Chapter 1254: Awaited Moment: "I am Pregnant!"

She had something to tell him.

Phei knew something was off long before she finally found the courage to speak it in the way her fingers kept worrying the edge of the blanket between them, smoothing the same fold and then ruining it again, in the little breaths she drew as though rehearsing words somewhere behind her lips, and the strange happiness she kept trying to hide whenever she thought he was looking elsewhere.

They had been sitting beneath the ancient tree for nearly an hour, wrapped together inside the great hanging bed suspended from one of its immense branches. Thick ropes rose into the darkness overhead, draped in tiny golden lights, while pale curtains descended around the circular bed and moved gently whenever the sea breeze climbed the cliff.

Lanterns had been placed among the roots and along the stone nearby, their flames casting a warm amber glow across blankets, pillows and skin while leaving the world beyond their little sanctuary gloriously dark.

Far below them, the ocean stretched toward an unseen horizon.

Paradise curved along the distant coast in rivers of gold. Roads wound around mountains and vanished behind black silhouettes of forest, while villas and towers glittered against the shoreline like scattered jewels. The lake caught those lights and broke them into trembling reflections, long streaks of gold spilling across water so dark it might have gone on forever.

Above them, however, the heavens had decided to show off.

There were so many stars that Phei had stopped trying to distinguish constellations... it was so beautiful... the Milky Way stretched across the night in an enormous celestial river, pale white at its heart and softened at the edges by faint violet and blue, while countless smaller stars crowded around it until scarcely any part of the sky seemed truly empty.

Every now and then a thin streak of light crossed the darkness and vanished before either of them could point it out.

Melissa’s back rested against his bare chest beneath the blanket, one of his arms wrapped comfortably around her waist while the other lay beside them. Every few minutes Phei would lower his head and kiss her without thinking about it, sometimes against her hair, sometimes her temple, once against the soft curve of her cheek when she turned to look at the sea.

Usually those little kisses earned him something, a smile, a playful elbow.

Tonight they seemed to make her more emotional.

Her fingers were trembling as they led his.

"What is it?" he asked softly, tightening the arm around her waist as he leaned enough to see her face. The question carried none of his usual teasing now, and when she answered far too quickly with a quiet, "Nothing," Phei studied her for another second before the faintest smile touched his mouth:"You know you’re terrible at lying to me when you’re nervous, right?"

Her lips curved, but the smile did not survive very long. She looked toward the sea again, swallowed once and drew another careful breath, and Phei felt the tension move through her body where she rested against him.

That was enough to kill the last of his amusement.

"Hey." Phei shifted them gently until she could turn within his arms. One hand came up to her cheek, his thumb brushing beneath her eye as he searched her expression. "Look at me. Whatever it is, you can tell me."

She finally faced him fully.

The lanternlight made everything on her face impossible to hide.

Her eyes were shining... there was nervousness there, enough to make her lower lip tremble whenever she forgot to hold it still, but underneath it lived a happiness so enormous that Phei found himself confused by the combination.

She looked frightened and delighted at the same time, overwhelmed by something she wanted desperately to tell him and equally terrified of what the telling would do.

Phei’s own heartbeat started speeding up and almost made her laugh.

Instead, she lowered her eyes toward their hands and whispered, "I have something to tell you."

Phei’s brows lifted slightly.

He tried for a reassuring smile, but some strange instinct had already tightened beneath his ribs. "Okay. You’ve successfully terrified me with six words two times now, so you might as well finish the job."

That did make her smile.

For a second but she inhaled, opened her mouth and stopped.

She tried again.

His patience did nothing to calm his heart because he could feel hers now, racing beneath the quiet of the night, and the fact that she had gone this nervous over something she insisted was not bad began sending his thoughts into increasingly ridiculous directions.

"What happened?" he asked when she hesitated again, his hand closing more firmly around hers. "And before you say nothing, that excuse already failed once."

