Caelan
I was losing my mind.
I’d been pacing outside the healer’s quarters for what felt like hours, my wolf clawing at the edges of my control, desperate to get to our mate. To explain, to fix whatever the hell just happened.
My boots wore a path in the stone floor. Back and forth. Back and forth. Every time I approached the door, the memory of Riley’s face stopped me cold.
I almost lost my shit when I saw her fall.
One moment she was running, running from me with terror in her eyes and tears streaming down her face. And the next she was crumpling to the ground, her legs giving out beneath her.Every instinct screamed at me to catch her, to hold her, to tear apart anyone who came near.
But Thessa got there first.
And the look on Riley’s face when she saw me approaching... pure, devastating rage. It stopped me cold. My wolf whined inside my skull, desperate to reach our mate, and I had to physically force myself to back off. To keep my distance and let Thessa handle it because my presence was only making things worse.
But I couldn’t take it anymore.
The bond was screaming at me. I could feel Riley’s emotions tearing through my chest: pain, betrayal, heartbreak, confusion. She thought I cheated on her. She thought I’d been lying to her this whole time.
She thought I was with Vix.
The thought made me want to vomit. Or kill Vix. Preferably kill Vix.
How could Riley think that? How could she believe for one second that I would ever, ever want anyone but her? She was my mate, the woman I’d waited my whole life for, the woman my wolf recognized the moment we saw her.
And she thought I was fucking Vix.
I was about to barge through the healer’s door, propriety be damned, I needed to see my mate, when I heard it.
I heard the healer’s voice, absurdly cheerful given the circumstances.
“Congratulations! You’re about ten weeks pregnant.”
I froze. My wolf went completely still.
And then he was howling, pure primal overwhelming joy erupting inside my skull. Celebrating, exalting, because our mate was carrying our pup. Our child. A piece of us both, growing inside her.
Ten weeks. That meant it happened during the claiming, during those first perfect days together, before the war, before everything went wrong. When we couldn’t keep our hands off each other, when every touch was perfect, when I thought my life couldn’t possibly get any better.
It had gotten better. So much better.
I was going to be a father.
The door slammed open under my hands. I didn’t remember deciding to push it. My body moved on instinct, propelling me into the room.
“WHAT?!” I shouted. Then, softer, barely a whisper: “What did she say? We... we’re going to have a pup?”
Very princely and composed. Years of royal training, and I burst into a room shouting at the top of my lungs.
Riley was on the bed. Thessa was beside her, holding her hand. The healer was standing nearby, her cheerful expression faltering as she took in the chaos.
And Riley...
Riley wasn’t looking at me.
She’d turned her head deliberately, pointedly, so she couldn’t see me. Her jaw was clenched. Her body was rigid. Through the bond, I felt everything she was feeling. The shock of the pregnancy news layered over the devastation of what she thought she witnessed. Pain, betrayal, heartbreak, all of it crashing through me because it was crashing through her. And underneath it all, the tiniest spark of hope that she was wrong, that there was an explanation, being systematically crushed by doubt.
The pain in my chest was unbearable.
