Chapter 244 - 0244

Lorelei POV

"When was the last time you had your menstrual cycle?"

My brows pulled together in confusion. "What? Why is that..."

The words caught in my throat as the question finally sank in, and my mind started putting the pieces together.

Wait.

My period?

"I was late last month," I admitted slowly, my voice dropping to a whisper. "But I thought it was just stress. You know, with Skye being poisoned and everything else that’s been happening..."

I trailed off again.

My heart suddenly started pounding against my ribs as I watched Kaelen’s expression soften even more. The worry that had been sitting heavily in his eyes was slowly replaced by something else. Something almost impossible to miss.

Hope.

The corners of his lips lifted into a small, barely contained smile, and his fingers tightened around mine.

"Could it be?" he asked, his voice low, almost breathless. "Could you be pregnant?"

A soft gasp escaped me, and my eyes widened as my free hand instinctively went to my stomach. It was still flat, still completely ordinary beneath my palm, but suddenly, it didn’t feel ordinary anymore.

Because what if there was something growing inside me?

Someone.

"Our healer thinks it’s possible," Kaelen continued carefully, like he was afraid one wrong word might shatter the moment. Even so, he couldn’t completely hide the hope in his voice. "There was no poison in your system. You don’t have a fever, and your vital signs are stable. After ruling out the other possible causes..."

He paused, swallowing hard as his amber eyes searched my face.

"It’s the most likely explanation."

I could only stare at him. For a few seconds, I couldn’t even remember how to breathe.

Pregnant.

I might be pregnant.

With Kaelen’s child.

The thought was so huge that my mind couldn’t seem to hold it all at once. I didn’t know whether I wanted to laugh, cry, scream, or simply stare at Kaelen until the words somehow became real.

A thousand emotions crashed through me at once. Joy came first, bright and almost frightening in its intensity, followed by disbelief, then fear, then a fragile kind of hope that made my chest ache.

They all tangled together until I couldn’t tell where one feeling ended and another began.

And beneath all of it was one thought I couldn’t stop myself from having.

There might be a little piece of Kaelen and me growing inside me.

"We don’t know for sure yet," Kaelen added quickly, almost as if he could see my thoughts spiraling out of control. "The blood test results from the lab will confirm it."

Even with those words, there was something in his eyes that gave him away. The warmth there was impossible to miss, and for some reason, it made my heart beat even faster.

Kaelen already believed it.

He was trying not to get his hopes up before we had an actual answer, but I could see how badly he wanted it to be true.

I took a slow breath, then another, trying to calm myself as my trembling hands settled against my stomach. I looked down at my still-flat belly, silently praying that this wasn’t just some wild misunderstanding.

Please let it be true.

After everything that had happened, after all the fear and chaos we’d been through, I wanted this one good thing so badly.

For the rest of the morning, Kaelen barely left my side. He helped me wash up and even helped me change into a simple, soft dress. I kept telling him that I was fine and could handle those things myself, but he refused to listen.

He canceled every meeting he had scheduled for the day and ignored the mountain of documents waiting for him in his office just to stay with me.

At one point, he was even feeding me breakfast himself.

I was still trying to get used to how ridiculously attentive he had become when a sharp knock suddenly sounded against the door.

"Alpha," Paul’s voice came from the other side. "The healer is here."

Immediately, Kaelen stiffened. The spoon in his hand stopped just inches from my lips, and for a second, the entire room seemed to go still.

"Come in," he ordered.

The heavy door opened, and the healer stepped inside.

Kaelen resumed feeding me, but the tension rolling off him was impossible to ignore. I could feel it in the way his shoulders remained rigid, in the tightness of his jaw, in the way his eyes never left the healer for more than a second.

I nervously fidgeted with the sheet covering my legs, my heart pounding harder with every second the healer remained silent.

He had barely taken two steps into the room when Kaelen finally snapped.

"What did the results say?"

The authority in his voice was enough to make the healer slow down.

The door clicked shut behind him, and when I looked at the man, I noticed the way he kept his head slightly lowered. He hesitated before answering, his expression unusually serious.

That tiny hesitation was enough to send my pulse racing.

Something was wrong, and Kaelen seemed to sense my panic getting worse. He placed the bowl of porridge on the nightstand and reached for my hand instead, threading his fingers through mine before turning his full attention back to the healer.

The healer lowered his head even further, almost bending in half as he bowed. "I’m so sorry, Alpha..."

Those words sent an icy chill straight through me, and it only got worse when I felt Kaelen’s grip on my hand loosen slightly.

"The Luna isn’t pregnant," the healer finally said quietly.

Beside me, Kaelen sucked in a sharp breath.

I watched his expression fall right in front of me. The warmth that had filled his amber eyes only moments ago slowly disappeared, the hope there crumbling until there was nothing left but something painfully empty, causing my own heart to sink.

"But you said..." Kaelen’s voice came out rough, strained in a way I’d never heard before.

"I was wrong," the healer quickly explained. "Her initial symptoms were very similar to those of pregnant she-wolves, and with the supplements she’s been taking, there was a high chance she could have been expecting. But the lab results are clear. She’s not pregnant."