Chapter 79. It’s Fine Baby

As we sat together in the aftermath of the battle, Riccardo turned to me with a look of deep concern on his face.

“Alessia,” he said softly. “I know that I ask a lot of you, asking you to endure the danger and uncertainty of this life with me. But I want you to know that I’ll always do everything in my power to keep you safe.”

Tears prickled at the corners of my eyes as I clutched his hand tightly.

“Riccardo,” I whispered. “You don’t have to protect me all the time. I’m not afraid.”

But even as I spoke the words, I knew that they were a lie. In truth, fear gnawed at my heart every moment of every day fear for myself, fear for him, fear for what our future might hold.

And yet even in the midst of that fear, there was something else, something deeper and more powerful than anything else in this world. Our love.

As we returned home from battle, battered and bruised but still alive, Riccardo swept me up into his arms and carried me straight to bed, de