"God... This is so good!" Mila moaned in delight. "These are the best waffles I have ever eaten."

"I am glad you like them." Kiril smiled in genuinely. It was an expression Mila didn't see often. It was a pity because it looked so good on him.

"What else can you cook? And where did you learn? I was really not expecting this."

"Some things. But I mostly enjoy making sweets."

"Continue. I want to know about your very interesting life. Where did you learn and when? Between two crimes?"

He rolled his eyes and Mila felt a bit guilty. Just a tiny bit though, because he had been a huge asshole to her when they met. He deserved at least some teasing.

"In Paris in the twenties."

"Oh. So you actually lived there? But how? That is Erik's territory."

"At that point, it was Erik's father's and I was just an insignificant rogue. As long as I stayed off the radar nobody actually cared."

"And ... Why?"

"After my father died I was a bit lost. So for a few years, I did some soul searching."

"And your version of soul searching is to learn to make French pastries? That is so surprisingly... Peaceful."

"There was also music, wine, and sex." His mischievous smile was so light-hearted and rare, Mila felt like sighing until he said sex and it put images in her head. Of him with... people. Lots of other people.

Lord, Mila! You know he shagged a cazilion of people, including Dasha.

So why was she feeling this way? Why were these images making her uncomfortable?

"I don't want to hear about it."

"You asked."

"About the pastries not the fucking. But what was I expecting? You really are a manwhore."

Kiril just shrugs.

"What? If you tell me your body count it will likely resemble the numbers of a mass murderer and now I am not speaking of the actual murdering."

Why was she so mean? That wasn't at all like her and he was so deadly calm. Maybe if she concentrated hard enough she could get into his head and see what he was thinking beyond this annoyingly calm facade.

"I lived a long life by human standards and I wasn't ever bound to anyone." And wolves were feral and got that mating thing that made them terribly horny that Angel told her about... And why the hell were they having that conversation?

"How will it be from now on? Will you be around all the freaking time listening to my thoughts?"

"I told you I am not listening to any thought of yours for a while now."

"What if I don't believe you? Trust needs to be gained and shit."

He didn't say anything for a while just looked out the window. Then he turned and walked towards her, grabbed her face and looked her deeply in the eyes. The atmosphere was so charged with something, with the anticipation of what he was going to say or do that Mila just couldn't bear it.

"What if I ask you to go away? Out of my sight, will you do it?" she whispers. A firm voice would have been more appropriate but the only thing she could bring up was a whisper.

"Yes."

"Just like that? Right now?"

"Yes, if you tell me to."

"I tell you. Go away where I cannot see you."

And just like that, he turned and walked away. Mila was astonished that he just did. No arguments, no words whatsoever. He just did and she was alone. What the fuck did she just do? That was a wild mood swing that came out of nowhere. But she couldn't just go after him because it was sunny outside and she couldn't call him because, by the howl she just heard, he was now in his wolf form so obviously not carrying a phone.

In all the confusion and light tugging of her heartstrings that she actively ignored she felt the need to distract herself and not feel alone with her thoughts so she took a bath, and called Dasha.

"You are going on a date with the ob-gyn doctor? And working there? That is kind of good and a bit surprising."

"Yeah, it was a good day till I met Samira's brother-in-law who gave me a sniff and thought I was the antichrist. Now I have to move out of here if he continues coming over which he will. It's love for money or fear for my life and both are really strong in this one and battling."

"Akin is not a bad person." Mila really didn't think he was after all. He had just been subject to very strong magic that overwhelmed him. It was amazingly strong if he managed to sniff her off on Dasha who she didn't touch for two days. Stupid curse that brought all that trouble in her life.

It was good that Dasha was planning on dating a human, a human who seemed really sweet and kind. He wasn't really what Mila considered to be Dasha's type; the embodynent of Dasha's type she had just called a manwhore and shamed into leaving, but maybe Dasha was going to be happy if she tried something different.

"He's batshit crazy," said Dasha. "But wolf people have those looks to die for and he was no exception."

"Dasha, you are going out with David. He is really sweet."

"I know, but I still have eyes. It's only eyes, because that guy gave me the creeps."

"So did Kiril and you still slept with him."

"No, that was different. Kiril gives the 'there is a monster lurking inside me but it's my pet' vibes while for this guy the monster inside is still shitting on the carpet and biting his hands. Fucking Idiot, now I need to explain the bruises on my neck to my very sweet date."

They chatted about menial things because Mila didn't feel like sharing what just happened and after that, she started reading from the medicine books, took a nap, had a snack, watched some tv, and fell asleep eventually.

When she woke up, Kiril was still not back. Three days passed and he was not back. There was food at the door of the house daily and at night she ventured in the yard and garden but Kiril was nowhere to be seen and she was too afraid to step outside the magic-protected area. She didn't want to hurt people and people to hurt her and the baby.

A week passed and despite the calls with Dasha, Angel, or Samira to whom she didn't dare to confess the situation, she still felt kind of lonely but was too stubborn to admit that to herself.

She was laying in bed and imagining things, imagining Erik and how their life would be in the house in the Scottish highlands. They would be very happy. And the child wouldn't want to attack its own father. The child would be way better off without Kiril's creepy power. Would the child be able to heal like Erik or have another mage power? Healing was the most useful and beautiful thing there was. Maybe the child being half human could heal human diseases too. Yet the only thing the child did so far to humans was to knock the breath out of their lungs.

