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The same reason my breasts ache.
Because I’m pregnant.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt out, the first thing that comes to mind.
Javi pulls back to look at me, his brow furrowed. “Why?”
“Because!” I say. “I’m…haven’t you figured it out?”
He rests his forehead against mine, meeting my eyes. “You’re pregnant, Peach. I’ve known for a couple days.”
“You have?” I squeak.
He shushes me with a finger to my lips.
“I could sense it,” he says. “Not confirmed, but I could tell something had changed with you. I didn’t want to stress you out more…and I didn’t know how to tell you.”
“But it shouldn’t be possible,” I say. “I wasn’t in heat anymore—it’s only been a few weeks!”
“Maybe it’s different with mates,” he says.
My shoulders slump. “What are we going to do?”
Javi’s hand slides over my stomach, his fingers splaying wide. Something warm and comforting emanates from the spot, radiating over my skin and deep within me. I bury my face in his chest to breath him in, and he feels like home…
Home.
I have to get home.
Somewhere I can settle down, nestle in, somewheresafe.
“Do you think they’re still coming?” Javi whispers. “Your pack?”
“They have to,” I say. “We don’t have any other way out.”
“We’ll find a way,” he says, his jaw tight. “Because this is what Gideon wants…and once he knows you’re pregnant, he’ll be even more protective.”
“I can’t have the baby here,” I say, desperation edging into my voice. “Especially if it’s a girl…? What will he do—”
“We won’t have to find out,” Javi says. “I’m getting you out of here, Peach. I won’t let anyone hurt you or our baby, even if it kills me.”
I gaze into his eyes, using him as an anchor when the world feels like it’s spinning out of control. I feel like I have to preempt him—to make it clear that he can’t just rescue me. Thereisno me without him, not anymore.
“You have to come with me,” I say. “I won’t leave without you.”
He holds me close, but he doesn’t say another word.
And as usual, I dread where his sense of duty will take us.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
?
JAVI
Something is strange on the Rig today.
Not only with me—even though I just found out I’m going to be a father. There’s an air of apprehension around us all, tense and foreboding, the storm clouds on the horizon casting a strange greenish light on the Rig like a hint of what’s to come.
