Chapter 184: Do you want this child?

The ride back to the penthouse was weighed down by a heavy, suffocating silence.

The passing lights and occasional honking cars offered no comfort against the storm brewing inside my mind.

Beside me in the driver’s seat, Reid’s knuckles were stark white where he gripped the steering wheel, his jaw clamped so tightly the muscles along his neck strained.

His pine scent was sharp, bitter, and thick with a chaotic cocktail of terror, guilt, and raw grief. He was spiraling, caught between his instinct to lock me away in safety and the terrifying reality that my world was burning down around us.

​I kept my gaze fixed out the passenger window, my hand resting flat against my lower stomach through the thick wool of my coat. The doctor’s warnings echoed in a dark loop through my mind, but louder still was the echo of Fidora’s sneer.

​Contaminated.

​The word clawed at my chest, festering like poison and I gripped the fabric of my turtleneck tight. What had I done to my body?

​When the car finally pulled into the private underground garage and we stepped into the quiet sanctuary of the penthouse, the air felt too thick to breathe.

Reid kicked off his shoes and immediately turned toward me, his hands reaching out instinctively to check my temperature, to hover over my shoulders, his eyes searching my face with a frantic, broken desperation.

​"Kain, let me help you off with your coat," he rasped, his voice rough and uneven. "You need to lie down. I’ll get you some water, and—"

​"Reid," I cut in softly, stopping his fussing hands in mid-air.

​I grabbed his wrists, my fingers trembling slightly against his pulse. I looked up into those grey eyes—eyes that were bloodshot, rimmed with red, and filled with a profound, agonized conflict.

​I asked the question that had been clawing at my heart ever since the doctor held up that ultrasound, the million-dollar question that any terrified, uncertain spouse would ask in the quiet before the storm.

​"Reid... are you ready to be a father?"

​Reid went completely still. His breath hitched in his throat, taken aback by the sudden, heavy weight of the question dropping into the room. His mouth parted slightly, but no sound came out for a long, agonizing beat.

​"If it turns out—and it seems it will turn out—that I’m pregnant..." I continued, my raspy voice barely louder than a whisper, searching his face for any flicker of doubt. "Do you want this child?"

​A sudden flare of hurt and shock flashed across Reid’s features, cutting straight through his panic.

"What are you talking about, Kain?" he rasped out, his hands twisting in my grip to catch my palms instead, squeezing them tightly. "Of course I want this child! How could you even ask me that?!"

​"Why?" I asked, my voice cracking slightly.

​My chest heaved as the suffocating pressure behind my ribs began to fracture my carefully built composure.

"That confession... the one I never let you make back then," I whispered, my heart hammering against my sternum like a trapped bird. "Can you say it to me right now? Do you still mean it?"

​Reid’s breath caught, a single, hot tear finally slipping past his lashes and tracking down his cheek.

He stepped closer, his broad frame closing the distance until our chests were almost touching, his large hands sliding up to frame my face, his thumbs gently wiping away the dampness under my eyes.

​"I love you," Reid choked out, his voice raw, fierce, and entirely stripped of pride. "I love you, Kain. I loved you when I was just your arrogant rookie who secretly admired you from afar, I loved you when you were just my stuck up Captain who wouldn’t give me the time of day, and I love you now. I want this child because it’s ours. Because it’s a part of you."

​I looked at him, my hands trembling violently at my sides, my heart feeling so impossibly heavy I thought it would drag me to my knees. In the span of just a few days, the carefully fortified life I had spent ten agonizing years building was crashing down into ash, and there was nothing I could do to stop the collapse.

​The fear that I had been suppressing in front of his parents, Marina and the doctor finally spilled over, raw and ugly.

​"What if..." I choked, a ragged breath escaping my throat as my fingers dug desperately into the front of his shirt, my eyes burning with unshed tears. "What if the child turns out to have disabilities... because of my ’contaminated’ body? What if the toxins I pumped into my blood for ten years ruin everything? Will you... will you hate me, Reid?"

