The first flutter of life inside her came one quiet morning in early spring.
Maya was standing at the bakery counter, rolling dough for the day's pastries, when the faintest ripple brushed against her from within. She froze, flour dusting her arms, her breath caught in her throat. It was like a feather's kiss, so soft she might have imagined it.
But she knew.
Tears blurred her eyes as she pressed a hand against her belly. For weeks she had lived in denial, convincing herself the nausea and fatigue were just the remnants of heartbreak. But there was no denying this—not when something small and undeniable had just stirred inside her.
Her child. Damon's child.
The world tilted.
She leaned heavily against the counter, biting back a sob. This was real. It was happening.
Ana found out not long after.
They were in Maya's apartment, folding laundry in companionable silence. Maya bent down too quickly and winced, a hand instinctively clutching her belly.
Ana noticed. She always noticed.
"May?" she asked carefully. "What was that?"
"Nothing."
Ana narrowed her eyes. "Don't lie to me."
Maya's hands trembled as she set the laundry aside. She couldn't bring herself to say it aloud. The words felt too heavy, too dangerous.
But Ana read it in her face.
"Oh, my God," Ana whispered. "You're… May, are you—?"
Maya's silence was the only confirmation she needed.
Ana dropped the shirt in her hands and pulled Maya into a fierce hug. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"I couldn't," Maya whispered, voice breaking. "I didn't want it to be real. I didn't want him to know."
Ana's grip tightened. "He won't. Not unless you want him to. This is yours. Yours and the baby's."
Maya buried her face in Ana's shoulder, sobbing with relief and fear all tangled together. For the first time, she wasn't carrying the secret alone.
Pregnancy changed everything.
The bakery job grew harder as her body changed, but she pushed through, determined not to depend on anyone else. She picked up extra shifts when she could, stashing away every spare dollar. Rent, groceries, doctor visits—it all added up, but she refused to crumble.
Her doctor's office was small, staffed with nurses who didn't ask questions. Maya kept her last name off the paperwork, signing only as "Maya C." She lived in constant fear of Damon somehow finding out, of his world bleeding into hers again.
But every appointment, every thump of her baby's heartbeat on the monitor, chipped away at that fear.
The first time she saw the faint outline of her child on the screen, her chest flooded with something fierce and unshakable.
She wasn't just surviving anymore. She was fighting for someone else.
Her pregnancy wasn't easy. Morning sickness lingered into afternoons. Her back ached from long shifts, her ankles swelled, and loneliness pressed harder at night. There were moments she wanted to call Damon, to demand he carry some of this weight.
But then she remembered the contract, his silence, his failure to fight for her when she needed him most.
He'd already broken her once. She wouldn't give him another chance.
Instead, she built her own small world—cheap baby clothes from thrift stores, a secondhand crib Ana helped assemble in the corner of her bedroom, lullabies hummed under her breath when no one was listening.
Ana painted tiny stars on the wall above the crib, blue and silver and gold. "For the wolf pup," she teased gently, and Maya rolled her eyes but smiled.
Sometimes, in the quiet hours before dawn, Maya would rest both hands on her growing belly and whisper, "You're not his. You're mine."
The day the baby came, the world was wrapped in rain.
Maya's contractions started in the early morning, sharp and insistent. She tried to deny it at first, pacing her small apartment, clutching furniture as waves of pain rolled through her.
Ana rushed over within the hour, panic in her eyes. "We need to go—"
"No hospitals," Maya gasped. The thought of Damon's people sniffing around terrified her.
"Maya—"
"Please. Just a clinic. Somewhere small."
Ana didn't argue again. She got them into her beat-up car, cursing traffic lights as Maya groaned through the contractions.
By the time they reached the clinic, sweat soaked Maya's hair, her breaths coming in ragged gasps. Nurses ushered her into a room, voices calm but urgent.
The hours blurred together—pain and exhaustion, Ana's steady hand in hers, the world narrowing down to one primal battle.
And then, a cry.
Thin, piercing, beautiful.
Maya sobbed as the nurse laid the tiny bundle in her arms. Her baby's skin was warm, her fists impossibly small, her cries already demanding the world's attention.
"She's perfect," Ana whispered, tears in her eyes.
Maya looked down at her daughter and felt something inside her crack wide open. All the fear, all the loneliness, all the heartbreak—it melted beneath the weight of love so fierce it hurt.
She traced her baby's cheek with trembling fingers. "Lila," she whispered. "Your name is Lila."
The baby's cries softened, as if she'd been waiting for it.
Maya kissed her daughter's forehead, her heart overflowing.
In that moment, she made a vow.
"I'll protect you," she whispered. "From him, from his world, from everything. You're mine, Lila. Always mine."
The storm raged outside, but inside the small clinic room, Maya held her new beginning in her arms.
And for the first time since leaving Damon Blackthorn, she didn't feel broken.
She felt whole.