Chapter 28 Caelan
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Caelan
I was losing my mind.
I’d been pacing outside the healer’s quarters for what felt like hours, my wolf clawing at the edges of my control, desperate to get to our mate. To explain, to fix whatever the hell just happened.
My boots wore a path in the stone floor. Back and forth. Back and forth. Every time I approached the door, the memory of Riley’s face stopped me cold.
I almost lost my shit when I saw her fall.
One moment she was running, running from me with terror in her eyes and tears streaming down her face. And the next she was crumpling to the ground, her legs giving out beneath her. Every instinct screamed at me to catch her, to hold her, to tear apart anyone who came near.
But Thessa got there first.
And the look on Riley’s face when she saw me approaching.
.. pure, devastating rage. It stopped me cold.
My wolf whined inside my skull, desperate to reach our mate, and I had to physically force myself to back off.
To keep my distance and let Thessa handle it because my presence was only making things worse.
But I couldn’t take it anymore.
The bond was screaming at me. I could feel Riley’s emotions tearing through my chest: pain, betrayal, heartbreak, confusion. She thought I cheated on her. She thought I’d been lying to her this whole time.
She thought I was with Vix.
The thought made me want to vomit. Or kill Vix. Preferably kill Vix.
How could Riley think that? How could she believe for one second that I would ever, ever want anyone but her? She was my mate, the woman I’d waited my whole life for, the woman my wolf recognized the moment we saw her.
And she thought I was fucking Vix.
I was about to barge through the healer’s door, propriety be damned, I needed to see my mate, when I heard it.
I heard the healer’s voice, absurdly cheerful given the circumstances.
“Congratulations! You’re about ten weeks pregnant.”
I froze. My wolf went completely still.
And then he was howling, pure primal overwhelming joy erupting inside my skull. Celebrating, exalting, because our mate was carrying our pup. Our child. A piece of us both, growing inside her.
Ten weeks. That meant it happened during the claiming, during those first perfect days together, before the war, before everything went wrong. When we couldn’t keep our hands off each other, when every touch was perfect, when I thought my life couldn’t possibly get any better.
It had gotten better. So much better.
I was going to be a father.
The door slammed open under my hands. I didn’t remember deciding to push it. My body moved on instinct, propelling me into the room.
“WHAT?!” I shouted. Then, softer, barely a whisper: “What did she say? We... we’re going to have a pup?”
Very princely and composed. Years of royal training, and I burst into a room shouting at the top of my lungs.
Riley was on the bed. Thessa was beside her, holding her hand. The healer was standing nearby, her cheerful expression faltering as she took in the chaos.
And Riley...
Riley wasn’t looking at me.
She’d turned her head deliberately, pointedly, so she couldn’t see me.
Her jaw was clenched. Her body was rigid.
Through the bond, I felt everything she was feeling.
The shock of the pregnancy news layered over the devastation of what she thought she witnessed.
Pain, betrayal, heartbreak, all of it crashing through me because it was crashing through her.
And underneath it all, the tiniest spark of hope that she was wrong, that there was an explanation, being systematically crushed by doubt.
The pain in my chest was unbearable.
“Riley,” I said, stepping closer. “Please. Look at me.”
She didn’t move.
“Ky.”
Thessa’s voice was firm, a warning that brooked no argument.
She rose from Riley’s bedside and crossed to me, positioning herself between me and my mate. My pregnant mate. The thought sent another surge of primal joy through my wolf, immediately crushed by the reality of the situation.
My wolf wanted to shove past Thessa. Wanted to gather Riley in our arms and never let go, explain everything, right now, this second.
But Thessa had that look in her eyes. The one that said she would fight me if she had to.
“Please,” Thessa said quietly, so only I could hear. “Just let her be. She needs calm. She needs to process things.”
“I need to explain...”
“I know. But not right now. Look at her.”
I did. Riley was curled on the bed, one hand pressed to her stomach, our child, her face turned toward the wall. She was trembling. Whether from the pregnancy shock or the emotional trauma, I couldn’t tell.
Probably both.
It was torturing me that Thessa was right. Sisters were always right at the worst possible moments.