A harsh, broken sob tore out of Reid’s throat the second those words left my lips.

​"Don’t you ever say that," he growled, his voice cracking violently under the weight of his own agony.

He slammed his broad frame against mine, wrapping his massive arms around my waist and pulling me into his chest so tightly I could feel the desperate, frantic hammering of his heart against my ribs. He buried his face into the crook of my neck, his hot, ragged breaths washing over the sensitive skin right above my collarbone.

​"Don’t ever call yourself that," Reid choked out, his fingers digging into the fabric of my heavy coat as if he was terrified I would evaporate right out of his arms. "You survived, Kain. You did what you had to do to protect your dream in a world that tried to deny you a place on the ice. You aren’t contaminated. You’re the strongest, bravest fucking man I’ve ever known."

​I stood frozen in his grip, my head resting heavily against his shoulder as the dark, poisonous doubt inside my chest slowly began to fracture under the sheer intensity of his warmth.

​"If our child comes into this world fighting..." Reid rasped, his voice muffled against my neck, vibrating with a fierce, absolute conviction, "...then we will fight for them. Together. I don’t care if they have disabilities, I don’t care if the doctors say it’s high-risk, and I don’t give a damn what my mother or anyone else in high society thinks! I will love that kid with every single breath in my body, Kain. Because they came from you."

​He pulled back just enough to frame my face in his large hands again, forcing my gaze to lock onto his bloodshot grey eyes. There wasn’t a single trace of hesitation in his features—only a raw, terrifying, and completely unyielding devotion.

​"I could never hate you," Reid whispered, his thumbs gently smoothing over my cheekbones, catching the quiet, heavy tear that finally slipped down my pale face. "If anything, I hate myself for putting you in this position. But I am not letting you carry this burden alone. You are my Captain, you are my mate, and that child is ours. Whatever happens... We stand together. On the ice, and off it."

​A shaky, shuddering breath escaped my lips, all the rigid, unbending tension that I had held in front of the doctor and his mother finally melting away into his touch.

I closed my eyes, tilting my head up until my forehead rested against his collarbone, my hands clutching his shirt like a man clinging to a lifeline in a storm.

​For ten years, I had believed that letting someone in would ruin me. I had believed that vulnerability was a weakness that would tear down the fortress I had bled to build. But standing here, wrapped in my Alpha’s scent, feeling the grounding beat of his heart against mine, I realized the truth.

​The fortress was falling, but I wasn’t standing in the ruins alone anymore.

​"Four days," I murmured raspy against his neck, my fingers tightening in his shirt.

​Reid let out a long, ragged exhale, his lips pressing a hard, possessive kiss into my hair. "Four days, Cap. We hit the ice, we tear the Vipers apart, and we leave everything out there."

​"And if my body breaks down after?" I whispered.

​"Then I’ll carry you," Reid promised without a second of hesitation, his broad arms tightening around me as if sealing a sacred vow. "I’ll carry you for as long as it takes."

I closed my eyes, letting the heavy, steady rhythm of his heart wash over me, anchoring the frantic, terrifying noise in my head.

​To rely on someone else, to let go of the reins and admit that my body might fail me... it went against every single instinct that made me Captain Evans. But I guess it’s also a part of being human. There is no such thing as perfection.

​"You don’t mind that I’m going to make you take care of me from now on if my body goes weaker?" I murmured, my voice small, ruined, and completely stripped of its usual rigid authority.

​Reid didn’t hesitate. He shifted his grip, sliding one large, warm hand up to cradle the back of my head, pressing my face deeper into the notch of his neck where his pine scent wrapped around me like an unbreakable shield.

​"I don’t mind," Reid whispered, his voice dropping into a low, fierce rumble that vibrated right through my chest. "In fact, it’s my honor to take care of you for the rest of our lives."

​A quiet, shuddering breath escaped my lips, the final pieces of my pride dissolving into the warm fabric of his shirt.

I tightened my arms around his broad waist, holding onto him as if he were the only solid thing left in a world that was rapidly turning to ash.

My Reid... My Alpha... My Everything...