Chapter Thirty-eight
Jasmine
The knock on the door brought me out of sleep.
I yawned, tried to stretch, and then winced at the pain.
A man in a white coat entered, and through the gap in the door, I could see my Alphas watching, their bodies tense with a protective energy that would have made me smile if moving my face didn't hurt so much.
“Ms. Jasmine,” the doctor said, moving to pull the curtain part way around my bed. Not fully closed, probably because he'd promised to keep the door open, but enough to create some privacy. “I'm Dr. Chen. I’m glad you’re now awake.” I nodded. “I performed your surgery."
I nodded slightly, the movement sending pain radiating through my skull. The swelling around my right eye had decreased enough that I could open it somewhat now. He was young for a chief surgeon, with kind eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, pulling a rolling stool closer to the bed and sitting so we were at eye level.
“Like I got stabbed,” I said, my voice coming out rougher than I'd intended. Speaking hurt, like my throat had been scraped raw from the inside.
A small smile touched his lips. “That's accurate. I wanted to talk to you about your injuries and what to expect during recovery.” He pulled up something on the tablet he'd brought with him.
“The knife wound penetrated your abdominal wall and nicked your small intestine. We repaired the damage, and barring infection, you should heal completely.”
I listened as he explained the surgical procedure, the internal sutures that would dissolve on their own, and the external stitches that would need to be removed in about two weeks.
He talked about physical therapy to rebuild strength, about watching for signs of infection, and about the timeline for returning to normal activities.
“You lost a significant amount of blood,” he continued. “We gave you a transfusion during the surgery. But you'll need to take iron supplements for a while.” He looked down at his tablet and tapped away at it. “Although looking at the most recent tests, your blood count is already improving.”
His clinical recitation of my injuries should have been depressing, but instead, I felt grateful. Grateful to be alive to hear it. Grateful that my body could heal from this. Grateful that Bane hadn't succeeded in taking everything from me.
“The bruising and swelling will take time to resolve,” Dr. Chen said, gesturing toward my face. “Several weeks, probably. You'll need to be careful not to strain yourself while the abdominal wound heals. No heavy lifting, no strenuous activity.”
I nodded, absorbing the information, thinking about the recovery ahead. Weeks of being careful, of letting myself heal. It seemed like a small price to pay for survival.
“There is one more thing,” Dr. Chen said, and something in his tone made me focus on his face more carefully. He was smiling now, a gentle expression that didn't match the gravity of everything he'd been discussing. “You don't need to worry though. The baby is fine.”
The words hit me like a physical blow, stealing what little breath I'd managed to gather. My mind went completely blank, then started racing so fast I couldn't catch a single thought. “What?”
“The baby,” he repeated, clearly thinking I hadn't heard him. “Given the trauma and the blood loss, I wanted to make sure you knew that the fetus wasn't affected. All the vital signs are good.”
“I—” My voice failed. I tried again, forcing words past the shock clogging my throat. “What baby?”
Understanding dawned on his face, followed quickly by concern. “You didn't know you were pregnant?”
I shook my head, the movement making the room tilt slightly. “No. I didn't—I couldn't—” Too many words tried to come out at once, tangling together into incoherence.
Dr. Chen set down his tablet and leaned forward slightly, his expression gentle.
“You're approximately three weeks along.
Very early, which is probably why you didn't know. The pregnancy test we ran before surgery came back positive, and we did an ultrasound to make sure everything was viable, given the trauma. The fetus is developing normally. Your hormone levels are good.”
Three weeks. I counted backward, my mind struggling to process through the shock and pain medication. Three weeks ago, during my heat. When all three of them had helped me, had taken care of me, had filled me over and over until the desperate need had passed.
Their baby. I was carrying their baby.
Joy exploded through my chest, bright and overwhelming and unexpected. A baby. I was pregnant with their child, and despite everything that had just happened, despite the knife wound and the blood loss and the trauma, the baby had survived. We'd both survived.
My hand moved to my abdomen without conscious thought, fingers splaying over the bandages covering my wound. Underneath the injury, underneath layers of skin and muscle, a tiny life was growing. Part of me, part of them. The family I'd never thought I could have.
