Page 98 of Alpha Exile

Brushing her concern off, I sit up slowly, blinking around at the world like it's new. Furtively, I check my phone again—I'm more than eight days past my expected period. If I've done anything the last few weeks in my newly remodeled house, that thing isrisky sexual behavior.

"Something is wrong." Pressing my chin in her fingers, Cat lightly turns me so I'm looking into her eyes, her gaze catching more than I want to give away. "What is it, sweetheart? Whatever it is, you can tell me."

Hesitating, I lick my lips and consider my options. "Promise you'll keep it to yourself until I'm sure."

Her eyes go wide, and I instantly know I've made a mistake. "You're pregnant!"

"I'mlate," I clarify hastily, glad that the guys are all out of the house on errands. "And I need a stick to pee on."

"Oh, I've got you there." Cat pulls a small pink box out of her purse and waves it in front of me, grinning at my confused expression. "I may be older than you, my darling, but I haven't hit menopause yet. And let's just say Niall—"

"Nope!" I yank the box from her fingers and shake my head frantically. "Let's just saynothing."

Several minutes later, I'm standing in the partially remodeled upstairs guest bathroom, which inconveniently doesn't have a working sink, staring down at a tiny screen set in a white plastic casing.

A tiny screen with two marks on it.

Though I banished Cat from the house to get me my comfort foods—chocolate donuts and matcha green tea—I'm not shocked at all to hear footsteps coming down the hallway. If there's one thing my foster mother is good at, it's ignoring my requests.

The other thing she's good at is being a nosy busybody.

So I open the bathroom door before she even knocks, arching my brows and spinning to hold the test up. "Well, are you happy?"

Kieran blinks at me for a long moment before his eyes focus on the test in front of his face—right before I snatch it back, horrified I spilled the beans.

We're both quietly shocked for the span of a single breath.

Then he drops his tools onto the ground, whoops loud enough to peel the paint from the walls, and gathers me in his arms. Pulling me up off the floor, he crushes me against him in a warm, comforting hug—then quickly drops me back down again, running his hands up and down my sides nervously.

"How are you? Are you okay? Any morning sickness, or wooziness—I probably shouldn't have hugged you that tight, should I—"

"Shut up." I punch him in the shoulder, then put my hands on his shoulders, smiling up into his face. "I'm okay. Just processing. I didn't even realize until I was looking at my phone's calendar that I'd missed my last period."

"Probably has something to do with that condom that broke the last time we were going at it," Kieran murmurs, leaning forward to kiss my forehead. "Roarke tried to be careful fingering you, but he was just a bit too excited that we were trying something new."

That something new was having one of them in the back, the other in the front—and Roarke fingered me while Kieran was having fun in my foyer. Unsurprisingly, things got a littletooexciting, and messy in the end.

"I haven't told the others yet," I caution Kieran, holding tight to his shoulders. "I want to tell them together. Well, once I've given Cat the news—she's fetching me some snacks, and will probably call at any moment to check in."

As if on cue, my phone rings.

Kieran smiles brilliantly. "Shall we ask her if she prefers Gramma, Grammy, or something sillier like Glamma?"

Forty-Two

Delilah

"It's going to be Kieran," Lance notes as he pricks his finger with the needle and squeezes it until a drop of blood falls out into my gold leaf bowl. "He's the only one it could be."

"There was that night we all got drunk," Roarke reminds him, as I move around the circle and collect a drop of blood from each of them. "I'm pretty sure there were a few foul plays then. Not on purpose of course, but we got a little... eager."

Finn quips, "My health teacher always said precum can have sperm in it. That, and the testicles are very sensitive to being played with under the right circumstances."

We blink at him. "I went to high school in Europe until I shifted, remember? Things are wild out there."

"If you say so."

I collect Bastian's drop of blood last, careful to let it drop on the spot inside the bowl marked with a B. It joins the L, K, R, and F marks made in hasty sharpie after Kerry taught me this simple spell. With any luck, this will give us quick and obvious answers to the question Finn loves to pose the most.

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