Russia was white with snow when Cassian took her there — a hidden estate just beyond the outskirts of Saint Petersburg, nestled between frozen pine forests and silver lakes. The house was ancient, once belonging to a czar's mistress, all velvet drapes and candlelight. Now it belonged to Alina. Or rather, to them.
Cassian had carried her across the threshold himself, ignoring her laughter and the teasing complaint of, "I'm pregnant, not dying."
"You're mine. I'll carry you whenever I damn please," he said, his lips brushing her temple.
And he did. Every morning, every night — pampering her like she was glass and fire wrapped together.
He cooked her meals personally, no matter how many chefs stood ready. "They don't know your moods," he said gruffly one morning when she raised a brow at his attempt at Russian pancakes. "Only I know when you want lemon, not syrup."
Alina's heart twisted. "And when do I want lemon?"
Cassian smirked, sliding the plate in front of her. "When your eyes are tired, and you pretend you're fine."
Despite the snowfall outside, warmth bloomed in her. He wasn't just protecting her anymore. He was studying her.
He brushed her hair when she sat before the fire, his fingers gentle but possessive. He massaged her back when she groaned with the weight of twins. And each time her breath hitched from memories — of the cell, the pain, the fear — Cassian's arms wrapped tighter around her until the world stilled again.
But the teasing never left her completely.
"I didn't know Russian cold makes men clingier," she whispered one night, snuggled into his bare chest.
Cassian raised a brow. "You think this is clingy?"
"You tucked me in like I'm an ancient porcelain doll."
"I tucked you in because you keep kicking the covers off. And I've seen porcelain dolls. You're much more dangerous."
She giggled softly, leaning up to kiss the line of his jaw. "Are you saying I scare you, Mr. Andrei?"
Cassian's eyes darkened with something feral and tender all at once. "You terrify me."
And he meant it.
Every night, once she drifted into sleep, wrapped in his warmth, Cassian would slide the blanket lower and press his hand over the curve of her growing bump.
"Hey," he whispered, his voice rough from unshed emotions. "You two better behave in there."
His fingers moved gently, almost reverently across her skin. "Your mother is brave. She keeps pretending she's not scared, but I know better. You're going to have her fire. Both of you. God help me."
Then, as always, he kissed her stomach. One kiss. Then another. And another. Until she stirred slightly, and he stilled — a thief caught worshiping.
But Alina didn't wake. Not really.
Because even in her half-sleep, she felt his devotion wrapping around her like a second blanket.
They spent their days walking the frozen paths around the estate, her gloved hand tucked into his coat. He bought her new coats lined with fox fur, boots with velvet insides, a scarf she claimed was too expensive to wear and then wore anyway.
He called her spoiled.
She called him obsessed.
But neither of them corrected the other.
Cassian didn't tell her he'd hired private security to sweep the perimeter every hour. He didn't say how many cameras now watched the sky and road or how he personally vetted every delivery. The attack had changed something inside him. Not just fear — fury. The kind of fury that only someone like Cassian could carry beneath a polished exterior.
And while Alina smiled for him, ate the meals he made, even danced with him in the candlelight, he saw the flickers of darkness still buried in her eyes. The way she flinched when snow cracked off the roof. The way she stared at doorways too long.
He couldn't erase the past.
But he could give her this: safety wrapped in silk and snow.
And love — the quiet kind. The kind born in whispered conversations to unborn twins, in cooking eggs just the way she liked them, in holding her when she couldn't hold herself.
"You know," Alina said one evening, curled in his lap beside the fireplace, "if you keep treating me like a queen, I might start expecting it forever."
Cassian's lips brushed her hair. "You are a queen. Mine. And forever is the least I can give."
She smiled, eyes misting over, but she didn't say anything.
She didn't need to.
Because in the heart of the Russian winter, with snow outside and fire within, Alina Carter was no longer a prisoner, or a pawn, or a woman broken by war.
She was a woman loved — fiercely, possessively, utterly.
And the two lives growing inside her? They were listening to every beat of that love.