Chapter 21 - Sera
A knock at the door comes mid-afternoon, a few days later, sharp and impatient like whoever’s behind the door can’t wait.
Luke sighs and gets up from his place on the couch, leaving his paperback behind. “If that’s Dominic again, so help me…”
Before he can reach for the handle, Eve’s voice travels through the wood. “Not Dominic.”
Once the door is pushed open, she strolls in, and Isaac follows closely behind while carrying a brown bag that smells suspiciously sugary.
“Never thought I’d live to see my brother become a hermit,” he says with a grin.
Luke exhales slowly, but the faint twitch of his lips betrays him. “We’re not hermits, we live here.”
“You haven’t come by the house in a few days. Dad’s brooding harder than usual,” Isaac continues as he drops himself into one of the armchairs casually.
“And he’s overcompensating by spending more time at the wharf,” Eve adds. “Like that will bring the tourist crowd around faster.”
“Good,” Luke says, despite the way his jaw tightens. “It wouldn’t be the first time he paid more attention to his businesses than anything, or anyone, else.”
The words sound far more loaded than I have context for, and given how both of his siblings vaguely wince at the mention, I know there’s something else to it.
Eve takes a breath and rolls her eyes, breaking the brief but mutual discomfort. “See? You’re brooding too. We can’t have that,” she says, smile brightening as she looks between us. “Which is why we’ve decided to hang out here instead. You’re welcome.”
Luke lifts his brows. “You decided?”
“Yes,” she confirms cheerfully with the kind of knowing smugness I imagine only a sister could ever get away with as she slips her shoes off and makes herself at home next to me.
She gestures vaguely to Isaac, who lightly waves the bag around before setting it on the coffee table. “And we brought bribes.”
“Always invading my house…” Luke mutters under his breath, lacking any real heat as he gives Isaac’s shoulder a halfhearted shove in passing, to which his brother only laughs.
Eve grabs a pastry and makes a deliberate show of inspecting the living room. “You rearranged.”
Luke scoffs dryly. “I moved a chair.”
“How very Alpha of you.”
He pauses, giving her an incredulous look before he laughs. It leaves him unfiltered, and his entire face lights up in surprised humor. “Shut up.”
Even when I don’t mean to, I find myself staring at him.
“You should really consider kicking your buddies out of town, you know,” Isaac muses while lounging comfortably. “All of our women are breaking their necks to take second glances at them.”
Luke snorts to himself. “You sound a little insecure.”
He receives an unimpressed glare in response. “I’m perfectly secure, but when they start walking around looking like literal tanks with military experience, it makes a guy question himself.”
Eve waves the notion off. “Just let Dominic open his mouth, and they’ll change their minds real quick.”
They easily break into laughter again, with Luke taking special joy in his friend being read so easily, and it’s hard to miss just how different this side of him is.
Here, he’s not just the Alpha or a protective mate. With his siblings, he gets to be a brother without any other pressure on his shoulders. Instead, he can be normal, and regardless of being the oldest, he isn’t safe from being teased or argued with.
Something about the way they interact with each other is so natural and lived-in, and while I knew he was close with them before, it feels different to witness it for myself in such a relaxed setting.
They talk as easily as anything, and when Isaac reaches for the last pastry, Luke smacks his hand away. A moment later, he slides it in his direction anyway with an amused smirk.
He cares deeply about them, and it’s so obvious in the way he listens to them, how he responds to them thoughtfully, even when they’re just messing around.
While I watch them, something unfamiliar makes my chest tighten, knowing I’ve never had anything like this. Without any siblings that I know of, I’ve only ever been at it alone. I never had friends who could fill that place either.
There’s something painfully beautiful in this loud yet affectionate dynamic, and after a moment, Eve glances at me with a small smile.
Then, she gets up and offers me a hand before guiding me up from my seat and looping her arm through mine. She pulls me in the direction of the patio door. “See? He’s not always a grumpy tyrant.”
“I’m not a tyrant,” Luke calls, waiting a beat before he follows.
Isaac pushes past him with a boyish laugh. “When food is involved? You definitely are.”
Unable to help it, I hum my amusement while I’m whisked out of the house and led to the back deck overlooking the yard and into the surrounding woods.
The lounging continues outside for a while, with Eve and me sitting in the sun while Isaac ropes Luke into throwing a football between them. He falls into it like a standard routine, looking every part the older brother.
As much as I want to pretend I’m completely unbothered by the sight, it’s getting harder to hate him.
Between the way he makes them completely safe and comfortable enough to joke around harmlessly like it’s second nature, and how gentle he has been with me, I don’t know how much longer I can keep these walls up.
He’s trying, and given how dedicated he is to everyone in his life, I can tell he just wants to hold it all together. I have the feeling that has been the case for a long time.
After a natural lull in conversation, Isaac murmurs to Luke as he tosses the ball, “There’s still some talk happening…after the festival.”
Even if the conversation is meant to be between them, they’re not far enough away for the words to slip past me. My shoulders stiffen.
I catch as Luke’s expression shifts. “What kind of talk?”
“The usual,” Isaac responds carefully. “Some think their fears are vindicated, the others think the opposite.”
“That she saved them,” Eve interjects.
“Yeah. But you know how it is. Fear sticks a little longer than gratitude.”
Luke’s jaw tightens, and he pulls in a slow breath. “I told them that’s over.”
