Only Him

Chapter 23

"...bespokoyus' o tebe," said the voice quietly. It took a minute for me to realize the words were in Russian. It took a few moments more for me to realize I knew what they meant.

Worried about you.

I wanted to respond but I couldn't get my body to move. My mind was as sluggish with my actions as they were with my earlier translation but I was alert enough to recognize Dimitri's voice. He was still talking, his voice quiet, almost a whisper as he carried on his one sided conversation.

"...tak napugan." So scared.

He didn't have to worry, I wanted to tell him. I was okay now, everything would be okay. I wasn't sure exactly how I was okay though. In those last moments when I'd been in the Strigoi's arms I'd truly thought I was done for. There had been no plausible way of getting out of that room without someone—most likely me—being killed. So how was I here? How was I laying on what felt like a bed with my arms free for the first time in weeks with Dimitri at my side?

How had they gotten me here?

"YA dumal, chto poteryal tebya, prezhde chem ya dazhe imel vozmozhnost' znat', chto vy," he said and I came to a startling realization: he wasn't talking to me at all.

I thought I'd lost you before I even had the chance to know you.

He was talking to the baby.

That was enough of a shock to get my eyelids to respond. I forced my eyes open a bit and was able to see my surroundings at last. It was a place I knew well: the Court infirmary. I wasn't about to complain about ruining my winning streak this time. There were machines crowding the right side of my bed, monitors and IV drips. I vaguely realized that I had tubes in my arm and wires on my chest and around my abdomen.

I didn't really care about them—save the steady beating coming from the one attached to my belly—all I cared about was the man at my side.

Dimitri was hunched over in the chair he'd pulled up beside my bed. I had a moment of déjà vu realizing that the situation resembled my last visit to the infirmary in January. He'd been waiting in that same chair then. Only now he was leaning forward, elbows resting on my bed as he whispered quietly to our child.

That was the most shocking thing of all. I'd never before heard him address our baby. He'd never had the chance. I had, quite often in my prison hell and the two weeks preceding it, but the last time Dimitri and I had been together neither of us had been aware of the change coming.

One of his hands rested on my own, draped listlessly over my own belly while his other gently stroked the swell of my belly, long graceful fingers tracing unidentifiable patterns against the blanket covering me. The ghosting touch sent shockwaves through my system; God I had missed him so much. I wanted nothing more than to clutch his hand in my own and bring him in to kiss me but I couldn't get my body to respond just yet. I was also enraptured by his conversation.

"I was shocked when Lissa told me about you," he continued on, speaking in his native tongue as he often did when he got emotional. "I didn't know how it could be true. It shouldn't be. But I saw the sonogram pictures, I saw you, and I knew it had to be true. I never doubted you were mine." My breath hitched in my throat at that. He hadn't? How could he not have? "I have come to know and accept so many amazing and fantastical things since your mother came into my life, moy rebenok, but you," he cleared his throat and continued. I was surprised to see the shine of tears on his cheek. "But you are the most amazing thing yet."

I felt tears wet my own cheeks at his words. I had seen it in Dimitri's eyes before, the burning desire to have a child of his own. I'd seen it when we'd visited his family in Russia a few years back and he got to hold Sonya's daughter and I'd seen it again when Mandy was born and we'd taken the odd night babysitting for the Tanner duo. He'd always wanted a child of his own but we'd both come to accept it wasn't in our future. Now, however, listening to him talk to our miracle, it hit me again how amazing he would be at fatherhood.