Page 96 of The Soulbond and Her Beloved

She heard the gasps of the onlookers, felt strong arms catching her before she hit the ground.

"Emeriel Emeriel—hey—dearling, can you hear me?" His frantic voice sounded distant.

She struggled to keep her eyes open, but in the end, her world faded to black.

Chapter twenty-one

IMPOSSIBILITIES

TheRoyalHealerenteredto examine Emeriel, but the moment Faiwick attempted to touch her, Daemonikai's instincts roared. He seized the healer by the throat, hurling him across the room.

"Do not touch my woman! Mine!"

Faiwick, gasping from the impact, raised his hands in surrender. "Yours! I only wish to check for—"

"Mine!"

Left with no choice the Head Royal Healer fled the bedroom, leaving his second, a female, to finish the examination.

They put Emeriel to sleep, though she stirred at times. That alone was enough to keep Daemonikai tense, prowling, and restless, his protective instincts all over the place.

Fighting the growing worry chewing him up inside, he wondered what was wrong with his beloved. Anxious. Deeply troubled.

Much later, the healer stepped back, wiping her hands on a cloth. "It is confirmed, Your Grace. Your female is with child."

He stopped pacing.

Daemonikai heard the words. He even processed them, understood what they meant. And yet… "What?"

The healer smiled. " Congratulations."

That doesn’t seem right. “No one gets pregnant from a mini-heat.”

“Your female just did.”

“But she does not have the scent of—“

“Your Highness,” the healer called, patiently. “She truly is pregnant.”

Pregnant.

Was this real?

After years of longing, of praying to gods deaf to his pleas, gods who had taken from him…Could this truly be happening?

"A-are you sure?" His knees felt weak as he gripped the edge of the wooden table.

"I am certain," she reassured him. "She is four to five weeks along."

Daemonikai’s eyes shifted to Emeriel’s sleeping form, his heart drumming. She lay beneath the covers, her face serene, her breathing soft.

“Your Highness.” The healer’s voice held an emotional tremor. "I cannot believe this happened for you so quickly."

"Congratulations, Your Grace," Faiwick said from the doorway.

It felt like an illusion, as if Daemonikai’s yearning soul was conjuring a dream too sweet to be real.

He was trying to control his happiness. The hope growing in him.

---