Chapter 6
Maeve
The flat was too small for silence.
I lay in the dark listening to three alphas breathe in a room meant for one pregnant omega and a dog with a superiority complex.
Ivan was out cold. Gregor was still by the door because apparently he planned to stand guard until he turned into part of the furniture.
And Artem was awake. I knew it without looking.
His scent was too bright, too restless. Champagne and storm-clouds that had made it hard to think since the second they walked through my door.
My body had spent nine months pretending it was coping.
Tonight it gave up.
The baby rolled, then kicked hard enough to make me suck in a breath. I pressed my hand to my stomach.
“Easy,” I whispered. “I know. Your fathers are here. You can stop throwing a party about it.”
He did not stop.
If anything, he seemed encouraged.
I closed my eyes and tried to will myself asleep, but my mind had other plans. Artem’s hand shaking when he touched my stomach earlier. Ivan looking at me like I was something he’d lost and somehow got back. Gregor, silent and immovable, as if he’d decided nobody was getting past him to reach me.
Then Prague pushed in, because of course it did. Heat. Panic and running.
I had spent months telling myself leaving had been smart.
That didn’t mean it hadn’t hurt.
The baby kicked again.
I counted in my head the way the midwife had told me to.
One. Two. Three. Four.
It helped not at all.
By two in the morning, I gave up. I pushed myself upright with a quiet curse and eased out of bed.
My back complained immediately. Fergus lifted his head from the blankets and blinked at me, then turned a suspicious stare toward Artem’s shape on the floor like he was still making up his mind whether to tolerate him or show his teeth.
Fair.
I padded to the kitchenette–all two steps of it–the floor cold under my feet. Moonlight leaked through the curtains and turned the counter silver. I filled the kettle and set it on. Tea. I needed tea. Tea was structure. It was one of the few things in life that I could do correctly.
A chair scraped behind me before the kettle had fully started to sing.
I turned.
Artem was already sitting at the tiny table, elbows on his knees, looking at me as if he’d been waiting for me to crack and get out of bed. Which, to be fair, he had.
“You’re awake,” I whispered.
“So are you.”
I snorted softly. “Thank you, Artem. I’d have missed that otherwise.”
The corner of his mouth twitched, but his eyes stayed on me. Like he was afraid if he moved wrong I’d bolt again.
I turned back to the kettle and reached for the tea bags. His hand got there first.
“I’ll do it.”
I looked over to find him holding the box like it might require formal training. “You’re going to ruin that tea.”
His brow furrowed. “It’s hot water and a tea bag.”
“That sentence alone proves you cannot be trusted.” I took the box from him. “Sit there and don’t interfere.”
He obeyed, sitting while staring at me, which somehow made me more nervous.
I dropped the tea bag into the teapot and poured the water over it.
“You have to let it steep,” I said.
He watched me. “For how long?”
“Three minutes.”
“Exactly?”
“Yes.”
“That seems aggressive and very strong.”
“It’s tea. It should be strong. Weak tea is just water.”
A soft sound left him then. Not quite a laugh, but close enough that it loosened something in my chest.
“Why did you put on an English accent?” he asked. “In Prague.”
“I like roleplay.”
One eyebrow shot up. “I’ll find out everything about you, Maeve.”
That was the problem, wasn’t it? He might.
I poured the tea. Not sure if three minutes were up.
I wrapped both hands around the mug. “You don’t have to stay up with me.”
“I know.”
“You should sleep.”
“I will when you do.”
I exhaled and leaned back against the counter. “That’s irritating.”
His gaze didn’t waver. “I know.”
The baby shifted again, a long rolling movement that made me stop mid-breath. My hand dropped to my stomach on instinct.
Artem’s eyes followed it at once. “Is he always this active at night?”
“Mostly.” I rubbed the place where a foot or elbow or tiny act of violence pressed out at me. “He likes making sure I never get too comfortable.”
A pause.
Then, careful again, “You know it’s a boy?”
I looked down into my tea. “I found out at an earlier scan.”
His hands tightened where they rested between his knees. “My father will be pleased,” he said.
“And you?” I asked.
His breath caught.
For a moment he just looked at me, and there was so much in his face it almost made me look away. Then he said, very quietly, “I’m happy I found you. And I’m happy you’re carrying our child.”
I stared at him.
“You’re not disappointed?” I asked before I could stop myself.
He frowned. “Why would I be disappointed?”
I gave a short shrug. I didn’t mean for it to sound the way it did. “Because this is a mess. It was one night and there’s no relationship, or anything–”
His expression sharpened. “Maeve.”
I looked away.
“Look at me.”
I did.
