Mated to the Alpha Emperor

Elara's POV

A month later, the cramped waiting room smelled of dried herbs and old paper.

I sat on the narrow wooden bench, clutching my stomach, willing the nausea to pass. It didn't. It rolled through me in thick, relentless waves, the way it had every morning for the past two weeks.

Brenna sat beside me, her knee pressed firmly against mine. A silent anchor.

"Breathe, Ella," she murmured. "In through the nose. Out through the mouth."

"If I open my mouth, I'm going to vomit on this man's floor."

"Then breathe through your nose only."

I pressed my lips together and squeezed my eyes shut. The bench creaked beneath me. Somewhere behind the curtain that separated the waiting area from the examination room, I could hear the shuffle of paper, the clink of glass bottles.

Ella, Moonlight whispered from deep inside me. Her voice was softer than usual. Gentler. You already know what this is.

I didn't answer her. If I didn't say it, maybe it wouldn't be real.

The curtain drew back. Doctor Morgan stood there - a weathered man with kind eyes set deep in a face carved by years of quiet service. He was one of the few physicians in the capital who treated common folk without demanding proof of status first. His clinic sat on a back street near the tanner's district, far from the marble towers and perfumed halls where nobles sought their cures.

"Elara," he said warmly. "Come in, child."

I stood on unsteady legs. Brenna rose with me, her hand finding the small of my back.

"She's coming too," I said. It wasn't a question.

Doctor Morgan smiled faintly and held the curtain wider. "Of course."

The examination room was small and cluttered. Jars of dried roots lined the shelves. A kettle sat cold on a brazier in the corner. The examination table was covered in clean linen - worn but carefully pressed. He gestured for me to sit.

I sat. My hands trembled in my lap.

He asked the questions I expected. When did the sickness start? Had my cycle come? Had I been intimate?

I answered each one in a voice that didn't sound like mine. Flat. Hollow.

He examined my pulse and drew a small vial of blood with a practiced hand, quick and nearly painless, then disappeared behind a partition for a long while to study it. Brenna held my hand the entire time, her thumb rubbing small circles over my knuckles.

When Doctor Morgan returned, he pulled a stool close and sat across from me. His expression wasn't pitying. It was careful. Measured.

"Child," he said gently. "You are with child. Roughly six weeks along."

The room tilted.

I heard Brenna's sharp intake of breath beside me. Felt her grip tighten on my fingers.

Six weeks. The masquerade. The alcove behind the tapestry. The golden-eyed stranger whose name I never learned.

"The condition of your blood also concerns me," Doctor Morgan continued, his tone shifting to careful precision. "Signs of malnutrition. Deep strain and exhaustion. You haven't been eating properly, and your body is under significant strain." He leaned forward slightly. "Whatever circumstances you're facing, Elara - you need rest. Proper food. This pregnancy will demand everything your body has."

I stared at the stone floor between my feet.

Ella. Moonlight's voice trembled with something I'd never heard from her before. Tenderness. We're going to protect this pup. No matter what.

"Ella." Brenna's voice cut through the fog. I looked up. Her dark eyes were fierce and steady. "We'll figure this out. But your family - they need to know. Before someone else finds out and it gets worse."

She was right. I hated that she was right.

The ride back to the Valova estate took a short while, but it felt like a walk to the executioner's block.

The manor rose from the hillside the way it always had - gray stone, ivy-choked walls, tall windows reflecting the afternoon light like blind eyes. I had lived here since I was a small child, brought in as the Baron's ward after my parents died. It had never once felt like home.

I climbed the front steps with Brenna half a pace behind me. The heavy oak door groaned as I pushed it open.

The Baron was waiting in the front hall.

He stood with his back to the cold fireplace, arms crossed over his barrel chest. His face was already red. Already furious.

"Where," he said, his voice low and trembling with controlled rage, "have you been?"

I opened my mouth.

"One month." He stepped forward. The floorboards groaned beneath his weight. "You vanished for an entire month. No word. No letter. Do you have any idea what you've done?"

"I-"

"Isolde and Gareth's engagement ceremony. The preparations. The guests. And you - you selfish little beast - you just disappeared."

The words struck like stones. I flinched but held my ground.

"Let me explain-"

"Explain?" The Baroness appeared at the top of the staircase. She descended slowly, each step deliberate, her silk skirts whispering against the stone. Her face was a mask of icy composure, but her eyes - her eyes were acid. "What possible explanation could you have for humiliating this family?"

