Lyra's POV
Three weeks after Kael left my room, I didn't catch even the faintest glimpse of him around the palace. It was almost like he didn't live here again, in his own palace.
I strolled down the corridor today, my eyes darting eagerly everywhere in search of him, the warm glow of the morning sun stealing into the manor through the open windows.
I scanned the long stretch of stone walls, and instead of him, all I saw were the guards patrolling.
I didn't wait to watch them bow for me, as I turned sharply into the next corridor, my dress in my trembling hands so the flowery hem wouldn't sweep the floor. I knew he was deliberately avoiding me, just as I also know he doesn't leave for work until nine.
I glanced down at my wrist watch again... it was just eight thirty. Then why didn't I find him in his room or anywhere else in the house? Just where was he? I had intentionally skipped my college classes today so we could confirm this suspicion together. My fingers squeezed hard at the pregnancy test stick.
While I could tell that the spate of nausea I had been having for a week, the unusual loss of appetite, all meant something, I still wanted to confirm it with him. I wanted to see the look on his face when he realized I was carrying his baby. Maybe this time, he would finally stop looking at me like the little girl he raised... and start seeing me as his wife.
I was running down the twisting stairs when I felt that familiar rumble again in my stomach. My eyes swirled in my head, and I broke fast to a halt, grabbing onto the balustrade for support.
"My Queen," I heard, Alice, the head maid scream. "What's wrong?"
There was the totter of her shoes on the stone stairs, and then her large arms looped around my shoulders. I blinked back the dizziness, and then my eyes fell on her worried face.
"What happened, my Queen. You scared me. You suddenly stopped," she inquired, voice tight. Concern furrowed her brows.
"Nothing wrong," I made her my warmest smile to ease her worry, and I hid the pregnancy kit before she could tell what it was. "I was just looking for my husband, Alpha King Kael. Have you seen him around?"
Her gaze eventually calmed. "He is away, my Queen. He left very early this morning. He had an important visitor."
My breakfast suddenly turned greasy in my stomach. "He's truly gone," I repeated, though everything so far already confirmed it.
Headmaid Alice nodded gently. "Yes, he's gone, and he asked me to take care of you and see to all your needs."
I hated that Kael loved to put me in her care like I was some little kid that constantly needed Adult supervision. I was twenty, damn it, I was an adult.
"I am fine, Alice. I will call you when I need your help." I pushed her away with a faux smile, and I turned up the stairs, hurrying back to my room.
I rubbed my palm over my stomach, and I smiled secretly at myself. "You are going to change everything, my child," I muttered under my breath, "You are going to bring mummy and Daddy together."
I pushed the door to my room and crossed fast to the toilet. Since Kael wasn't around, I would take the test, then go find him in his office and show him the proof of our child.
I shut the bathroom door and leaned against it for a long moment. Then, with a hard sigh, I readied myself for what I was about to do.
I repeated the instructions under my breath as I fetched a transparent cup by the sink and peed into it.
Then I took off the cap from the stick and dipped it into the urine. My pulse thudded loudly in my ears as I counted in my head... one... two... three... three minutes, just as the instructions had specified.
I pulled the stick away and replaced the cap before setting it carefully on the marble sink.
Then I stared at it.
The tiny result window was blank. The instructions said to wait three minutes.
I clasped my hands together, my nails digging into my palms, and I watched the test as if it might explode.
Seconds crawled by. Then slowly… a thin pink line appeared in the window.
My heart hammered harder as I waited, palms clammy. And then—a second line slowly began to form beside the first.
I stared at it, unable to breathe. My knees weakened. I grabbed the edge of the sink to steady myself.
My shaky hand moved slowly to my stomach, and I stared at my own excitement in the mirror, the smile on my eyes and lips growing wild.
"Finally, I am pregnant…" I breathed a hard sigh. "Finally, I am with Kael's heir."
I had to tell him. In the fit of excitement, I snatched the test stick, and I dashed out of the room like I was being chased. I stumbled into the corridor, upsetting the silence in the whole manor.
The guards spun fast to me. Their confused faces were trying to make out my excitement, but I didn't stay much for their scrutiny. I sauntered down the stairs, grabbing my dress up, so I wouldn't trip on the excess fabric of the pleats.
"My Queen. Where are you going?" Headmaid Alice chimed behind me, but I was so deafened by excitement that I didn't hear a word, and I just kept running.