"Nothing happened," she said quickly, lifting her eyes to his. Seeing immediate worry in his face made her rush the rest. "Nothing bad happened. I promise. I’m okay."

Phei visibly relaxed, although only a little.

She shifted until she was sitting fully toward him, one leg folded beneath herself on the hanging bed while the other disappeared beneath the blanket. Without explaining, she reached for his hand again but this time her fingers wrapped around his palm with much more tenderness then before.

Slowly, almost shyly, she brought his hand toward herself and pressed it flat against her stomach.

Phei looked where palm rested over warmth.

For several seconds, he understood absolutely nothing.

He raised his eyes again, brows drawing together slightly as if he expected her expression to provide whatever answer his mind had somehow failed to find. She was crying now, though only barely, the first tears gathering along her lashes while her smile trembled harder.

"Phei..." she whispered.

Something inside him moved. ℯℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

It happened before thought as his heart missed a beat so violently that he actually felt the empty space it left behind... his eyes dropped toward his hand again.

A possibility appeared inside his mind.

Too enormous.

Too beautiful.

Too impossible to trust without hearing it himself.

He looked back at her, and she saw the exact second he began understanding. His eyes widened by the smallest amount, his lips parting as if a question had reached them and then forgotten how language worked.

She covered his hand with hers.

"I’m pregnant."

Phei stopped breathing...

...everything else continued:

The curtains still moved around them; lantern flames still trembled inside their glass, the old tree shifted faintly overhead as wind passed through thousands of leaves, and the sea continued throwing itself against the cliffs far beneath them... somewhere along the coast, lights moved along a road.

Somewhere in the black sky, another star fell.

Phei heard none of it.

For several seconds there was only the warmth beneath his palm.

His expression had gone completely empty, yet she could see too much happening beneath that emptiness where shock struck first, then disbelief and something so vulnerable that her own chest tightened painfully just watching it pass through him.

"Phei?" she whispered, squeezing his fingers.

His eyes lowered; but her stomach looked exactly as it had minutes ago.

There was no roundness yet, or movement beneath his hand even tiny heartbeat he could hear through skin and warmth.

And still, everything had changed.

’T-there is someone there? A life and m-mine!’

His breath finally escaped in a soft, broken exhale.

"My..." He stopped, swallowed and tried again, but whatever word he had wanted seemed too large to pass through his throat.

She smiled through her tears and pressed his hand more securely against herself:

"Your baby."

Phei looked up so quickly that she nearly laughed through the emotion.

"My baby?" he asked, and the disbelief on his face made the question sound almost childlike. He searched her eyes as though some foolish part of him still needed another confirmation before allowing the joy inside him to become real.

Her smile finally broke fully: "Our baby."

Something inside Phei seemed to open all at once.

His face changed so completely that she would remember it for the rest of her life. His eyes filled first, amethyst becoming glassy beneath the lanternlight, while his mouth curved into the beginning of a smile that could not seem to decide whether it wanted to become laughter or collapse under the weight of everything he was feeling.

He looked back down at her stomach.

A tremor passed through his fingers.

’I made a life!’

The thought arrived with such simple force that Phei almost physically recoiled from it.

A life... he had created a life.

Him?

Phei Ryujin Tiamat.

The seventeen-year-old idiot who could barely go several days without provoking something stronger than himself, whose existence had become tangled with monsters, gods, forgotten bloodlines, impossible powers he still did not fully understand, had somehow done something infinitely more frightening than all of it.

He had made someone!

A new person existed because of h—

’Because of us!’

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A/N:This pregnancy arc is going to run a little longer than usual, and no, I’m not sorry. I’ve spent days rewriting AND REWORKING the whole arc like a lunatic because I’ve waited way too long for this moment and along the way lost all ability to behave normally once I finally reached it. So yes, I probably overdid it. Sue me, but preferably after you finish the arc.

For now, sit down, accept the emotional damage, and enjoy the extra Chapters.