Bought By The Beast

CHAPTER 11: Symptoms

The nausea hit three days after Baltimore.

I woke up at dawn with my stomach churning, barely made it to the bathroom before I was throwing up everything I'd eaten the night before. And then some.

Caspian appeared in the doorway, shirtless and concerned. "You okay?"

"Fine. Just something I ate probably." I rinsed my mouth, trying to ignore the way my hands shook. "I'm fine."

Through the bond, I felt his doubt. He knew I was lying. Could feel the nausea and fatigue rolling through me like a physical thing.

But he didn't push. Just handed me a towel and left without a word.

That hurt worse than if he'd yelled.

We'd barely spoken since he saw those medical records. He slept on the opposite side of the bed, careful not to touch me. Answered questions in monosyllables. The bond was still there, still connecting us, but he'd built walls around his emotions that I couldn't break through.

It was like being bonded to a ghost.

I brushed my teeth and stared at my reflection. I looked like s**t. Dark circles under my eyes. Skin too pale. And my stomach, was that a slight curve or was I imagining things?

Six weeks pregnant.

With Kieran's baby.

The words kept circling in my head like vultures.

I splashed cold water on my face and tried to breathe through another wave of nausea. My wolf was restless, confused by Caspian's distance. She wanted our mate. Wanted his touch, his scent, his presence.

But he wouldn't give us any of it.

I found him in the kitchen making coffee. His back was to me, shoulders tense, every line of his body screaming stay away.

"Morning," I said quietly.

He grunted in response.

"Did you sleep?"

"Some."

Of course he lied. Through the bond, I'd felt him awake all night. Felt his turmoil, his pain, his desperate attempt to shut me out.

"Caspian, we need to talk about this."

"About what?" He still didn't turn around.

"About the pregnancy. About us. About the fact that you won't even look at me anymore."

"There's nothing to talk about." His voice was flat. "You're pregnant with another male's baby. The bond doesn't change that. Talking doesn't change that."

"So what, you're just going to ignore me forever?"

"I'm not ignoring you. I'm protecting you. There's a difference."

"Protecting me from what? You?" I moved closer, desperate for any kind of connection. "You're my mate, Caspian. You're supposed to be the one person I can count on."

"I am counting on myself. To keep you safe. To kill Marcus. To make sure that baby," he spat the word like it burned his mouth, "gets born healthy so you don't die from complications."

The clinical way he said it made my chest ache.

"And after? After the baby's born, then what?"

Finally, he turned to face me. His silver eyes were cold, distant. "Then you decide what you want to do. Keep it. Give it up. Raise it. Whatever you choose, I'll support you. But don't ask me to pretend I'm okay with this. Don't ask me to be a father to another male's child."

"I never asked you to be."

"Good. Because I can't." His hands gripped the counter behind him. "Every time I look at you, all I can think about is him. Kieran. Touching you. Being inside you. Creating life with you. Something I should've been first to do."

Gosh, I felt his jealousy. Raw and vicious and eating him alive.

"It's not like I planned this," I said, my own anger rising. "You think I wanted to be pregnant with my ex's baby while bonded to you? You think this is some kind of dream scenario for me?"

"I know you didn't plan it. But that doesn't make it easier."

"So you're punishing me for it?"

"I'm not punishing you. I'm trying to survive this without losing my f*****g mind." He ran his hands through his hair. "Do you have any idea what it's like? Feeling your emotions through the bond, knowing part of you is carrying another male's child? It's torture, Rielle. Pure torture."

"Then block the bond."

"I can't. It doesn't work that way. I feel everything. Your nausea. Your fatigue. Your fear. Your guilt. And underneath it all, I feel your body changing to accommodate a life that isn't mine."

Tears burned my eyes. "I don't know what you want from me."

"I want," he stopped, jaw clenching. "I want to go back in time and find you before Kieran did. I want to be the only male who's ever touched you. I want that baby to be mine. But I can't have any of that. So I'm doing the next best thing. Keeping my distance until I can look at you without wanting to destroy everything."

Another wave of nausea hit. I gripped the counter, breathing through it.

Caspian's concern immediately flooded through the bond, but he didn't move to help me. Didn't touch me. Just watched with those cold silver eyes.

"You should eat something," he said finally. "Keep your strength up."

"I can't. Everything makes me sick."

"Try anyway. The baby needs nutrients."

The baby. Not your baby. Not our baby. Just the baby. Like it was some abstract concept instead of a real thing growing inside me.

I turned away before he could see me cry. "I'm going back to bed."

"Rielle."

I stopped but didn't turn around.

"I'm not trying to hurt you. I'm trying to protect both of us. The bond, it makes everything more intense. If I let myself touch you right now, if I let myself feel everything I'm feeling, I'll do something we both regret."

"Like what?"

"Like mark over Kieran's claim. Flood you with so much of my scent that even the baby inside you knows who the real alpha is. Make you mine so thoroughly that there's no room for anyone else, not even a child." His voice dropped to something dangerous. "Would you like that? Would you like me to erase every trace of him from your body?"

My breath caught. Through the bond, I felt his dark desire. His possessive need to reclaim me. And underneath it, the barely controlled violence that came with lycan claiming instincts.

"No," I whispered.

"Exactly. So I'm keeping my distance. For both our sakes."

I went back upstairs and crawled into bed. The sheets smelled like Caspian, like us, and it made everything worse.

My phone buzzed. A text from David.

David: How you holding up?

Me: Like s**t. You?

David: Better than you two. The tension in this house is suffocating.

Me: Sorry.

David: Don't be sorry. Just talk to him. Actually talk. Not this half-conversation bullshit you've both been doing.

Me: He won't listen.

David: Make him listen. You're his mate. He can't ignore you forever.

I wanted to believe that. But through the bond, all I felt from Caspian was distance. Walls. Determination to keep me at arm's length until he figured out how to deal with this.

Another wave of nausea sent me running to the bathroom.

This time when I finished throwing up, Caspian was there with a wet washcloth.

He handed it to me without a word.

"Thank you," I said quietly.

He nodded and turned to leave.

"Caspian, wait."

He stopped but didn't look at me.

"I miss you. I miss us. The way we were before Baltimore."

"That version of us doesn't exist anymore." His voice was hollow. "We can't go back."

"Then what do we do?"

"We survive. We adapt. We figure out how to be bonded mates who share a life that includes a child that isn't mine."

"And if I can't do that? If this distance between us breaks something that can't be fixed?"

Finally, he looked at me. And the pain in his eyes nearly broke me.

"Then we break. But at least we'll both survive it."

He left me sitting on the bathroom floor, alone and crying, while the bond between us pulsed with shared misery neither of us knew how to fix.