My Fiance is Sleeping With My Step Sister

Chapter 75

Devon was watching me again.

He tried to disguise it, head bowed over plans or a map, but his attention kept slicing across the yard straight to me. It made the air press in around my ribs, like the world itself was waiting for me to collapse. I kept my hands busy wrapping bandages, picking up training gear because if I stopped, if I let myself breathe, the secret would crowd my mouth and spill out.

Joey hustled me away before I could think myself sick. She didn’t bother with small talk, she never did. One minute I was folding a cloak, the next she had me by the elbow and half-dragged me across the gravel of the training yard with that fierce look she wore when she meant business.

“Spill it,” she said, spinning so fast I nearly lost my balance. Her voice was a blade turned blunt with worry. The yard smelled of sweat and earth; the sun sat high and sharp; warriors moved in the background like a slow, steady heartbeat. Joey’s stare cut through all of it straight to the place inside me I was trying to keep quiet.

“What are you talking about?” I tried to laugh and it came out like paper tearing.

She didn’t humor me. “Don’t play stupid, Adriana. You’ve been off for days. You’re tired, distracted, and Devon looks like he wants to tear the sky open trying to figure you out.” She came forward, close enough that I could see the tiny scar at the edge of her lip when she smiled. “You need to stop hiding from people who love you.”

There it was: love. The word made something in my throat ache. “I’m not hiding,” I said, but the lie felt like glass.

Joey stepped in, grabbed my hands, and squeezed until I stopped pretending. “I’m serious. You can tell me. You can tell him. But don’t hide, Addy. You know what silence does. It eats at you.”

I wanted to crumble in front of her, to let her hold me while I confessed the thing that had been a secret ember in my chest all week. But fear tightened my lungs fear of making things real by saying them out loud. “Please,” I said, the word small. “Not yet. I don’t know for certain.”

Joey’s jaw softened, and for a second she looked like the little girl who’d once gotten into too many fights and still gotten up. “You’re pregnant, aren’t you?” she asked without whispering.

The word landed and I hadn’t the strength to stop it. My knees almost went weak. I must have looked like I needed a crutch because Joey didn’t wait for an answer. She pulled me into a hug, fierce and instant, like she was trying to stitch me back together with her arms.

“Oh gods, Addy,” she breathed into my hair. “You should have told him.”

“Not” I started, but her voice was already in my ear, warm and urgent. “You can’t keep this to yourself. He’ll know. He always knows. And if you try to hide it, he’ll tear the whole place apart finding out anyway.”

There it was again: Devon. The thought of him discovering the secret in some frantic, desperate way made my stomach drop. Part of me wanted to tell him right then, to lean against him and let him hold all the fear and make it small. Part of me was terrified of what it would mean to tell him and then have it be nothing, to have hope and then have it taken.

Joey pulled back, studying my face. Her voice softened. “Why didn’t you tell him? Why hide from the man you’ve claimed as mate?”

Because I was scared. “I’m afraid,” I said honestly, my voice small. “If it’s not real if I tell him and then lose it he’ll carry that like a wound. I can’t give him something to break.”

She made a noise that sounded like a cross between a scoff and a sob. “You’re being ridiculous,” she said finally. “You’re allowed to be scared. But don’t think carrying it alone is brave. That’s just lonely.”

The yard felt suddenly too bright, the warriors’ shadows too long. Devon still watched from the edge, unreadable. He didn’t come over; he didn’t need to. He had known me long enough to let me breathe until I was ready usually. I told myself he’d wait. I told myself I could choose when.

Joey squeezed my hand one last time as if sealing a vow between us. “Promise me you’ll tell him soon. Before he does something dramatic and I have to fix it.”

I laughed, dry and shaky. “I promise.”

She gave me that rare, crooked smile and shoved me toward the path that led to our house. “Good. Now go, before you both starve and he starts a war over a missed meal.”

I moved slowly, each step heavy with the new knowledge and the old fear. My heart was a drumbeat in my throat; the ember in my belly glowed steady as a secret heartbeat. When I reached our door, Devon was already there, leaning against the frame with that unreadable expression again. He didn’t say anything, just lifted a brow and let me step into his arms.

He smelled like iron and cedar, like storms and hearths, like everything I could think to hold onto. The moment my back hit his chest, I felt him exhale, and the tension in my shoulders loosened, just a little.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he murmured, voice low in my ear.

I kept my face turned away. “I’m fine.”

“You’re lying,” he said simply. There was no anger in it only that terrible, fierce care that made my chest hurt. He curled his fingers into mine and held on like he wouldn’t let go.

That night, lying in the dark with his hand on my stomach, I felt the ember again. I told myself it was nothing, but the quiet between us was not the same as it had been before Joey’s hug. Secrets have a way of reshaping the air around them, and I could feel the shape changing.

Devon’s breath warmed my neck. “Tell me when you want me to know,” he whispered.

And for the first time, I realized I didn’t want to hide this from him anymore. I just wanted to be sure. To know it was real before I let him carry it with me.

I closed my eyes and let the night keep its silence a little longer. But the ember glowed bright enough now that it would not stay hidden for long.