Chapter 149: ¹⁴⁹: not yours

Chapter 149: 1??: not yours

"Do you really want to be with me?" Kael suddenly took a step back from me. "Why did you want to be with me though?" he asked. "What made you so crazy about me?"

The distance between us returned, but something about his expression had changed. There was a strange smile on his lips as he looked down at me, one that I couldn’t quite understand.

I stared at him, completely stupefied. What was I supposed to say? For a moment, my mind went completely blank. What could I possibly tell him?

That I was here because I had a mission to complete? That my entire presence beside him was connected to something I had sworn to accomplish? No, I obviously couldn’t tell him that.

"Did something happen?" I finally asked, voicing the exact question that had been circling inside my head.

Kael’s smile faded slightly. "Why are you asking all these things suddenly?" I continued. "That day, you were also repeatedly bringing up the same old requirements of our deal. You kept talking about them again and again."

I took a cautious step toward him. "Is there something bothering you about me, Kael?"

Instead of answering, Kael moved away. He turned toward the stove and switched it on again, calmly resuming what he had been doing as though our conversation had never happened.

My brows furrowed. "Kael..."

He didn’t respond. I watched him for a few seconds, trying to determine whether he was deliberately ignoring me or simply refusing to answer. "Kael, what has happened? Tell me."

Still nothing. The uncertainty inside me grew with every second of his silence. So did the fear. I couldn’t allow him to continue thinking that there was something suspicious about my feelings for him. I had spent far too long establishing the image that I wanted him because I genuinely liked him.

If he started doubting that now, everything could fall apart. "Kael, listen to me!" My voice came out louder than I intended. I stepped forward, pulled him away from the stove, and made him look at me again.

Our eyes met. His expression still remained frustratingly calm.

"It is you!" My breathing became uneven as I tried to force the words out quickly enough. "It is you who made me crazy about you."

I held his gaze. "I like you because it’s you. That’s it. There isn’t some complicated reason behind it. Nothing dreamy or out of this world."

My voice trembled slightly, but I refused to look away. "I just like you, Kael Dreven." The words felt heavy in my chest. "I’ve always told you that I’m ready to do anything if it means I can be with you. I’ve told you that again and again!"

Kael stared at me and for several seconds, he said nothing. His eyes didn’t soften, they didn’t harden either. They simply remained fixed on mine. "Well, I know you can do anything to be with me," he finally replied.

Something about his calm tone made me uneasy. He looked straight into my eyes as if he were searching for something hidden behind them and that terrified me.

"Otherwise, why would anyone agree to all those ridiculous demands I put forward?" He calmly moved me aside with one hand before turning back toward the stove.

The casualness of the movement only made the conversation feel stranger. He switched the stove off and began serving the food onto plates.

I remained standing where he had left me, watching him in silence. Why did it feel as though I was missing something? Why did every answer I gave seem to create another question in his mind?

Kael picked up one of the plates. Then, without even looking at me, he said, "I’m just waiting for the news of you being pregnant now."

I froze, for a single moment, I couldn’t even process what I had heard. My mind went completely silent.

Kael looked up at me and held out the plate filled with food. "Exactly what this agreement requires you to do, right?"

"Ye... yes." The word came out as a stutter. I quickly took the plate from his hand, but my eyes never left his face. I searched his expression for something, anything that could tell me whether he was simply stating the terms of our agreement or whether there was some hidden meaning behind his words. His face just remained completely emotionless.

"I am also waiting for that," I added quickly.

The moment the words left my mouth, Kael’s brows lifted slightly. "How are you waiting for it?"

I frowned while looking at him. "What do you mean?"

He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he turned and walked toward the dining table, carrying his own plate as though we hadn’t just been discussing something that had left my thoughts in complete disarray.

I followed him. My mind was still trying to understand his question. How was I waiting for it? What kind of question was that? I reached the table and took the seat opposite him, placing my plate in front of me.

"Why wouldn’t I be waiting for it?" I asked, trying to make my voice sound as natural as possible. "Me getting pregnant means I will have a child."

Kael stopped for a moment. His spoon, which had been moving toward his plate, remained suspended in his hand. Then he slowly lifted his gaze toward me. "It wouldn’t be your child, though."

The words were delivered so casually that I almost wondered whether I had heard him correctly. There was no anger in his voice, no hesitation.

Not even a faint crease between his brows. He simply stated it as a fact. "You getting pregnant would literally begin a countdown toward your death, Athena."

My fingers tightened around the edge of the table. Kael continued looking directly at me. "I don’t think anyone would be waiting for something like that."

I stared at him. Shock settled over me before I could stop it. I knew, of course I knew.

I had known from the beginning what this agreement meant. I knew that having a child was never truly part of the future I imagined for myself. I knew the consequences attached to it, and I had already accepted that I would never become a mother in the way other women dreamed of becoming one.

I had made peace with that. So why did hearing Kael say it so plainly make something inside me ache? My gaze dropped toward my plate. The food in front of me suddenly looked distant and unimportant.

This shouldn’t hurt, It shouldn’t affect me. I had never entered this arrangement because I wanted a family with Kael. I had never expected him to look at me as the mother of his child. I had never even allowed myself to imagine what such a future would look like.

And yet, hearing him reduce it to something that would simply end my life made my chest feel strangely heavy. Perhaps it was because of how emotionlessly he had said it.

"Why are you getting pale all of a sudden, Athena?"

My head snapped up. Kael had placed his spoon down. He was no longer eating. His entire attention was now focused on me.

I quickly straightened myself. "I’m not."

"You are."

His answer came immediately. I looked away for a second, hoping he wouldn’t notice the uncertainty written across my face. But Kael had already noticed. Of course he had, he noticed everything.

"You remember that you agreed to all of this yourself, right?" he asked. "The child you would give birth to would have only one parent."

His voice remained calm. "Me. Kael Dreven." Each word seemed to settle heavily between us. "That child would have nothing to do with you. It wouldn’t be yours."

My heart gave a strange, painful pull. I knew that, I knew every part of this, I had agreed to it myself. Then why was it suddenly so difficult to hear? Why did those words feel different when they came directly from Kael?

I pressed my fingers against my palm beneath the table, trying to steady myself.

"I know." My answer came quickly. "I won’t care about all that." I forced a small nod. "The child will be just yours."

I wanted him to hear the certainty in my voice. I wanted him to understand that I hadn’t changed my mind. That I wasn’t suddenly questioning the agreement. That I was still the same person who had accepted every condition without hesitation.

But still the slight hurt inside me was not diminishing, I knew this all was just an imaginary situation that would never even happen but still I was finding it hard to listen to these words out loud.

"I know what I agreed to," I continued, trying to sound firm, and unaffected by all of this. "I knew all of this before I agreed. I’m not going to suddenly complain about it now."