Chapter 3

Lila’s POV

I woke up the next morning and the first thing I did was reach down and press both hands against my stomach.

“Please,” I whispered. “Please be gone.”

It wasn’t.

The soft curve was still there. My thighs still touched. My chest still felt heavy and full when I sat up. I shoved the covers off and walked straight to the mirror in my underwear, heart already racing.

“Okay,” I told my reflection. “It’s been one night. Bodies do weird things. Maybe it’s swelling. Maybe it’s temporary. It has to be temporary.”

I turned sideways. The shape didn’t change.

“You’re fine,” I said louder. “You’re going to be fine.”

I grabbed my phone off the nightstand. No messages from Kael. Not a single one. I opened our chat and stared at the empty space under the last thing I had sent him the night of prom—a simple “I had a really good time.” He had never replied.

I typed anyway.

Lila: Hey… are you free today?

I hit send. Then I immediately typed another.

Lila: I need to talk to you. It’s important.

Still nothing.

I tossed the phone onto the bed and opened my closet. My favorite jeans were right in front. I yanked them off the hanger and tried to pull them up.

They stopped at my thighs.

“Come on,” I muttered, hopping a little, tugging harder. “You’ve always fit. Come on.”

The waistband refused to go past my hips. I sat down on the edge of the bed and tried again, lying back, squirming, using both hands. The denim dug into soft flesh and wouldn’t budge.

“Stupid jeans.” I threw them across the room. “Stupid everything.”

I tried a dress next. Then a skirt. Then the uniform blouse I wore to school. Nothing closed properly. Buttons gaped. Zippers stuck. Fabric that used to skim my body now clung and strained.

I stood in the middle of my room in an open blouse and mismatched underwear, breathing hard.

“This isn’t permanent,” I said to the empty room. “It can’t be. People don’t just wake up different. There’s an explanation.”

My phone buzzed. I lunged for it.

Just a weather notification.

I opened Kael’s chat again.

Lila: Kael, please answer me.

Lila: I woke up and something’s wrong. I don’t know what’s happening.

Lila: Can you at least tell me you’re okay?

No reply.

I dropped the phone and pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes. “Why isn’t he answering? He was there. He was with me. He said he noticed me.”

The scent hit me then.

I lowered my hands and sniffed the air, then my own wrist. My usual light, clean Omega scent had changed. It was softer now. Sweeter. Heavier in a way that felt almost… ripe. Fertile. The kind of scent that made Alphas turn their heads without meaning to.

“No,” I whispered. “Don’t do that. Don’t change that too.”

I showered in scalding water, scrubbing until my skin turned pink, hoping I could wash the new scent off. It clung to me anyway. When I stepped out and wrapped a towel around myself, the softness of my body pressed against the cotton in unfamiliar ways. I avoided the mirror this time. I already knew what I would see.

The rest of the day passed in a blur of denial.

I ate almost nothing. I paced my room. I tried the jeans on three more times like the result might suddenly be different. I texted Kael again in the afternoon.

Lila: I’m starting to freak out.

Lila: Please just say something.

Still nothing.

By evening I was sitting on the floor with my back against the bed, phone in my lap, staring at the unread messages.

“Maybe he’s busy,” I said out loud. “He’s the Crown Prince. He has responsibilities. He’ll answer when he can.”

Even I didn’t believe it.

I picked up one of my old shirts and held it against my chest. It looked small. Almost childlike compared to the body I had now.

“I need to see him,” I whispered. “If I see him, if I talk to him face to face, he’ll explain. He has to know something. Or maybe… maybe when he looks at me it’ll just go back. Like it never happened.”

That thought was desperate and stupid and I clung to it anyway.

Night came slowly. I crawled into bed but sleep refused to take me. Every time I closed my eyes I was back in the garden. The weight of his body. The sound of his voice when he told me to look at him. The way his fingers had felt in my hair afterward. The two words he had given me.

I noticed.

“You noticed,” I said into the dark. “So why won’t you answer me now?”

I turned onto my side. The soft curve of my stomach pressed against the mattress. I placed a hand over it and left it there, like I could hold the change in place until morning and force it to disappear.

Hours passed. The clock on my phone glowed 2:17 a.m. Then 3:04. Then 4:30.

I sat up, heart beating too fast, and made the only decision that still felt possible.

“Tomorrow,” I said quietly to the empty room. “Tomorrow I’ll find him at school. I’ll make him look at me. I’ll make him explain.”

I lay back down, staring at the ceiling, replaying every second of prom night on an endless loop—his eyes across the ballroom, the way he had said my name, the moment he first kissed me, the way he had held me when it was over.

I didn’t sleep.

I just waited for morning, clinging to the last fragile piece of hope I had left.

Tomorrow I would see Kael Thorne.

And everything would make sense again.