Every fiber of my being screamed to go to Riley, to hold her, to explain everything until she understood. But forcing myself on her right now would only make things worse. I could feel it through the bond: her need for space, her inability to handle my presence.
I was causing her pain just by being in the room. The realization nearly brought me to my knees.
“Just let me tell her...” I raised my voice, speaking past Thessa. “Riley. I know what it sounded like. It’s not what you think. Please.” My voice cracked and broke. I didn’t care. “You know me.”
She didn’t answer. The silence stretched on, the longest silence of my entire life, and then so quiet I almost missed it:
“I’m not sure anymore.”
Five words that eviscerated me more thoroughly than any blade ever could.
She still wouldn’t look at me. She was giving me her back, curled away, shutting me out completely. The bond between us felt wrong, stretched, painful, and I could feel her trying to close it off, trying to block me out.
I deserved it. I didn’t deserve it. I hadn’t done anything wrong, but she didn’t know that.
“Riley...”
“Leave.” Thessa’s voice was firm now. Commanding in a way that reminded me she was a princess too. A princess who would protect her future sister-in-law even from her own brother. “I’ll stay with her. I’ll make sure she’s okay. But you need to go.”
“I can’t just...”
“You can. And you will.” Thessa’s expression softened, just slightly. “Fix whatever happened. Figure out what Vix did. And then, when you have answers, real answers, come back.”
I wanted to argue, fight. Wanted to plant myself at Riley’s bedside and refuse to move until she believed me. But the bond pulsed with her distress. Her overwhelming, desperate need for me to not be here right now. Every second I stayed was another second of pain for her.
I cursed. The word was filthy. I didn’t care.
And I left.
The hallway outside the healer’s quarters was empty. Torches lined the walls, their light unforgiving. The stone seemed to mock me. This was my castle, my home, and I felt out of place in it.
My fist connected with the stone wall before I even realized I was moving.
Pain exploded through my knuckles, but I barely felt it.
I punched again. And again. Until my skin split and blood streaked the gray stone.
Until the physical pain matched even a fraction of what was happening inside my chest.
It didn’t help. Punching walls never helped. But it was either the wall or someone’s face, and there was no one around who deserved it.
Yet.
I turned and stalked toward my office, murder in my heart. This was Vix’s doing. I knew it. The conversation she engineered, the way she positioned herself, the timing of Riley’s arrival. It was all deliberate. A trap designed to destroy my relationship with my mate.
I was going to exile her. Council member or not, political consequences be damned. She crossed a line that could not be uncrossed.
Vix wasn’t in my office.
The room was empty, dark except for the dying embers in the fireplace, the scattered papers on my desk, the chair where she’d been kneeling beside me with her hand on my thigh.
Ugh. I could still smell her perfume. It made me want to burn the chair.
I searched. Checked the council chambers, her quarters, the common areas where nobles gathered. She was gone, vanished without a trace.
Clever. She knew what was coming. Apparently even delusional stalkers had survival instincts.
I returned to my office, planning to send guards after her, when I noticed it. A note, sitting on my desk, placed precisely in the center where I couldn’t miss it. White paper, neat handwriting. Unremarkable in every way except for the words written upon it.
brEAK THE ENGAGEMENT OR SHE’LL DIE.
How dramatic. Whoever was behind this had clearly read too many novels.
But the ice flooding my veins said this wasn’t a joke. I read it again. And again. The words didn’t change. Didn’t make any more sense.
Break the engagement or she’ll die. Someone was threatening Riley.
My wolf exploded into pure, feral rage. I nearly shifted right there, bones cracking, fur trying to burst from my skin. Only years of training allowed me to force the transformation back. My hands were shaking and my vision had gone amber at the edges.
Someone was threatening my pregnant mate, and someone was going to die for it.
But first, I needed help.
I gathered my family. Not Thessa. She was with Riley, protecting her, exactly where she needed to be. But my parents, Patt, the people I trusted most in this world.
We met in my father’s private study. It was the most secure room in the castle, warded against eavesdropping, designed for conversations that could not leave its walls.
Apparently, even that wasn’t secure enough anymore. But one crisis at a time.
“What’s happened?” my father demanded. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Worse.”
I told them everything.