“—full toxicology screen,” Luka is saying, already pulling out a medical bag from gods-know-where.
He always carries one now. I think it’s a way for him to feel a little more in control, a little more sane. He even went back to school, though he technically doesn’t have a degree yet. Not that it stops him from acting like a bossy, sexy doctor. I suppose we all deal with trauma in different ways.
“Brylee, I need to examine you. Can you?—”
“Stop!” I push myself up, my legs wobbling, my hand pressed to my stomach.
They freeze—my four warriors, my four hearts, staring at me with eyes wide and wet and full of a fear I recognize because I’ve seen it in the mirror.
“I don’t think it’s poison,” I say, and my voice sounds strange to my own ears.
Wonderstruck. Terrified. Hopeful.
“What?” Ridge’s brows draw together. “Brylee, you’re sick. You’re?—”
“I know.” I reach for my phone, my hands shaking so badly I nearly drop it. “Just…just give me a minute. Please. I need you to trust me.”
I text Harper with trembling fingers:Emergency. Pharmacy. Palace east bathroom. Now.
Her reply is immediate:On my way.
I look up at my mates—my beautiful, terrified, overprotective mates—and tears prick my eyes. Not from fear. From possibility.
“Give me five minutes,” I beg. “Please. Don’t call the doctor yet. Don’t…just don’t.”
“Brylee—” Luka starts, his eyes dark with worry.
“Please.” I grip his hand, then Kylian’s, then reach back for Ridge and Colter. “Trust me. Five minutes.”
They exchange glances—the silent communication of men who have learned to share everything, including their fear.
Finally, Kylian nods, his jaw tight. “Five minutes. Then I’m breaking down this door.”
They file out, reluctant, hovering just beyond the threshold like sentinels. They argue in harsh whispers—Ridge wanting to call Teddie, Colter grunting something I can’t interpret, Kylian suggesting it might be stress, Luka insisting it’s medical.
The door bursts open again, and Harper stands there like a hurricane in human form—brown hair wild, jacket unzipped, holding a tiny white pharmacy bag that rustles as she walks.
“Tell me everything,” she demands, then takes one look at my face and softens. “Oh, honey.”
“I’m late,” I whisper, and the words feel like jumping off a cliff. “Two weeks. I thought it was stress, the summit, the security protocols, but Harper…I threw up three times this week. I thought it was food poisoning or something. But my breasts hurt. And I’m crying atcommercials. Not even sad ones, but people frolicking in a field. And I just ran out of a meeting with the Nóthos ambassador because the smell of her perfume made me want to die.”
Harper’s smile starts small, then spreads like sunrise. “How many times have we done this dance?”
“Three,” I say, my voice breaking. “Three times, and every time it was negative, and every time I told myself it was okay, that we have time, but Harper…we’re not getting younger, and the doctors said that it’s normal, but I’m an omega, and I just can’t… They said I might not have children.”
“Might,” she interrupts gently, pressing the bag into my hands. It’s warm from her grip. “Notwould. Might.”
I look down at the bag. At the small pink box inside. My hands shake so badly the plastic crinkles like thunder.
“Do you want me to stay?” Harper asks.
I shake my head, tears already falling. “I need…I need to know first. Before them. I need to?—”
“Go,” she says and kisses my forehead. "I’ll hold back the psychopaths.”
I lock myself in the handicapped stall—the only one with a counter—and I stare at the box for what feels like years. My reflection in the mirror shows a woman I barely recognize: disheveled blonde hair, shadows under her eyes from too many sleepless nights, wearing a pantsuit that suddenly feels too tight across the chest.
Please,I think, not to God, but to the universe, to the fates, to whatever force gave me my mates and brought my brother back from the edge five years ago.Please.