Brenna shifted closer behind me. I felt her warmth against my back.

Say it, Moonlight urged. Say it now, before they take the air from you.

"Gareth betrayed me."

Silence.

The Baron's jaw tightened. The Baroness paused on the last step.

"Before the engagement was announced," I continued, my voice thin but steady, "Gareth was courting me. Making promises. Then he chose Isolde. Your real daughter." The bitterness leaked through despite my best effort. "I left because I couldn't stand in that room and watch it happen."

The Baroness's lip curled. "Gareth is a lord's son. You are a ward. You should have known your place."

"There's more." My hands were shaking. I pressed them flat against my thighs. "I'm pregnant."

The word detonated in the hall like a bomb.

For a full breath, no one moved.

Then the Baron erupted.

"PREGNANT?" He closed the distance in a few strides. His hand shot out and seized my arm, fingers digging in hard enough to grind against bone. I gasped. Pain flared white-hot from wrist to shoulder.

Get his hand off us, Moonlight snarled, her gentleness gone, replaced by something feral and maternal. NOW.

"Who?" the Baron demanded, shaking me. "Who is the father?"

"I don't know his name."

His face went purple. "You don't know his - you don't know-"

"A stranger?" The Baroness descended the final step. Her voice was cold enough to freeze the air between us. "You spread your legs for some stranger like a common whore, and now you bring this shame to our doorstep?"

I wrenched my arm free. Red welts were already rising on my skin where his fingers had been. Angry lines, dark against pale flesh.

"You have two choices," the Baron said. His voice had gone quiet now. Worse than shouting. A dangerous, deliberate calm. "You get rid of it. Or you get out."

The room swayed. I gripped the edge of the hall table to keep from falling.

"We will not harbor this scandal," the Baroness added, smoothing an invisible wrinkle from her sleeve. "And we certainly won't fund it. If you leave, you leave with nothing. Not a single copper."

Brenna stepped forward. "You can't just throw her out on the street-"

"This is a family matter." The Baron's eyes didn't move from mine. "Stay out of it, baker's girl."

I looked at him. At the man who had housed me for most of my life but never held me when I cried. At the woman who had fed me scraps of affection only when it suited her reputation. At the stone walls of this manor that had been my cage dressed up as charity.

I thought of the life inside me. Tiny. Fragile. Already unwanted by everyone except me.

Ella, Moonlight whispered. We choose the pup. Always.

"No," I said.

The Baron blinked. "What?"

"I won't get rid of my child."

Silence pressed down like a physical weight. Then the Baroness exhaled through her nose - a short, disgusted sound.

"Then pack your things and leave before nightfall."

I turned without another word and climbed the stairs to the small room that had been mine since childhood. It took almost no time. Everything I owned fit into a single battered bag - the same one I'd arrived with ten years ago. A few dresses. A comb. A wool cloak with a frayed hem.

I slung the bag over my shoulder and walked back down.

The Baron stood by the front door, arms still crossed. As I passed him, he spoke.

"You'll come crawling back. They always do."

I didn't stop. Didn't look at him. I walked through the door and into the fading afternoon light, and I did not look back.

Brenna was already waiting by the gate with a hired cart. She scrambled onto the bench seat and reached down to pull me up beside her.

"Well," she said as the cart lurched into motion. "That went about as well as expected."

A broken laugh escaped my throat. "You don't have to do this, Brenna."

"Do what? Abandon my pregnant best friend to sleep in a ditch? You're right, I absolutely have a choice, and I'm choosing to be Auntie Brenna." She grinned - wide, defiant, blazing. "That baby is going to love me more than you. I'm already planning on spoiling it rotten."

I pressed my forehead against her shoulder. The tears came then, hot and silent. She wrapped an arm around me and held on.

The cart rattled along the dirt road, leaving the estate behind.

"Ella," Moonlight said softly in my mind, "I can feel the pup. A strong heartbeat. Powerful energy. This little one is special."

Those dark golden eyes flashed through my mind, followed by the echo of whispered words in the dark. Whoever he was, he had given me something precious, even if he would never know.

"We'll be okay," I whispered, unsure if I was speaking to Moonlight, to the baby, or to myself. "We'll find a way. We have to."