Chapter 156

Chapter 156: Chapter 156

Lysander’s pov

I woke up late in the afternoon, my mouth dry and my head throbbing with a dull, persistent ache. The sheets beside me were cold and I heaved a sigh, I was so happy he wasn’t in.

My stomach gave a sharp, hollow twist. ℴℴ𝘮

I dragged myself out of bed, pulling a heavy charcoal sweater over my head to ward off the chill settling into my bones.

My legs felt strangely weak, my feet bare as I padded quietly out of the bedroom and down toward the kitchen.

I expected the house to be empty. Drake had left the bed after teasing me and usually, by this time of day, he was locked in high-level territory meetings, far away from the house.

I was kind of grateful for his busy schedule.

So when I rounded the corner into the open-plan kitchen and saw him standing by the island, my breath hitched in my throat.

Drake was still at home.

He hadn’t left. He was dressed in a dark, tailored shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his forearms, resting both hands flat against the dark marble counter. He was staring out the floor-to-ceiling glass wall at the fog rolling off the ridge, his broad back completely still.

On the counter beside him sat a small, untouched plate of sliced apples and a glass of water he had brought out for me.

My bare feet made no sound against the slate floor, but the second I stepped into the room, his shoulders locked. He didn’t turn around immediately, but the air in the kitchen instantly turned cold.

I gulped, I didn’t like the tension in the room. I thought after his playful teasing earlier, we would go back to normal.

"Drake?" I whispered, my voice raspy from sleep.

He turned to face me slowly.

His face was unreadable and his brows were pulled into a frown, his eyes were eyes and calculating, that made my pulse jump erratically against my ribs.

He didn’t step forward to touch me. He just stood there, his gaze dropping to the high collar of my sweater before rising back up to lock onto my eyes.

"You slept late," Drake said softly.

"I... I was just exhausted," I lied, my fingers knotting into the hem of my sweater as I took a small step toward the island. "The second you left the room, I slept more."

I looked at the clock and my eyes widened slightly when I saw the time, I thought I had slept for an hour or two, it was nearly evening.

I swallowed thickly, "I thought you had something to do today."

"I canceled them," he said.

A heavy, suffocating silence fell between us. The sound of the wind scraping against the outer glass wall felt twice as loud in the quiet room.

Drake reached out, picking up the glass of water from the counter. He held it in his long, pale fingers, but he didn’t drink. Instead, his nostrils flared slightly, a single, deep inhalation that took in the warm air rising off my skin as I stood three feet away.

I held my breath on instinct.

I had showered before coming out. I had washed my hair, used his heavy cedar soap, and worn clean clothes. I had done everything I could to erase the sour smell of sickness and sweat.

But as Drake inhaled, the icy ring in his red eyes flared bright.

He set the glass back down on the stone and stepped around the edge of the island, closing the distance between us in two smooth, fluid strides.

He stopped right in front of me, towering over my frame.

"Drake—"

Before I could step back, his large, warm hand came up, his fingers locking firmly around the back of my neck. He didn’t squeeze, but the grip anchored me in place. He leaned down, bringing his face inches from the side of my throat.

He took another long, slow breath right over my pulse point.

My heart gave a violent, frantic thud against my ribs. Beneath my skin, my hybrid blood gave a sudden, erratic spike, that same strange, foreign heat I had felt in the studio, flaring up in response to his proximity.

It responded to whatever he was giving out and me knees felt weak, they buckled but I forced myself to stay put.

Drake went rigid.

I felt the sudden, terrifying shift in his body, the stillness of an apex predator picking up a shift in the air.

Beneath the cedar soap, beneath the wool, beneath the sharp smell of my sweat... my body chemistry had shifted.

I could feel it so I was so sure he too could feel it, there was no hiding this from him.

I thought sleeping with him would make me covered in his scent but Darius’s scent was like a pest to my body, it clung to everything refusing to go even when I had done everything to get rid of it.

A subtle, sweet, and undeniably distinct alteration was threading through my essense. A soft, blooming warmth in my blood that carried the hormonal signature of new, developing life.

A pregnancy.

I didn’t even understand it myself, my brain hadn’t connected the sudden nausea, the cramping, or the erratic magic to something so profound. But to a vampire whose senses were tuned to the exact composition of his mate’s blood, the shift was unmistakable.

For a fraction of a second, the harsh line of his jaw relaxed. A sudden, raw flash of wonder cracked through his face.

Then, it died.

The brief flicker of warmth was instantly swallowed by a wave of dark, suffocating fury so intense that the air in the room felt like it was turning to ice.

Because as Drake inhaled the new, sweet scent of my blood, his senses caught something else threading through my aura, faint, scrubbed, but lingering deep beneath the surface layers of soap and water.

He just leaned closer, his thumb pressing hard into the side of my jaw, forcing my head back until I was forced to look straight into his glowing red eyes.

"Why do I smell Darius on you, Lysander?"