“And most listened,” Isaac says, attempting to reassure him. “But not all.”
The mood change is unmistakable, forcing that familiar weight to settle in my chest again.
Even with Jonah’s defense and Luke’s assertion, some are still whispering. Still doubting me and my intentions.
Eve squeezes my arm gently before I can get too lost in thought, quietly reassuring me.
Luke glances at me, his expression a little more tense than it had been, then he looks at Isaac again. “If you hear anything else, tell me who said it and they’ll hear from me directly.”
While the doubt doesn’t leave me entirely, something in me warms at that…at knowing he won’t let it slide.
Soon enough, the conversation slips back into something lighter, and by the time the sun starts to sink lower, a strange feeling moves through me. It isn’t as sharp or draining like after the festival, but it’s just off somehow.
I’ve been chalking the subtle but persistent nausea up to my body being exhausted from the exertion, but it’s been several days now. I should be getting better, not feeling stagnant.
“You look pale,” Eve says gently, expression littered with concern now. “Feeling okay?”
I nod, but even the simple movement turns my stomach. “I’m fine.”
“You look a little too tough to be fine,” she murmurs, inspecting me closer than I’d currently like.
“I’ve just been tired.”
“How long?”
I pull in a breath and absently rub at my forearm. “A few days.”
She tilts her head slightly, like she might be onto something. “Have you been dizzy?”
Hesitating, I nod.
Eve’s brows go up then, and she shuffles a little closer, keeping her voice down now despite how Luke and Isaac had slipped inside not long ago to grab drinks. “When was your last period?”
The question hits me so hard that my mind goes blank, and I can only blink at her. “What?”
“Just humor me.”
I do the math in my head automatically, thinking back as well as I can. When I come up short, I do it again, then a third time, but slower.
My heart clenches as I look at Eve like the ground has been pulled out from under me. “That can’t be right.”
Caution, and something a little more intuitive, reflects in her eyes, and she softens her tone. “It’s possible. You should take a test.”
The suggestion almost burns me from the inside out, and while I want to think it’s impossible, I know it isn’t.
With the bond and all the nights we stopped pretending we didn’t want each other, we haven’t exactly been careful. We’ve been the opposite.
The thought alone feels far too heavy right now. Too irreversible and massive for everything going on.
“I don’t know if I can…”
I trail off, not knowing what words are even leaving me.
I could be pregnant.
The words sound so loud in my head as that tether in my chest pulls so tight it almost hurts, bright with immediate panic.
In seconds, the patio door slides open, and Luke is there, scanning both of us with surprise scattered across his features.
The bond link. Shit.
“I…heard that,” he murmurs, still stunned as he stares at me. Something almost hopeful gleams in his eyes, but he pushes it down and takes a breath. “We’ll find out.”
Whether I like it or not, we certainly will.
***
The test sits on the bathroom counter like something so dangerous I can’t even bring myself to look at it.
After following the instructions with shaking hands, I wait in the far corner of the room while Luke stands nearby. Through the bond, I can feel his tangled web of emotions coursing between nervousness, keen alertness, and his attempt at restraint to keep from overwhelming me.
Those few minutes stretch to an almost painful degree, and when I finally must muster the courage to reach for the test again, I freeze. The breath leaves my lungs in a rush.
Positive.
That single word blurs as the reality hits me at once, vision swimming.
Luke’s arms brace me as he comes up from behind, peering over my shoulder. Even his breath catches.
I’m pregnant. With a child, our child.
I feel numb all over as too many thoughts demand my attention at once, scratching at my brain while I struggle to keep myself standing.
Am I even capable of this? I’ve spent so much of my life just surviving and bracing myself for the worst. I don’t know if I can even nurture something so fragile and innocent.
I don’t know how to be the kind of mother I never had.
But even in that utter disbelief, a small, quiet bloom of longing and possibility grows beneath it.
“Sera,” Luke says quietly, hands moving to my waist as he carefully turns me around to face him. His eyes are soft the moment they lock onto mine, and he cups my face like I’m something precious. A gentle, incredulous laugh leaves him while his thumbs brush against my cheeks. “You’re pregnant…”
His joy is immediate and unfiltered, and it crashes into me through the bond like something weightless and bright.
I blink back at him, stunned in more ways than one.
“You aren’t…worried?”
“Maybe a little, but not in a bad way,” he says, smiling. “I don’t even have the right words for it.”
When I don’t respond, Luke studies me closely, then, as if correcting himself, he sets the excitement aside to check in. “Are you okay?”
I swallow hard. “I don’t know, but I’m scared.”
Vulnerability slips through the cracks as he nods, honest and more helpful than blind confidence. “So am I.”
“I don’t know if I’ll be good at this,” I admit, feeling as tears sting at the corner of my eyes.
His thumbs pass over my skin again in a soothing motion, expression open and empathetic. “We’ll learn together.”
Closing my eyes, I let the reassurance settle in as deeply as it will go, unsure if I can truly believe that. I spent so long on my own, I don’t know how to let someone in completely.
“You’re carrying our child,” Luke says quietly, pressing his forehead against mine. “This is a good thing, no matter what anyone says. This is ours.”
His confidence wraps around me, and while the fear and uncertainty don’t vanish, it doesn’t feel quite so heavy.
The light brush of his lips against my forehead soothes me more than I ever thought possible.
“We’ve got this.”