"URP—HURL—UGH—NGH! HUUUUURL—"

The sound hit them before the sight did. A horrible, wrenching, full-body retch that echoed through the apartment. Then another. Then another.

"Ssshhh... it’s okay... it’s okay..."

Then, they heard Oathran’s voice drifted from the direction of the bathroom. "You want... you want water...?"

"HUUUUURL—COUGH!"

Eastiel’s and Arkai’s hearts dropped simultaneously. The grocery bags fell to the floor with a muffled thud. They ran.

The bathroom doorway framed a scene that stopped them both in their tracks. Cecilia was on her knees, hunched over the toilet bowl, her body convulsing violently. Her knuckles were white where she gripped the porcelain. Her face, what they could see of it, was pale and clammy and completely miserable.

Behind her was Oathran. His hand was in her hair, holding the blonde strands back from her face. His other hand was on her back, rubbing slow circles that were doing absolutely nothing to help.

When he saw them arrive, he looked up. His eyes were tight, but very grateful for reinforcements.

"What are you waiting for? Get some water."

"O-oh, yeah." Eastiel spun on his heel and bolted toward the kitchen, his work boots skidding on the floor.

"Come here. Hold her hair. I will cook her some porridge." Oathran rose smoothly, gesturing for Arkai to take his place.

"Okay." Arkai dropped to his knees beside her without hesitation. His hand found the back of her head, replacing Oathran’s, his fingers threading gently through the damp strands. "What happened?"

"We will tell you later."

Oathran was already moving toward the door, Eastiel re-entering with a glass of water past him, but then he felt it. A small, weak tug on the leg of his pants. He stopped and turned.

Cecilia was looking up at him. Her pitiful and miserable face was pale and her eyes were glassy with the involuntary tears that came from vomiting.

"Add... meat... please..."

Her whisper was so soft and fragile that it broke Oathran’s heart into a thousand pieces.

"Okay." His voice came out even softer than anything Arkai or Eastiel had ever heard or thought possible "I’m adding lots of meat. And lots of calcium supplements. The doctor said you need lots of calcium, alright?"

"Won’t it taste... bad...?" Cecilia’s nose wrinkled, her expression shifting from pitiful to disgusted.

"I promise you will not taste it. I promise." Oathran said as if he would stake his life on a bowl of porridge. "You can cut off my foot if I lied."

Cecilia considered this. The offer of foot-cutting seemed to satisfy whatever primal, pregnancy-induced skepticism had gripped her, because she nodded weakly. "Okay..."

Oathran smiled and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. Then he was gone, his footsteps fading toward the kitchen.

Cecilia sipped the water Eastiel had brought, her hands still trembling and her breathing still ragged. The cool liquid seemed to settle her stomach, at least momentarily, before—

"URP—GAWK—HUUURL—"

The water came right back up. Eastiel winced, his lion ears drooping low.

"Man, didn’t the doctor prescribe you medicine? You just got there, right? Why doesn’t it work?"

"I don’t want meds..." Cecilia’s voice was hoarse, scraped raw from the vomiting. "Unless completely necessar—URK—HUURL—Uhh..."

"Why?" Arkai’s voice was sharper than he intended. His wolf ears were pinned back against his head and his black eyes helpless. "It’s clearly completely necessary right now."

"I don’t want to harm the baby—HUUURL—"

The word hit the air like a thunderclap.

Eastiel and Arkai froze. Cecilia’s hair slipped from Arkai’s suddenly nerveless fingers, falling forward around her face. The glass in Eastiel’s hand slipped from his grip.

Cecilia’s hand shot out and caught it before it could shatter on the tile. Her reflexes, apparently, were still functional even when the rest of her was not.

"Preg—" Eastiel’s voice cracked on the syllable. His golden eyes were wide as saucers. His lion tail had gone completely still. "Preg—preg—pregnant? You are—you are pregnant?"

***

The black car pulled into the circular driveway of the Vasiliev mansion. The engine cut, and the driver’s door opened. Arzhen Vasiliev stepped out into the cold evening air, his suit immaculate and his tie still perfectly knotted. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

The mansion loomed before him, all glass and steel and cold, modern angles. It had been his father’s house, and now it was his. The only thing his father had ever given him that he actually wanted.

