Page 172 of Claimed

His face tips up and there’s blood-silver in his eyes. Joy. Pure, terrifying, disbelieving joy.

‘What?’ My voice shakes. ‘What is it, Valentin?’

‘Listen, little hunter.’

My hands find his shoulders. ‘To what?’

‘Listen,’ he insists.

The bond opens wider and the room falls away.

At first, all I hear is my own heart, too fast, too loud, hammering beneath my ribs. Then Valentin’s. Slower. Stronger. Ancient thunder under ice.

Then—

I hear it.

Small. Fast. Faint as a secret beneath water.

Another heartbeat. Not mine. Not his. A tiny, impossible rhythm tucked beneath my own.

My body freezes as the world stops.

Gods.

A baby.

Our baby.

My hand flies to my stomach.

Valentin covers it with his, and the sound becomes clearer through the bond, a little fluttering drumbeat that fills the room, the Tower, the entire glittering city below us.

‘Oh my Gods,’ I whisper.

Valentin presses his mouth to my stomach through the silk of my robe. The sound he makes is half laugh, half sob, entirely ruinous. ‘She lives,’ he says.

‘She?’

His eyes lift. Of course he knows. Silver tears slide down his face, and I don’t tease him. I cannot. My own tears are falling too fast.

‘Our daughter,’ he says.

Daughter.

The word enters me and blooms. The mark at his throat flares. For the first time, the silver-dark lattice begins to recede.

Slowly.

Visibly.

Line by line, the curse draws back from his jaw, from his throat, retreating beneath the glow of the bond and the new life beating between us.

I gasp.

Valentin goes utterly still. Then the Heartshard Glass across the room bursts into silver light.

No scream. No pain. Only light.