The council chamber buzzed with murmurs. Nobles sat stiffly in their seats, expressions carved from marble. Papers shuffled. Soone coughed dramatically in the corner—twice—clearly hoping for attention.
Lucien sat gracefully.
Well... as gracefully as soone internally panicking, bloated, and fighting the ghost of a craving for candied grapes could manage.
He blinked around the room like a tourist who’d sohow wandered into a holy temple of bureaucracy.
His thoughts?
Not on the crisis. Not on a human growing inside him. Certainly not on whatever political nightmare this eting was about.
No, his mind was spiraling in bold italics and all caps.
’Where did I see that long, silver-haired, handso man before? Was he ntioned in the novel?’
His eyes flicked to Grand Duke Silas—currently deep in conversation with the vice-captain, Elize. The man stood like a painting co to life. Too perfect. Too poised. Too much of a walking emotional tax audit.
Lucien squinted.
’There was definitely a paragraph about him... Loyal subordinate to Emperor Adrien, the Emperor’s Sword, kills people like he’s ordering soup...Blah blah, emotionless blade of justice... yeah yeah...Okay, but was he ntioned romantically? Secret wedding? Scandal? Epic love affair? Anything?’
Lucien tapped his finger against the armrest, his brain sifting through plotlines like a rabid librarian.
’Nope. That was it. Loyal warhound. Scary. Tragic. Unkissed. So why... why does he feel so damn familiar?’
He stared again.
Silas nodded at sothing Elize said, sharp and unreadable, like a man who’d spent the morning filing both murder reports and emotional repression forms.
Lucien tilted his head.
’Okay, those shoulders look very familiar. That hair. That whole ’I drink tears instead of wine’ vibe...’
Then—like a divine slap from the gods of bad decisions —
"BREATHE—I AM ALREADY HALFWAY IN!"
Lucien stopped breathing. His soul detached, hovered briefly above his body, and considered fleeing to the astral plane.
His eyes went wide. His jaw dropped an inch.
A single image shattered through the fog: a blur of silver hair, heat, tangled sheets, a muscular back, and his own voice screaming dramatic nonsense like he was starring in an opera no one asked for.
He stared blankly into the abyss and whispered,
"...Why the hell did I rember that night?"
Then, Lucien shook his head, cheeks glowing pink like they were trying to combust from sha alone.
’Why the hell did the image of that night co? Is my brain okay?’
And the worst part?
’I don’t even know why I suddenly rembered it—Oh no. Oh no no no. There’s only one explanation.’
He placed a hand over his stomach, as if blaming the unborn child for everything.
"...It’s because I’m pregnant," he muttered in horror to himself. "Yes. It makes perfect sense," Lucien insisted, eyes wild. "The baby is forcing to rember. It’s searching for its father. It’s doing emotional reconnaissance!"
He slapped a hand over his mouth as Silas turned slightly in his direction; he looked at him for a second and then ignored him.
Lucein was dumbfounded.
’Did I do sothing?’
And then—
"I CALLED YOU ALL HERE FOR AN IMPORTANT CASE HAPPENING IN YOUR AREAS."
Silas’s voice cut through the chamber like a blade dipped in ice water and purpose.
Instant silence. The dramatic cougher in the corner choked mid-sputter. Even the papers stopped rustling, as if afraid of making noise.
Lucien jolted upright in his seat, spine straight, expression blank—except for the mild panic fluttering in his eyes like a pigeon stuck in a chandelier.
Silas stepped forward, a stack of reports tucked under his arm, his silver hair gleaming under the sun filtering through the high windows. The room seed colder now. Sharper. More... murder-y.
Silas spoke with asured calm. "Over the past month, a pattern of disappearances and homicides has erged across several provinces—"
Lucien blinked.
Huh?
"—Five confird cases. All female ogas. All under the age of thirty. All had black hair. All found with the sa mutilations. And..."
Silas paused mid-step. His expression, usually carved from marble and war trauma, twisted with sothing sharp—too raw to na. His fist clenched at his side.
"...All pregnant."
Gasps echoed through the chamber like an orchestrated horror chorus.
And Lucien? Lucien froze.
His fingers hovered over the thick report parchnt in front of him on his own—the one he’d been too lazy to open earlier because, hello, he’d been busy having a ntal breakdown about Silas’s jawline. But now?
Now he flipped it open like it was a damn cursed grimoire.
Each line he read slapped him across the face with more trauma than the last.
His breath hitched.
Black hair. Ogas. Pregnant.
He held his stomach, now scared. He glanced up—only to find Silas staring directly at him because he was the only one who looked at the docunt.
Silas then continued...
"The first victim was discovered in Rythen, near the riverbank," he said, his voice once more composed. Elize, the vice-captain, handed him a scroll. "The second was found in Wexre, just outside the city walls. Then Fenhill. Drosven. And three days ago... Bellanorth."
’Bellanorth. That’s where I live. That’s where I sleep. That’s where I walk. That’s where I—’
He clutched his stomach tighter, arms wrapping around himself like a makeshift shield. His skin had gone cold, too cold, but he could feel sweat trailing down his spine.
’I don’t feel good. I don’t—’
His chest tightened. The air felt thinner, like soone had drained it from the room and left behind only smoke and fear. His ears buzzed faintly, like they were subrged underwater.
All around him, nobles were finally flipping their own files open, gasping, whispering, and trading panicked glances.
But Lucien couldn’t hear them.
He was still stuck on one thing.
’What kind of monster targets pregnant ogas?’
His lips parted.
’Will he... Will he co for ?’
He could barely think past the rising tide of nausea. Of horror. Of what ifs slamming into him like waves in a storm.
What if the killer had already seen him? What if he is the next victim?
’What if he knows I’m carrying a child? What if he—’
A sudden pain stabbed through his abdon—sharp and brief, like a cramp or a panic-induced protest from his very stressed uterus.
His fingers trembled.
The parchnt blurred as his vision swam, each word another stone tied to his ankles, dragging him down.
Black hair. Ogas. Pregnant.
Lucien could hardly breathe. His arms instinctively wrapped around his belly, holding it like it might shatter.
He wasn’t thinking anymore. Just feeling. Drowning.
Fear. Panic. Disgust. Rage. And above all—
Protect.
’No one is going to touch my baby.’
Lucien’s lips moved before he could stop them, a soft, barely-there whisper ant only for the little life nestled in his womb.
"Don’t worry, Dad will protect you, my child."
Then—
He promptly fainted.
Right there in front of the royal council.
A collective gasp rang through the chamber. Chairs scraped. Scrolls dropped.
Silas’s eyes widened for the first ti that morning—sharp, shocked, and suddenly very, very human.
**"Soone call the physician—**NOW!" he barked, his voice slicing through the room like a whip.
He was already moving before anyone else.
Baron Lucien, pale as moonlight, lay collapsed in his chair, arms still curled protectively around his stomach. Silas dropped to one knee beside him, expression unreadable—but his hand, when it reached out to check Lucien, trembled. For so unknown reason.
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