Page 31 of Blazing Embers

“We’re here,” Sam’s voice comes from down the hallway.

“Thank fuck!” Sabrina breathes a sigh of relief as Sam and the midwife rush into the room.

The world goes black for a moment.

“I love you,” I whisper, half to Sabrina and half to my unborn baby girl.

As Sabrina fluffs and faffs with pillows, the pain starts to build again.

“Fuck!” I hiss. “I think she wants to come out nowwwww.”

TARA

Russian Hospital - Moscow

I jolt awake.

White lights blind me, and the sterile scent stabs my senses like needles. Beeping machines echo inside my skull. My body aches. It feels heavy and wrong. My one arm is strapped down, the other restrained by soft leather and steel.

What the hell?—

“Tara!”

Konstantin’s voice punches through the fog. His hand is wrapped around mine, warm and firm.

I blink up at him. He’s blurry at first. Then he comes into focus. His jaw is tight, and his eyes look tired.

I try to move, but I start to panic as I can’t. I blink up at the ceiling, my mind as empty as the sheet above me, and for a minute, I can’t remember why I’m here or how I got here. There’s a sharpness in my lower belly, a pain that radiates down to my thighs and up to my ribcage.

The pain is familiar, but the context is all wrong.

I look left, then right, the motion making my head throb. A drip runs into my left arm, clear and slow.

I turn back toward the man who now towers over me, trying to clear the crust from my lashes. “Konstantin?” I rasp. My tongue is dry, cracked, like I’ve been licking sandpaper for days.

He sits up, his face a mixture of relief and guilt. “You’re awake.” He fumbles for the call button and mashes it with his thumb, then leans closer, careful to keep his hands visible. “They said you’d be out for another day.”

I swallow, forcing the words out. “Why am I tied down?”

His mouth twitches, but he doesn’t smile. “You kept trying to get up. The drugs—they made you confused.” He glances at the door, nervous. “They’re not supposed to keep you restrained like this, but you kind of freaked out, and I have to say you’re freakishly strong.”

“Water,” I plead.

Konstantin releases my hand and leans toward the door. “I’ll ask the nurses if you can have some. Be right back.”

The second he’s gone, dread coils in my gut. My brain is scattered, fragments of memory flashing like broken glass.

Ruslan… why do I remember him beside me?

I look down at my stomach. Flat. Empty. Cold dread pours over me.

The door opens again.

Konstantin returns with a nurse and a doctor in a white coat. Russian is already pouring from the man’s mouth.

“Hello, Mrs. Dragunov,” he says with a bland smile.

Mrs. Dragunov?