He pushed through the front door and found his mother exactly where he had left her that morning, sprawled across the living room sofa, one hand dangling lazily toward the floor, the other holding her phone above her face.

The blue glow of the screen illuminated her features, throwing strange shadows across her still-beautiful face.

"She is not back yet?" Arzhen said, cutting through the quiet without preamble.

Elara didn’t look up from her phone. "Who?"

Arzhen’s jaw tightened. "Isn’t her stuff still here?"

"Oooh." Elara said, curled into a lazy drawl. "That bitch. You want to see her crawl back? Begging to be let in?" She swiped at her screen with a manicured finger. "I have been waiting, too. The back door is locked and the front gate code has been changed. She will have to grovel on the doorstep like the dog she is."

"Do you think she is in her lab?" Arzhen was already pulling out his phone, his thumb scrolling through his contacts. He found the name he was looking for and pressed dial.

Igor answered on the second ring. His voice was careful as usual. "Sir?"

"Hm. Tell the lab’s security to throw that bitch out if she is staying the night there again tonight."

A pause. "Ah. Who... are we talking about, sir?"

"That bitch." Arzhen said flatly, impatient. "She has not returned home the whole night and until now, so she must be staying overnight there, right?"

"Ah. Let me check, sir."

The line went quiet. Arzhen paced the length of the living room, his free hand loosening his tie with short, jerky movements. Elara watched him from the sofa, her phone forgotten and her brow furrowing in confusion.

Some seconds passed and Igor’s voice returned.

"No, sir. There is no report or sighting of the Madam around the lab. This—ah, here it is. There is also no recording of her ID card used to enter the building. Perhaps Madam is staying elsewhere?"

Arzhen stopped pacing.

Elsewhere? Where else would she go? She was a poor orphan before his father had found her, before the Vasiliev name had elevated her from obscurity. She had rented a small apartment in a part of the city he had never bothered to visit.

But that apartment was long gone. She had no family, no friends, no connections outside of the empire his father had built around her. She had nowhere.

"Forget it." He said, brusquely dismissive. "Get rid of her things in the backyard. It’s an eyesore."

"Oh, you don’t have to worry about that, sir." Igor’s voice brightened like he was delivering good news. "Some people arrived after lunch to pick up the belongings already. It is taken care of."

Arzhen’s hand tightened around his phone. "What?"

There was a pause on the other end. Igor had clearly not expected that response. "Sir?"

"She didn’t come?" The words came out sharper than Arzhen intended.

"No, sir. It seems she hired some people to pick up her belongings."

"Why didn’t you tell me?"

"Y-yes?" Igor had acquired the faint, panicked edge in his voice. Did... he make a mistake? But what was the mistake?

"Did you follow them? Do you know where she is?"

"Ah... n-no, sir. Why..." Igor’s voice faltered. "Why should we follow them? I-I didn’t know we were supposed to know where the Madam is..."

Arzhen opened his mouth, then closed it. He also didn’t have an answer. Why had he asked, anyway? He didn’t know why his pulse had quickened when Igor said she hadn’t come herself and sent strangers to collect her things instead.

She... hadn’t even tried to see him.

"Arzhen." Elara called, cutting through the silence. She had risen from the sofa and was standing beside him now, annoyed, her arm akimbo. "What’s wrong? Why do you care where she is? Just ignore her. She will come crawling back eventually."

"Even if she doesn’t, we can humiliate and destroy her another way later."

Arzhen didn’t answer. He simply stood there, his phone still pressed to his ear, his eyes fixed on some distant point beyond the glass walls of the mansion.

"Just... don’t let her get into the lab. Also the company. Throw her away if she does."

He turned his phone off.

She had left. Actually left, and not to some temporary hiding place where she could lick her wounds and wait for him to forgive her.

She had sent people to collect her things... walked out of the hospital with nothing but the clothes on her back and had not returned.

She was—pregnant.

And she actually... left.

Arzhen felt something in his claw. A heavy, warm and wet texture. Like a beating heart.

Why... was it irritating?