To Choose An Alpha

Chapter 7

RAVENNA

Three Weeks Later

I threw up my breakfast behind the market booth and nearly passed out while assisting a woman package dried sage.

The healer in me knew before I ever touched my tummy.

I was pregnant.

My legs collapsed as I leaned against the wooden wall, placing my palm to my abdomen.

Kael’s child.

The understanding didn’t bring panic, it brought stillness, a cold, keen clarity.

The child would be a target if I stayed near Elvarim. Lyra would never allow it to survive, and Darian… he would rip the truth from my bones if he ever learned I’d borne another man’s kid. But what was he expecting? He rejected me!

I breathed very gently, swallowing the discomfort.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered to the life inside me. “But I promise, I’ll keep you safe. You’ll never know cruelty. You’ll never feel terror. Only love.”

Even if it had to come from me alone.

***

I met Elias on the thirtieth day.

It was raining, soft and steady, when I sneaked outside the shop to get air. I felt dizzy, nauseous again, and hadn’t eaten anything all morning. My head whirled. The cobblestone streets swayed beneath my boots.

Then everything tilted.

I slumped forward, arms grabbing for something that wasn’t there.

But before I touched the ground, someone caught me.

“Woah, easy,” a deep voice remarked. “I’ve got you.”

Strong arms. Warm hands. Steady.

I looked up into the face of a man with warm hazel eyes, sun-browned skin, and a dimple that appeared even in concern.

“You alright?” he said.

I nodded, even though I wasn’t.

He helped me sit beneath the overhang of the shop roof, the rain pattering only inches from our feet. His shirt was already soaked, but he didn’t appear to care.

“Name’s Elias,” he added, flashing a crooked smile. “I’m a carpenter. Work along the street near the tannery. You live around here?”

I hesitated. “I… work inside.”

“With Mira? That explains the herbs. You smell like lavender and something sharp.”

“Cera,” I said hastily. “My name is Cera.”

He c****d his head. “Nice to meet you, Cera.”

We sat in the rain-shadow for a minute, both quiet. I loved that he didn’t ask more. Most guys filled stillness with noise. Elias didn’t.

“Do you want me to get someone?” he said eventually. “A healer, maybe?”

“No. I’ll be fine.”

He nodded, then looked at me again. “You look like you haven’t eaten.”

“I haven’t had much of an appetite.”

He stood. “Come on. There’s a bakery across the square. They make these odd honey-and-nut buns that usually sell out before noon. If nothing else, you may gaze at them and pretend you’re not hungry.”

I should’ve declined. Should’ve stepped back inside.

But instead, I followed him.

***

Elias never inquired about my past. He never pressed for specifics, never questioned when I winced at loud noises or recoiled from sudden touch. He turned up at the apothecary every few days with modest things, bread, fruit, a wooden hair comb he’d fashioned with a moon etched into the handle.

I gazed at it longer than I should have.

“It reminded me of you,” he’d remarked hesitantly. “Didn’t mean anything weird by it.”

I grinned. “Thank you. It’s beautiful.”

He was gentle with me. And the more time I spent around him, the more I understood he was nice in a way that had nothing to do with responsibility. He saw things, not the secrets, but the shadows.

One night, I found him observing me as I wrapped a bundle of sage in linen for a sick mother across town.

“You’ve got healer’s hands,” he muttered.

I glanced up sharply. “What do you mean?”

“The way you move. Gentle, but… assured. Like you’ve done this a thousand times.”

I didn’t answer and he didn’t press.

***

It was the end of the third week in the second month, when he asked if I wanted to move into the little flat above his workshop. “No pressure,” he continued, “but it’s quieter there. Fewer steps. More light.”

He didn’t say I want to take care of you. But I heard it in the hush that followed.

And truth be told… I was exhausted.

I agreed.

At night, I lay awake in the tiny bed by the window, listening to Elias hum to himself as he cleaned his tools or carved wooden toys for neighbor children. I watched the moonlight pour across the floor. I tallied the days since I left Kael.

I didn’t miss the palace. Or the Queen. Or Elvarim.

But I missed him.

The way he stared at me like I was fire and anguish and something he wanted regardless. The way his voice had rumbled through my flesh. The way his hands had shook just slightly as they reached my waist—like he, too, understood we were breaching something precious.

I closed my eyes and pushed my hands to my tummy.

“We’re safe now,” I muttered. “You and me. Just us.”

And I meant it.

But part of me still ached.

Because as wonderful as Elias was, as gentle, as present, I couldn’t give him what he wanted.

Not my heart. Not when it already belonged to a rogue Alpha who didn’t even know I carried his child.

Elias never asked for more. He didn’t need words to grasp that whatever held me back wasn’t anything he could cure. He watched the way my gaze went to places he couldn’t follow, the way I held my quiet like a shield. And still, he stayed. Not to fill the gap in my chest, but to make sure I never had to face its emptiness alone.

Sometimes I wished things were different. I wish my love could be shaped by compassion and tranquil evenings, instead of the inferno I left behind. But even now, after almost two months, my heart beats to the thought of a name I refuse to say out loud.

I left him. I had my reasons. But not a day goes that I don’t wonder if he’d had held me closer, if he’d known.

I know it isn’t possible to have known after a night.

But some nights rewrite destinies and that one left me carrying more than just memories.