Tears spilled down my cheeks, hot and unstoppable. Dr. Chen reached for the tissue box on the bedside table, but I barely noticed. I was crying and laughing simultaneously, joy and relief and overwhelming emotion making my chest feel too small to contain everything I felt.
“The baby is, okay?” I asked, needing to hear it again, needing the confirmation.
“The baby is fine,” Dr. Chen said, his smile widening at my reaction. “Pregnancies at this stage are quite resilient. The fetus is well-protected. As long as you follow recovery protocols and avoid complications, there's no reason this pregnancy shouldn't progress normally.”
Normally. A normal pregnancy. The words felt impossible after what had happened with my last pregnancy, with Bane's pack. The memory of that loss tried to surface, the blood and pain and grief, but I pushed it back down. This was different. Everything about this was different.
But then the fear crept in, cold tendrils wrapping around the joy and squeezing.
My Alphas didn't know. They'd saved me, had killed for me, and were standing guard outside my door right now.
But they didn't know I was carrying their baby.
Didn't know I might be even more of a burden than they'd signed up for.
What if they didn't want this? What if a baby was too much, too complicated, too permanent? We'd never talked about it, never discussed what we wanted beyond the immediate connection between us. Heat biology made pregnancies possible, but that didn't mean they were desired.
And what if my body failed again? What if the damage from the stabbing, the blood loss, the trauma was too much? What if I lost this baby the way I'd lost the last one, breaking their hearts the way mine had been broken?
“I’ll need to monitor you closely,” Dr. Chen was saying, and I forced myself to focus on his words. “Weekly appointments at first, then more frequently as the pregnancy progresses. We'll do ultrasounds to track development. Given what happened tonight, I want to be extra cautious.”
“Will they—” I stopped, trying to figure out how to ask. “My Alphas. Will they be able to come to the appointments?”
“Of course,” Dr. Chen said. “Most Alphas like to be involved in their Omega's pregnancy care. It's encouraged actually.”
He stood, collecting his tablet. “I'll leave you to rest and to tell them the news. Congratulations, Ms. Jasmine. Despite everything you've been through, this is something worth celebrating.”
He pulled back the curtain and moved toward the door, and I watched him leave, watched him speak briefly with my Alphas in the hallway before walking away.
Through the open door, I could see Kade, Theo, and Lucian watching me, their expressions questioning, clearly wondering what the doctor had said.
I was pregnant. Carrying their child. The knowledge sat in my chest like a warm stone, heavy and precious and terrifying all at once.
I needed to tell them. They deserved to know.
But first, I needed to let myself believe that maybe, possibly, this could be real.
That I could carry this baby to term. That we could be a family.
My hand stayed pressed against my abdomen, feeling my heartbeat pulse beneath my palm. Two hearts now, even if the second was too small to feel yet. Two lives depended on me to survive, to heal, to believe I deserved this chance.
The three of them filed back into the room the moment Dr. Chen left, moving as a unit, their combined scents filling the space with oak, leather, and rosewood.
I watched them approach my bed, saw the concern in their faces, the questions in their eyes, and felt my heart kick up with a nervousness that had nothing to do with injury.
Theo resumed his position near the door, his protective stance somehow both comforting and endearing. Kade moved to sit on the edge of my bed again, his hand finding mine immediately. Lucian stood on my other side, his fingers brushing against my arm in a touch that grounded me.
“What did the doctor say?” Kade asked, his voice carrying worry he wasn't quite hiding. “Is everything okay?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it again, suddenly unsure how to form the words. How did you tell three Alphas that they were going to be fathers? That the night they'd spent taking care of me during my heat had resulted in something permanent and precious?
My free hand moved to my abdomen again, pressing against the bandages, and I saw all three of them track the movement. Their eyes sharpened, focusing on where my hand rested, and I wondered if they could somehow sense what I was about to say.
“I'm okay,” I started, my voice still rough. “The surgery went well. Everything should heal.”
“But?” Theo prompted, reading something in my expression or my scent that told him there was more.