Reclaimed By My Alpha (Natalia and Andrei) novel Chapter 488

“Look at her,” I said quietly. “Really look at your daughter. You barely have since we came back.”

His jaw ticked, but he forced himself to look at her sleeping form. At her soft, pudgy baby face. At her tiny fists. And something in his expression cracked. He reached out with one hand and gently touched Hope’s dark hair. She stirred slightly but didn’t wake.

“She looks more like Jane every day,” he whispered.

“She looks like you. They all do.” I snorted and wrapped my arm around his waist. “I swear, not a single one of them inherited my features.”

“That’s not true. Max has your nose. And Jane has your sense of humor.”

“Please get help,” I said. “For them. For me. For yourself.”

He looked at Hope again. Then at me. Finally, he nodded. “Okay. I’ll talk to someone.”

“Thank you.”

He pulled me into another hug, and this time when he held me, it didn’t feel desperate. It just felt like home.

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That night, we went to bed early. The twins were already asleep, and Hope was settled in her crib. Andrei and I climbed under the covers and I curled into his side with my head on his chest. His heartbeat was steady beneath my ear.

I tilted my head up and kissed his jaw. Then his neck. He made a soft sound and turned to me, capturing my lips with his.

The kiss was gentle at first, but it deepened quickly, and I felt heat spreading through me. It had been so long since we’d done this. Since we’d been intimate. I’d missed it. Missed him.

My hands slid under his shirt, feeling the hard planes of his stomach. He groaned and rolled on top of me, his weight pressing me into the mattress. His lips moved to my neck, and I arched into him.

His hands moved to the hem of my nightgown, pushing it up. I helped him get it off, and then we were skin to skin. The feeling of it made my breath catch.

But then he stopped.

He pulled back, breathing hard, and rolled off me. “I can’t. I’m sorry, I can’t.”

I sat up, pulling the blanket over my chest. My heart sank, but I forced a smile. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not.” He covered his face with his hands. “You want this. I want this. But I just–every time I close my eyes, I see-”

“Andrei.” I touched his shoulder. “It’s okay. Really. We don’t have to do this tonight.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing.” I laid back down and pulled him with me. “Just… hold me. That’s enough for now.”

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Chapter 439

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He did. He wrapped his arms around me and held me close, his face buried in my hair. Neither of us spoke again.

After a while, his breathing evened out. He fell asleep first, which almost never happened, especially not these days.

But I couldn’t sleep. I laid there in the dark for a long while, just staring at the ceiling. My throat still hurt from earlier, and I could feel bruises forming where his fingers had been. But that wasn’t what bothered me.

What bothered me was the way everything felt like it was falling apart. We’d won. The King was dead. The war was over. We were supposed to be happy. Supposed to be building our lives together.

But instead, we were here. Broken and struggling and barely holding on.

The King was dead, but he was still hurting us. Still controlling us from beyond the grave through the trauma he’d inflicted. Through the scars he’d left on Andrei’s mind and my body.

I wished I could dig him up from under that mountain and kill him all over again.

Chapter 489

+25 BONUS

Chapter 489