Page 34 of The Alpha King’s Hidden Mute Mate

Not ordinary nausea—this was the kind that surged up from the pit of my stomach, overwhelming and violent. I hunched over the toilet, retching up breakfast and bile until I was limp as a beached fish.

Then I felt it.

That tiny, faint thing, fluttering like butterfly wings.

In my belly.

My wolf let out a low whimper inside me—not pain, but something... tender, protective, answering some ancient instinct.

She told me. We were pregnant.

My hand pressed against my flat stomach. I sat on the bathroom floor, mind blank.

Pregnant.

I was carrying Zane's child.

The child of a man who came to my room once a week, left as soon as he finished, wouldn't even look at me.

Should I be happy? I didn't know. But my eyes were burning, my heart pounding in my chest, a complex, nameless emotion rising from my chest and clogging my throat.

I had a little life inside me.

Someone who was only mine.

My first impulse was to run to him and tell him the news. I even made it to the door, hand on the handle—

Then I heard laughter from down the hall.

Leah's laughter.

Then his voice, low and pleased, carrying a relaxed tone I'd never heard before. They were talking about something—maybe tonight's banquet, maybe their upcoming honeymoon? I couldn't make out the details, but I could hear the tone. Intimate. Easy. Full of understanding.

The kind of tone he and I had never shared.

I stood behind the door, hand on the handle, listening to their laughter fade away.

Then I slowly let go.

Tell him? Tell him what?

"Hey, Your Majesty, your breeding tool successfully conceived, congratulations on completing your final mission?"

Would he be happy? Maybe. Not because of the child, but because it meant—his mission was complete. Heir secured. I, the tool, could be shoved into a corner and forgotten.

Leah would take my place. She'd become the real Luna, stand by his side, raise my child, enjoy everything that should have been mine.

And me—a mute orphan, a defective product who couldn't even defend herself—I'd be completely forgotten.

I dropped my hand from the handle.

No. I couldn't tell him.

This child was my secret. Mine. In this palace full of lies and betrayal, this was the only thing I could have that was purely, completely mine.

After the child, something strange shifted in me.

I stopped counting ceiling cracks. I started noticing the little courtyard outside my window—a patch of land the size of a napkin, overgrown with weeds, neglected for years. One day, after signing for what felt like forever, I finally got the guard to bring me flower seeds.