Chapter 53 - Ella POV

The nights had gotten heavier. Not just colder, it felt as if the air itself carried something unspoken between them.

Ella curled into the worn couch, her sketchbook balanced on her knees, pencil scratching lightly against paper. The lines didn’t come together the way she wanted, lately they never did. Everything looked unfinished, incomplete just similar to the way her life felt.

Her hand drifted to her stomach. Pregnant. The word still echoed in her chest like a secret too big for her body to take in. She hadn’t announced it too everyone yet, only few people knew about her pregnancy. Marcus knew, and her closest friends. Cole knew, of course, but she wasn’t sure how much of it had sunk into him. He’d smiled when she told him, bought her apples, asked her gently about her day. It was sweet, almost endearing.

But the sweetness never lasted long.

When she looked up, she often caught him staring out the window, his jaw tight, shoulders heavy, eyes shadowed as if he carried a weight she couldn’t see. And when she asked, what’s was wrong, he brushed her off—“It’s nothing, just some pack issues“, “Don’t worry yourself about it.”

But Ella did worry.

*********

The sound of boots on the porch pulled me out of my thoughts. Cole stepped in, closing the door behind him. His presence still filled the room the way it always had, commanding and warm, but there was something… off.

“Long day?” I asked, trying for casual.

He grunted, setting his jacket aside. “Yes it has.”

His eyes flicked to my sketchbook, then to my hands and then to my stomach. For just a brief second, something softened in his expression, something that made my heart ache. But just as quickly, it was gone, replaced by that same restless distance.

“I saved you an apple,” I offered, sliding it across the table.

His lips twitched, almost a smile. “You’re relentless.”

“I learned from the best,” she teased, but the playfulness felt brittle, like glass ready to shatter.

That night, when he went outside “to clear his head,”I stayed awake. I listened to the silence stretch long after his footsteps faded.

My chest tightened. He’d been gone too often lately. Not always at night—sometimes even during the day, sometimes with flimsy excuses. He came back smelling faintly of pine and earth, but beneath that, something she just couldn’t place. Something sharp, lingering.

She hugged her knees to my chest. Was she beginning to imagine things? Was it just my nerves, or is the pregnancy making me hyperaware of everything?

Or was there something Cole wasn’t telling me?

The next morning, Marcus stopped by again, checking on me. This time he carried a small basket of herbs from the healer and left them on the counter. His presence was grounding, steady, like a tether to something real.

But I could feel Cole’s tension from across the room, the way his hand flexed against the table, even as Marcus’s spoke to her, his jaw was set tight.

When Marcus finally left, she turned to Cole. “You’re upset.”

“I’m fine.”

“Cole, you are not. It obvious, you can talk to me.”

He looked at me then, and for a moment, I thought he might actually spill everything that’s troubling him but instead he swallowed it back, his eyes dark, unreadable.

“Don’t worry yourself about it, Ella,” he said quietly, and left before I could press further.

Ella stood there, hands trembling over the basket Marcus had left. Without Cole in the room, the room felt colder.

Something was definitely wrong.

And no matter how tightly he tried to hold it in, no matter how gently he tried to mask it with apples and careful questions, I could feel the truth pressing between them.

She placed a hand over her stomach again, whispering to the tiny life growing inside her, “This I promise you, I will figure this out.”

But deep down, a fear gnawed at her. What if by the time she uncovered all of it, it was already too late?