, but her eyes were still wild and her heart was still thundering. "I need," she cleared her throat. "I need to see him."
"Daisy," I sighed.
Tear-filled eyes met mine, and I knew it was useless to argue with her. She wasn’t going to relax or rest until she had seen for herself that our child was fine.
With a sigh, I pulled the blankets from her, bending to pick her up, and she swatted my hands away.
"I can walk," she snapped, but there was no real fight in her voice. She was too weak for that.
"Okay." I wasn’t going to argue with her about this. Looping my arm around her waist, I helped her out of the bed, and together we shuffled towards Alec’s room.
From the doorway, she stared at him in much the same way as I had for the last few hours. Like she couldn’t believe he was real.
Or that this nightmare was finally over.
"Is he really okay?"
"Yes," I whispered, acutely aware that she was trembling with the effort it was taking to stay upright against me.
"He is fine. Just sleeping. You did such a good job of protecting him and our unborn baby as well. You were so brave, Daisy, and I’ll be forever in your debt for that."
"I—" she twisted her body so she could look up at me, and I could tell by the sheer concentration on her face that she was about to go down again.
I swung her into my arms.
"Ilya." She opened her mouth to argue.
"No." This time my voice was firm. "No arguments, Daisy. This time you let me look after you."
She didn’t say a word until I had her back in my giant bed, and had pulled the covers back over her shivering frame.
"Okay," she finally said. For a second her eyes closed; she didn’t open them again, and I thought she might have fallen back to sleep, so I settled back in my chair and took her hand in mine.
My thumb playing over her fingers. Bare from any jewelry at all.
Not that she needed flashy things to make her beautiful. She did that just by being herself.