The Heiress Carrying His Heir-Chapter 55 - 56: You’re pregnant

Elara’s pov

"What?"

"You heard me." I stepped inside my room. Turned to face him from the doorway. "I was going to ask you to come to my chambers tonight. I’m taking that back. Clearly you have no respect for my judgment or my choices. So don’t bother coming."

"Elara–"

"Your Majesty," I corrected him. My voice was like ice now. Sharp and cold. "And that’s an order, Captain. Do not come to my chambers anymore. Do not presume intimacy with someone whose decisions you find so lacking. I will find your replacement. And keep your opinions about my fitness to rule to yourself."

I closed the door before he could respond. The heavy wood slammed shut with a loud bang that echoed through the corridor.

I stood on the other side of the door. My back pressed against the wood. My breathing came hard and fast. My hands pressed flat against the door, as if I could hold the whole world out just by keeping this door closed.

On the other side, I could sense Kaelen’s presence. I could feel him standing there. I imagined the war playing out on his face. Anger. Frustration. Concern. All fighting each other.

Then I heard his footsteps. Walking away. Getting quieter. Until I could not hear them anymore.

My legs gave out. I slid down to sit on the floor, my back still against the door. My arms wrapped around my knees. My whole body was shaking. Shaking so hard I thought I might break apart.

With anger. With hurt. With something else I could not name.

He thought I was spiraling. Thought I was unstable. Thought I was destroying myself.

Just like everyone else.

But he didn’t know. He couldn’t know. Because if he knew, everything would be different. Everything would be worse.

The tears came before I could stop them. Hot and silent, sliding down my face. I pressed my hand against my mouth to muffle the sound, but the sobs kept coming, shaking my whole body, tearing through me like a storm.

This morning. This morning I had gone out at dawn. Not for a ride like I told them. Not for fresh air or to clear my head. I had pulled on a plain cloak, pulled the hood low over my face, and slipped through the servant’s entrance into the city.

I had gone looking for answers.

The physician’s shop had been small and cramped, tucked between a baker and a tailor in the lower city. I had heard his name whispered in the street.

I had waited outside until the last patient left. Then I had knocked on his door.

He was old. Older than I expected. His hands trembled slightly as he lit another candle, but his eyes were sharp. Too sharp. They studied me the moment I stepped inside, reading something in my face that I had tried so hard to hide.

"You’re not from the lower city," he said. Not a question.

"No."

"And you’re not here for something simple." He gestured to a chair. "Sit."

I sat. My hands gripped the edges of the wooden seat. "I need to know what’s wrong with me."

He raised an eyebrow. "What do you think is wrong with you?"

"I don’t know. That’s why I’m here." The words came out sharper than I intended. I took a breath. Forced myself to calm down. "I’ve been... unwell. For weeks. My moods change too fast. I can’t control them. I feel sick every morning. My body feels wrong. Like it’s not mine anymore."

He was quiet for a long moment. Then he moved closer, pulling up a stool, sitting across from me. "Your hands."

I held them out. He took them gently, turning them over, studying my palms, my wrists, the insides of my elbows.

"Your color is good," he murmured. "Your pulse is strong." He pressed fingers to my wrist, counting silently. Then he leaned back. "When did you last bleed?"

The question hit me like a slap. I stared at him. "What?"

"When did you last have your monthly courses?"

I opened my mouth. Closed it. Thought back. Tried to remember. The weeks had blurred together, one crisis after another, one council meeting after another, one sleepless night after another. When had I last–

"I don’t remember," I admitted. "A while."

"How long is a while?"

"A month? Two? I don’t–" I stopped. Something cold was spreading through my chest. "Why does that matter?"

He studied me with those sharp eyes. "You’re not sick, my lady."

"Then what’s wrong with me?"

"Nothing." He stood, moving to a small table where jars of herbs and tinctures lined the walls. "Nothing is wrong with you. You’re with child."

The words didn’t make sense at first. They hung in the air between us, strange and impossible. I heard them, but they didn’t connect to anything in my mind. They just floated there, meaningless.

"I’m sorry," I said slowly. "What did you say?"

He turned back to face me. His expression was kind now. Gentle. The kind of look you give someone when you’re about to change their whole world. "You’re pregnant. The mood swings, the nausea, the changes in your body, all perfectly normal. Unpleasant, but normal." He paused. "You didn’t know?"

I couldn’t breathe.

Pregnant.

I was pregnant.

The room spun around me. I gripped the edges of the chair, held on tight, tried to make the world stop moving. Pregnant. The word echoed in my head, over and over, bouncing off the walls of my skull until I thought I might scream.

"How far?" The words came out strangled. Barely a whisper.

"Hard to say exactly. But based on what you’ve told me, I would guess two months. Perhaps a little more."

Two months. This wasn’t as a result of the last time we had sex. This was as a result of the first day we had met, how could I have been so stupid. And I had sex with him again recently without thinking of the consequences. I was naive when it had to do with my sexual life.

I couldn’t finish the thought. Couldn’t let myself go there. Because if I did, if I let myself think about that night, about what it meant, about what was growing inside me right now

"There’s no mistake?" I heard myself ask. "You’re certain?"

"I’m certain." He moved closer again, lowering himself back onto the stool.

I stood up so fast the stool scraped against the floor. "No one can know." I said to myself.

"My lady–"

"No one." I reached into my cloak, pulled out a pouch of coins, and pressed it into his hands. More than he would make in a year. More than he would make in five years.

I left without another word. Rode through the dark streets with my hood pulled low and my hands shaking inside my cloak, back to the castle.

And back to Kaelen who started talking about my judgment, about my choices, about how I was spiraling, about how he was worried about me. And something inside me snapped. Because he had no idea. He had no idea what I was carrying. What we had created together. What was growing inside me right now, changing my body, changing my moods, making me sick every morning.

He had no idea that I was terrified.

Not of dying. Not of being sick.

Of being pregnant with his child while trying to hold together a kingdom that would tear me apart if they found out.

So I pushed him away. I lashed out. I told him not to come to my chambers anymore. I made him leave.

And now here I was. Sitting on the floor. Crying.

Because only one person could be the owner of this child. Only one person had been in my bed. Only one person had held me, touched me, been inside me.

Kaelen.

The man I just ordered to stay away.

The man I just pushed out of my life.

This changed alliances and succession and the future of the entire kingdom. This changed who I was, who he was, who we could ever be to each other.

I pressed my hands against my stomach. It still felt wrong there. Unsettled. But now I knew why. Now I knew what was fighting to get out, what was clawing at my insides, what was changing me from the inside out.

A child.

Our child.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or scream or cry harder. So I did all three, sitting there on the cold floor, my back against the door, my whole world spinning out of control.

He thought I was spiraling. He thought I was unstable. He thought I was destroying myself.

And maybe I was. But not for the reasons he thought.

I was destroying myself because I couldn’t tell him the truth. I was destroying myself because I was terrified. I was destroying myself because in two months, maybe three, I wouldn’t be able to hide this anymore. And then everyone would know. And then everything would fall apart.

Unless I found a way to fix it first.

Unless I found a way to make this right.

But sitting here, alone in the dark, my body shaking with sobs I couldn’t control, I had no idea how.

The tears kept coming, hot and angry and terrified. I let them fall. Just this once. Just here, where no one could see.

Tomorrow I would be strong again. Tomorrow I would be the queen everyone expected me to be. Tomorrow I would figure out what to do about the life growing inside me.

But tonight, sitting alone on the floor, I let myself feel the weight of everything that was falling apart.

And it was so, so heavy.