Everything was fine; she was fine without Kiril. He had tricked her and marked her against her will and that was why her baby had now his creepy power. She did accept the mark though... And he did save her many times and had surprisingly been there for her when she didn't expect it, when nobody else was, not even Erik... And she didn't want to have these thoughts.

Her mind wandered... What was she thinking? It was very possible that she would die before or in childbirth and she made the only person that could keep her company without getting hurt go away. She was going to die... She knew it deep inside and she was going to be miserable and alone before dying.

Her pregnancy started to show and she started to see it like a silent yet evident countdown. If it was as long as a human pregnancy, she had only three months left. Three months?! But it felt like she barely lived at all. Twenty four. She had turned twenty four while being somewhere in space with Helios and Selene.

What would she still want to do in this life? Mila searched the office of the mansion for paper and a pencil. In one drawer she found several letters together with thick monogramed letter paper and silver ink pens. Mila couldn't help peaking at the elegant Cyrillic letters streched over the page. What an annoyingly beautiful handwriting and how awfully temped she was to read those very private things. Yet she thought it would be as reading minds without consent so she closed the drawer and abandoned that thought.

The silver pen was heavy in her hand and the way it scratched the paper was interesting yet foreign. Her letters looked like child scribbling in comparison with the cursive on those papers. But it didn't matter. That wasn't the point.

It will be a damn fancy looking bucket list. What do people usually put on one? Get a tattoo? Now I have several and they are even magic.

Mila looked again at the page.

I want to... Finish reading the med school books.

I want to... Go clubbing with Dasha without having to think we need to rob someone for food.

I want to... See at least a bit of the world.

The thoughts started bubbling and pouring onto the paper, naked, crude, painful, yet very real. Those lines were only meant for her so she wrote without thinking or judging herself but the letters and unfiltered threads also felt like fire, and tears fell hot on the ivory page.

All these thoughts that unavoidably converged into death, started pressing the actual air from her lungs. Her hands were shaking and her knees couldn't support her anymore. She tumbled to the ground and took the paper with her.

Shit?! I can't breathe. Did I just triggered my early death with death thoughts?!

The sarcasm felt bitter on her tongue and the selfirony dissolved into tears and vomit. Then there was a little kick. In that fatidic moment the baby started to move inside her for the first time. The movement went through her like thunder. One, then another.

A crimson drop fell on the page. Then two. Then three. Then more trickled from her nostrils to her mouth.

So far every time she was in danger Selene stepped in to help her but now she was just silent.

"Selene...?"

She set something awful off, again.

I am dumb as fuck and now I am going to die alone.
Kiril?

Could she reach him? Could she slip into his mind? Could he get there in time?

Mila was laying on the hard wood floor crying and bleeding into the dark.

Not yet, please, not yet. Kiril? Please. I am sorry. Please hold my hand.

But she sunk into darkness before any hand could reach her.

It was cold. Mila never imagined death so full of sensation: pain, cold, fear, not the nothingness she envisioned.

It was painful because she didn't want to leave. Not yet.

"Mila?"

Kiril, you came? I am sorry. I am afraid. Hold my hand. I can't move.

"Mila, follow my voice and come back. Let me into your mind."

I don't know how. I forgot how.

"Do you trust me?"

Yes.

Light flashes around the traceless dark. Mila opened her eyes.

She was still streched out on the floor but Kiril was kneeling by her side, holding her against his chest. In one hand he was holding an old, bejeweled book.

"I... I thought I was dying."

"You were. The child is growing and demanding way more than your human body can sustain."

"What did you do?"

"I... Tied you to me. The two of you."

"How?"

"With magic, obviously," Kiril smiled faintly and kissed her forehead. "You are not dying. Not today."

"What's that for a book?"

"Necromancy," answered Kiril simply.

"Am I a zombie now?"

"No. You were not dead, but the principle is the same that forced Angel to keep Katharina alive. Just that I am doing it out of my own free will."

Mila raised her hand to touch his face.

"Why?"

"Because you are the most important."

"I am sorry I was a jerk."

"You were not."

"You are not angry?"

"No. Never was. Wasn't precisely untrue." A nonchalant smile was dancing on his lips. "How do you feel?"

"Alive?"

"What's that?" He picked up the sheets that were scattered around her on the floor.

"My hmm... bucket list. Kiril, how much time do you think I have left?"

Kiril sighed.

"I don't know. Hopefully long enough for the  child to be born. Can I read it?"

"Do you want to?"

Kiril nodded.

"There is one thing that's not in there that I would like to start with. May I kiss you?"

He moved his face closer to her, close enough for her to reach.

"It's not because I am forced by circumstances. It's not because I owe you my life. It's because I want to."

This time when Mila leaned into the kiss it was smiling serenely. She knotted her hands into his freshly braided hair, inhaled his scent and tasted her blood on his lips, mingled with the tasted of ice and night.

_____________________________________

I planned to publish this chapter on my bday and include some smut. I am 10 minutes late and no smut (yet).

Merry Christmas and Happy b'day to me. 😂.