“I spent nine months thinking I had lost you before I even had the chance to know you properly.” His voice roughened. “There is nothing about anything that disappoints me.”
“Nothing?”
“We smell you, Maeve. I smell my mate, but it’s more than that. I feel you. I felt you in Prague, and I feel you now.”
His words hit me low and deep.
I took a sip of tea to hide the fact that my throat had gone tight. It was bitter. I’d left it too long.
Typical.
Artem watched me over the rim of the mug. “Why did you leave Prague?”
I closed my eyes for a second.
There it was. He felt me and I ran.
I knew he wanted to ask the question since he walked through the door.
“I was scared,” I said.
“Of us?”
“Not exactly.”
I set the mug down before I dropped it. My arms folded across my middle, more shield than comfort.
“I was scared of what this could turn into,” I said. “Of being wrong again. Of being claimed and trapped and miserable and expected to smile about it.”
His expression changed at once. Darkened.
“You had an alpha once?”
“Yes.”
Even now my shoulder seemed to remember him. I rubbed the skin there through my shirt.
“He wasn’t mine,” I said. “And I was never his. Not really. He just had me.”
Artem said nothing. So I kept going.
“He had a mistress. He made sure I knew where I stood. Every time she came to the house. Every time he looked at me like I was something inconvenient he’d stepped in.” I swallowed. “I couldn’t do that again. I couldn’t be the tolerated one. The hidden one. The omega people made excuses for.”
Artem’s jaw tightened so hard I heard his teeth click.
Still he let me speak. And that mattered more than I would have expected.
“And I left him.”
“He let you?”
Our eyes locked.
“I needed something. I went to Prague. And then I found out I was pregnant,” I said, my voice thinner now as I rushed through the events that led to this pack being in my life.
“And I thought...” I laughed once, quietly and without humor.
“Actually, I didn’t think much at all. I panicked, got on a plane, and continued my life. ”
“You wanted to do this alone?” he asked.
“Wanted is a generous word.” I rested my hand over my stomach again.
“I’m twenty-seven, Artem. Previously bonded. Pregnant. On my own. Men don’t exactly queue up for that.”
His answer came without hesitation. “We do.”
I looked up.
He was so certain it nearly undid me.
“Really?” I asked, hating how small the word sounded.
“Really.”
Silence stretched between us, but it no longer felt sharp. Just full.
The pregnancy had been lonely. Going to appointments alone. Sitting in waiting rooms alone. Feeling kicks in the middle of the night with no one there to share them with. Talking to my son because at least he was there and he was mine and he had to listen.
And now Artem was sitting in my kitchen at two in the morning, watching me like I mattered.
Not because I smelled good.
Not because instinct said so.
Because I mattered.
He stood and came around the little table. He didn’t touch me. Didn’t crowd me. He just stopped close enough that I could feel the heat of him and said, “Go back to bed. You need to rest.”
My chest tightened.
It shouldn’t have sounded so gentle in his voice. Artem was not a gentle man in any ordinary sense. But with me, with this, he kept stepping around the sharp edges as if he knew they were there.
Maybe he did.
He walked me back to the bed with one hand hovering near my back, never quite landing. It was a mess of blankets and pillows, and the room smelled so thickly of all of us it made my head spin. Champagne. Caramel. Storm-clouds. Me. Fergus. Home and not-home all at once.
Gregor was still by the door, though he was now sitting instead of standing. Progress. Ivan was sprawled on the floor with one arm over his face, sleeping like a man with no problems at all. I resented him for that.
Artem pulled the blanket back for me.
I got in with a grateful sigh I pretended not to make.
He tucked the blanket around me carefully, as if I might break if handled too roughly.
“You can sleep here,” I said, patting the mattress beside me. “In the nest.”
He hesitated.
“Ivan and Gregor...”
“Come as a pack,” I finished.
He nodded once. “They won’t leave me.”
I knew that already. I had seen it in Prague too. The three of them moved like separate men right up until it mattered, and then suddenly they were one thing.
“If they wake up they can find a space on the bed,” I said.
That finally got a real twitch at the corner of his mouth.
He lay down beside me carefully, leaving enough space between us to be respectful and not quite enough to feel distant. No arm around me. No claiming touch. No pressure. Just warmth. Presence. Him.
Us, maybe. In whatever strange shape we were becoming.
I closed my eyes.
The loneliness in me didn’t vanish, but it softened around the edges.
“Artem,” I whispered.
“Hm?”
“Thank you.”
He didn’t say anything.
But under the blanket, his hand found mine.
His fingers threaded through mine. I lifted both and rested them on my stomach.
He let out a satisfied breath.