I snatched a key in the garage and jumped into the car it unlocked. I was making a reverse into the driveway when she pulled up before the window, her large chest heaving, nostrils in the air.
For a moment, her face strung tight like a stern mother's, but it quickly calmed.
Though I was the Luna Queen, I was to everyone here, a child, one they'd watched grow up, and yet, forgotten that I did just that "Grow up."
"Where are you going, my queen?" She muttered in cracks through raspy breath, a hand on her chest to guide her breath.
"To see my husband." I answered. I pushed the test stick to the back of the wheel so she wouldn't see it.
It was Kael first, and then, I'll tell everyone else.
"But..." She drawled, a strange sort of panic crawling into her expression. "The Alpha King requested you stay away from his office for the day. He is with an important visitor--"
"Then the more the merrier," I chuckled. I shook off her gloom before it infected my excitement.
While her brows pulled, trying to grasp what I meant, I pulled back, reversed, accelerated, and booted myself down the driveway.
"Wait, my Queen. You shouldn't..." she yelled behind me, while the distance ate up her words.
In less than twenty minutes, I was already easing the car into a parking spot in the underground parking lot at Kael's office. I ran into the building and into the private elevator that would take me directly to Kael's office, ignoring the deltas patrolling the lobby.
They must have informed her of my arrival because the instant I stepped out of the elevator, Selene, Kael's secretary, an elegant redhead in a crisp business suit, charged instantly at me.
"You can't go in, Luna Queen." She said to me as usual, her arms outstretched, blocking off my path, knowing quite well the mischief I was capable of if I wanted to.
She was always my biggest obstacle to seeing Kael whenever I came to find him in the office. But not today. Today, no one was stopping me.
"You cannot come in, Luna Queen." She said, there was a strange panic to her voice now, nearly similar to the one I had seen on Headmaid Alice's face.
I ignored it. My only concern was getting past her. I stared at her across the long corridor while I took off my shoes and dragged my dress up.
I grinned as I hoofed like a horse about to run. She widened her arms, watching me closely, her eyes like a hawk's.
I ran fast across the corridor to her, and at the last minute, I made a quick feint for her right. When she moved for me, I doubled back with every strength in my legs for my right, and I successfully slipped past her.
"Got you this time, Selene." I grinned before turning fast for the door to Kael's office, ignoring her loud and panicked yells for me to stop.
I pushed the door and stumbled in. My smile faded. My heartbeat crashed to a furious, painful stop. I froze at the doorway, watching as Kael broke away from her lips. Tara adjusted herself on the large office desk to turn to me.
Kael cleaned away her lip gloss with his sleeves, as if that was enough to erase what they'd been doing.
"I am sorry, Lyra. This isn't exactly what it looks like." He said in a strangled voice. But it sounded distant to me. All I could concentrate on was the tentative smile tugging at the corners of Tara's lips.
Seeing her again, after four years, had tears pushing against my eyelids, stinging so bad that it was painful. As painful as the cruel twist of my heart at what I'd just witnessed. She was everything I could never be to him, his first love, his age mate, and not a continuous reminder of his guilt.
But he'd promised she was gone entirely from our lives after our marriage. He'd promised I would never see her again. He'd promised...
The tears finally spilled down my cheeks before I could stop them. The doorknob stung coldly against my palm, as the pregnancy test stick seared the other.
"I am sorry for disturbing your precious time together," I whispered, and with shaking hands, I shut the door slowly after me.
"No, wait, Lyra." He yelled. "I promise you I can explain what happened." He ran quickly towards me.
But there was nothing on his face but panic and guilt. He wasn't concerned about a wife who caught him cheating with his ex; rather, he was only concerned about his friend's daughter's hurt feelings. And as much as I have come to know him, those were two different things.
He was halfway to the door when a painful wail split the room.
"Kael." She moaned with faux agony, holding her ankle like it was really bruised.
While I saw through the cheap act, he didn't. He stopped in his run for me and spun back immediately for her.
Each step he took back to her ripped mercilessly at the shattered mess in my chest.
I hated to see him run to me like a helpless father trying to calm his daughter's tantrums. Yet, now, as I watched him squat, checking out her ankle for a bruise, I wished he'd kept running to me. I wished he had chosen me.
Moisture blurred my vision, and I slipped quietly from the office, the pregnancy test strangely heavy in my hands, like an extra burden.