CHAPTER 8: NOT BARREN

"Ms. Thorne, you have a medical alert. Your temperature is elevated. And... your hCG levels. From your last blood test yesterday. You are pregnant. Approximately 3 weeks."

EVA's calm voice said it like she was saying "it's raining outside."

The bunker went completely silent.

I couldn't breathe. Killian couldn't breathe. For three seconds, there was no sound except the hum of the machines.

Pregnant.

I was pregnant.

Me, Elena Voss, the woman Damian Reid took to five doctors. The woman five doctors said was barren. The woman Damian called defective, empty, useless. The woman Bianca laughed at and said "barren anyway, why save you?"

Pregnant. 3 weeks.

That meant... that meant it happened before the apocalypse. Before the end of the world. That night. That one night, three weeks ago, when Damian came home drunk and... No. No, that night I cried alone. Damian hadn't touched me in four months. Four months he said I disgusted him.

Then when? When did...

My hand went to my stomach, flat, empty. I looked up at Killian.

Killian Thorne was standing completely still. His gun, which was always in his hand since the world ended, was on the floor. He had dropped it. Killian Thorne never drops his gun. His face, that cold, hard, billionaire monster face that scared all of Raven City, was... broken. Open. His grey eyes were wide, full of something I had never seen in them before. Fear. And hope. So much hope it hurt to look at.

"Eva," his voice was a whisper, hoarse, broken. "Repeat. Repeat that medical report. Slowly."

"Yes, Mr. Thorne," EVA said, calm as ever. "Blood sample taken yesterday at 18:00 hours during routine entry scan. Ms. Elena Voss, hCG level 1,500 mIU/ml. Consistent with pregnancy, 3 weeks gestation. Heart rate of mother slightly elevated, likely due to stress. Fetal status: too early to detect heartbeat, but maternal hormones are strong and healthy. Congratulations in order, I believe."

Congratulations.

I started shaking. "That's... that's impossible," I whispered, tears already coming. "I'm barren. Damian said... five doctors said... I'm barren, Killian. I can't... I can't have children. They said my womb was..."

Killian was on his knees in front of me in one second. He took my hands, his big hands swallowing mine. His hands were shaking more than mine.

"Elena, look at me," he said, his voice urgent, low. "Look at me, wolf. Those doctors were paid by Damian. Did you ever think of that?"

The world stopped again.

"What?" I said.

"Those five doctors," Killian said, his eyes dark and angry now, angry at a dead world. "I investigated them. After you died in my last life, I investigated everything about you. Every doctor you saw. Every test. Damian paid them. All of them. He didn't want a child with you. He wanted an excuse to leave you. He wanted you to think you were broken so you would never leave him. So you would stay and beg him to stay. You were never barren, Elena. You were never broken. He broke you on purpose."

I couldn't breathe. The bunker, 100 feet underground, suddenly had no air.

He paid them. He paid five doctors to tell me I was empty. To tell me I was useless. I spent three years crying in my garden at 2 AM, thinking I was defective, thinking I was less than a woman, thinking Bianca was better than me because she could get pregnant. And it was all a lie. A lie he bought.

A sob tore out of my throat, loud and ugly. Then another. I was crying so hard my whole body shook. Killian pulled me into his chest, holding me tight, letting me cry into his shirt. He smelled like gunpowder and safety.

"Shhh, shhh, my wolf, shhh," he whispered into my hair, rocking me. "It's okay. It's okay. He lied. You are not barren. You are perfect. You were always perfect. And now... and now you are carrying..."

He stopped. He pulled back a little and looked down at my stomach, at my flat stomach where a 3-week-old secret was hiding. His hand, that hand that held guns and killed men, hovered over my stomach, afraid to touch.

"Can I?" he asked, his voice small, like a boy, not a billionaire monster.

I nodded, crying and laughing at the same time. "It's... it's not yours, Killian. It can't be yours. We never... we only kissed today. This baby is from before. From that last time Damian..."

"I don't care," he said instantly, fiercely, his hand finally, gently, touching my stomach, so gentle like I was glass. "I don't care whose blood it was. From tonight, this baby is mine. Mine and yours. A Thorne. My child. Our child. Do you hear me, Elena? No one will ever call this child a bastard. No one will ever call you barren again. I will kill anyone who says it."

His grey eyes were wet. Killian Thorne was crying. One tear fell down his rough cheek.

"Our baby," he whispered, smiling through tears, that dangerous smile gone, replaced by something soft and wrecked and beautiful. "Elena, we have a baby. In the apocalypse. In the end of the world, you gave me a world."

I touched his face, wiping his tear. "Killian, you don't have to... you don't have to claim it. It's okay if you don't want..."

He cut me off by kissing me. Hard, desperate, like he wanted to put his whole heart into my mouth. "Don't you dare say that again," he growled against my lips. "Don't you ever say I don't have to. I have waited three years for you. I have waited three years in a dead world for you. And now you are giving me a family. A family I thought I would never have. You think I care whose seed started it? You are the mother. That makes it mine. My wolf and my pup."

Pup. He called our baby a pup. Like wolves.

I laughed through tears. I was pregnant. Not barren. Pregnant, in a bunker, at the end of the world, with a monster who measured my gloves and loved me for seven years and wanted my baby even though it wasn't his blood.

EVA interrupted, as always, at the worst time. "Mr. Thorne, Ms. Thorne, I must advise that pregnancy in a bunker environment requires extra nutrition. I have adjusted meal plans. Stress is not advisable. And Mr. Thorne, you are crushing Ms. Thorne."

Killian laughed, a real laugh, loud and free, and loosened his grip a little, but didn't let go. "Thank you, EVA."

Then his face changed again. The monster came back, but a different monster. A father monster. "EVA, lock all medical records. No one accesses Elena's file except me. And run a full scan of the bunker air, water, everything. I want this bunker cleaner than a hospital. If one speck of dust harms my child..."

"Yes, Mr. Thorne. And Ms. Thorne," EVA said. "You should sleep. Both of you. Especially you, Ms. Thorne. You are now sleeping for two."

Sleeping for two.

I looked at Killian, and he looked at me, and for the first time since the world ended on June 19th, we both smiled like the world wasn't dead. Like it was just beginning.

He picked me up, carrying me like I was both fragile and his whole world, back to bed. He laid down behind me, his big hand spread over my flat stomach, his gun finally on the table, not on his belt. He was not guarding the bunker anymore. He was guarding us.

"Sleep, my Thorne family," he whispered into my hair, his voice thick. "I will watch you both breathe."

And outside, 100 feet above, the world was still dead and burning. Damian and Bianca were still banging on a door that would never open, or maybe already dead from the horde EVA invented. But inside, in the warm dark, 100 feet underground, a new heartbeat was starting, too small to hear, but already loved more than the whole world.

A heartbeat that proved I was never barren.

A heartbeat that proved Damian Reid was a liar.

A heartbeat that was ours.