Page 88 of Feral King

“Because… because I don’t want to raise my child in a war zone, Julian. I won’t do it. I won’t bring a baby into a world where drive-by shootings happen at charity events, and I have to worry about someone running me off the road.”

He stands and starts toward me. I put my hand up to stop him.

“Please. Don’t. I need to finish.”

He halts.

“I’m scared as hell of carrying your baby, but goddammit, I care for you. I have no idea what to do. And yeah, part of me considered getting on a bus or a plane and leaving.”

“I would find you.”

“I know.”

His words make me feel comforted and trapped all at once.

“But I’m scared. Don’t you get that?Canyou get that? Living in this world means I have to worry not only aboutmy life, but your life, and now an innocent child’s life. Do you think I want that?”

He stands very still, his expression calm and even. I get the sense it’s taking all of the restraint he has not to let whatever it is he’s feeling come out in a wild rush.

“You won’t raise my child alone,” he says. “That is not an option, Lyra. That will neverbean option.”

“Julian—”

“If you think I’ll let you disappear with my heir—” His voice hardens. The criminal boss, the man who breaks bones and leads empires, the one who has never been told no by anyone who didn’t regret it, resurfaces. “You don’t know me at all.”

The words land like a slap. I flinch and he sees it. He instantly softens.

It’s as if he’s so used to putting force behind his words—commanding and demanding—to get what he wants, that he didn’t consider how it would affect someone like me, someone who’s not an underling nor a rival, not an executive sweating in his office.

I’m different. I’m the woman he cares for deeply and the mother of his child.

There’s a small flicker in his eyes that makes it clear he just realized that, perhaps for the first time in his life, he’s out of his element and has no idea what to do.

He slowly steps closer. I stand firm and raise my chin, filled with a confidence I didn’t expect.

And then something shocking happens, something that I will remember for the rest of my life.

Julian Volkov sinks to his knees.

It’s as if something bigger than his pride, power or need for control has taken hold of him as he’s on his knees on the hardwood floor of his penthouse. His hands find my hips, and he presses his forehead against my stomach, breathing slowly.

He slides his arms around my lower back, pulling me closer. I can feel the warmth of his breath through the silk dress. He’s trembling a little, like the news that I’ve just given him is almost too much to take.

“Julian.” I run my hands through his soft salt-and-pepper hair.

“I don’t—” His voice cracks and he stops. The sound of Julian Volkov’s voice breaking is shocking. “I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how tobethis. I know how to run an empire. I know how to fight a war. But this…”

He pulls back and looks at me. His eyes are damp.

This man on his knees isn’t the CEO or the Bratva leader who commands rooms with a single word. It’s the boy who lost his mother at ten and never learned how to love without expecting it to be taken away.

He blinks, and the wetness in his eyes vanishes, the fierce protector returning.

“I will protect you,” he says. “Both of you. With everything I have and with everything I am. But I need you to stay,Lyra. I need you to give me time. I’m this close—” He holds up his hand, thumb and forefinger nearly touching. “This close to ending the war. The council is days away. If I can secure Yang’s support, Dobrov loses his leverage and Alexander loses his platform. It will be over, and I can build a world that’s safe enough to bring a child into.”

“And if you can’t?”

“Then I’ll burn it all down and start over. But I need time. Days. Not weeks, not months. Days.”