It’s past midnight when you slip out of bed, the weight of the question pressing harder than the swell of your pregnant belly.

The room is silent—too silent for your racing thoughts. Funny Valentine lies beside you, motionless, his breath calm, regal even in sleep. He looks peaceful, like a statue carved in marble. But you know better. There’s never a moment he’s truly vulnerable.

You reach out, fingers trembling, and gently touch his arm. “Valentine?” you whisper.

His eyes open immediately.

Not startled. Not groggy. Just… aware.

He turns his head slowly toward you, eyes scanning your face like he’s reading a book written in fear and longing. “Something wrong?” he asks, voice low, smooth—still half-caught in the veil of sleep.

You hesitate. Then—quietly, like the words might break you—“Do you still love me?”

A pause.

A deep, unsettling silence follows. The kind that could mean danger.

But then…

He sits up. Slowly. Deliberately. The sheets fall from his chest, and in the dim moonlight, he reaches out to touch your face. His hand is large, warm, protective. Possessive.

“You’re carrying my child,” he says, voice low but intense. “You are mine. You have always been mine. And what I claim, I do not stop loving.”

You want to breathe a sigh of relief. You almost do.

But there’s something dangerous behind his eyes. Not rage—no. That would be easier to fight. It’s something deeper. Something obsessive. A love so sharp it bleeds.

“You doubt me?” he asks quietly, thumb brushing your cheek. “Even now?”

You shake your head slowly. “I just needed to hear it.”

He leans in, lips brushing your forehead with reverence. “Then let me remind you—every day, every night, forever—that you are the only thing in every world I would kill to protect.”

He pulls you close, cradling you and the child within you like a holy relic.

And as you close your eyes, you realize something:

You’ll never truly doubt his love.

But you’ll never stop fearing the depths of it either.