“You can’t fix everything by kneeling, pet.”
“I know. So I’ll fix it by standing up.”
I press my face harder into his neck and the tears slow while the trembling eases. His heartbeat under my ear stays steady, the bond humming with something that feels like certainty. Not that everything will be okay, but that we will face whatever comes together.
With this new quiet, my thoughts turn to the other nagging feeling I’ve been ignoring. The nausea. The scent changes. The fogginess. The way my body has felt like it belongs to someone else.
“Sai.”
Something in my voice makes him go completely still. “Yeah?”
“I think… I think I’m pregnant.”
I slowly sit up and pull off Sai’s cock now that his knot has gone down, his cum slipping out of me as I roll off to my side.I prop myself up on my elbow, waiting for the blow up or the anger or a spiral but there’s just pure joy on his face.
“Really?”
My brows furrow with confusion. “You’re not mad? We didn’t plan this and my heat... I should have known when it was only a day but I—”
He slides down in the bed until his face is level with my stomach. He presses his forehead against the skin as his hands settle on my hips. He stays there, breathing against the place where something impossibly small might be growing. “Mine,” he whispers against my skin.
“Ours,” I correct. But my hand finds his hair, my eyes filling again with different tears this time. Something that has no name because I’ve never felt it before. The thing I never let myself want. A family. One I chose. One that chose me back.
Sai talks to my stomach. “I’m going to teach you about light. About the way it bends around your dad’s face. About the golden hour. About—”
“It’s the size of a bean, Sai.” I’m not even sure it’s that size yet.
“A very important bean.”
I laugh, the sound coming out wet and broken and real. It’s the bravest sound in the room, laughing after crying after breaking after performing after losing everything and finding the one thing that can’t be boxed up and sent back.
“We don’t even know for sure,” I tell him.
Sai presses his mouth against my stomach and the words vibrate against my skin. “I know.”
I stroke his hair and whisper, “We’re going to be okay, aren’t we?”
Sai presses a kiss to my skin and his voice is certain when he answers. “We’re already okay, Doll. We’re together. That’s the only thing that matters.”
I smile into the dark, murmuring against his hair, “I love you, Alpha.”
He answers against my skin. “I love you too. Both of you.”
