LOGINAsher walked out of the hospital with the paper still in his hand. He didn't remember putting his jacket on. He didn't remember walking past the front desk. His feet just moved, one step after another, out into the cold evening air.The street outside was empty. Only a few cars passed by, their headlights cutting through the dark. Asher stood there for a moment, not knowing which way to go. His apartment felt too far. His mind felt too loud.He started walking anyway.The word kept playing in his head, over and over, like a song stuck on repeat. He tried to push it away, but it just came back louder each time.This can't be real, he thought. This has to be some kind of mistake.But he had seen the paper. He had read the words with his own eyes. There was no mistake. The doctor had shown him the scan too, small and blurry, but real. Something was growing inside him. A baby. Killian's baby.His legs felt weak. He stopped walking and leaned against a cold brick wall, pressing his hand fl
Asher could barely manage to stand without his vision swimming, his body growing thinner and more fragile..He knew he couldn't risk going to any clinic or hospital near the university, where a familiar face might spot him. Instead, he forced himself to travel across the city to a quiet, anonymous hospital —a place where no one would look twice at a pale, trembling student pulling his coat tightly around his waist.The diagnostic waiting room smelled sharply of antiseptic and cold steel, humming with the low murmur of distant voices.Asher sat hunched on a hard plastic chair in the corner, his fingers tightly laced together in his lap, his knuckles stark white. Every tick of the wall clock felt like a heavy hammer blow against his frayed nerves. When a nurse finally called his name in a flat, routine voice, his heart leaped violently into his throat, nearly choking him.He stood up on unsteady legs and slipped into the examination room. A quiet, middle-aged physician reviewed his char
The corridor filled with the sharp, rising friction of hostile voices.Killian still had one hand near Asher’s shoulder when Julian reached them. The two alphas stood locked in stance, glaring at each other like drawn blades. Killian’s posture stiffened immediately, while Julian’s eyes narrowed into cold, sharp slits.“I told you to let him go,” Julian said, his voice clipped.“This doesn’t concern you,” Killian answered, his tone dropping low and dangerous.“It concerns me when you’re the one pushing him into a corner.”They moved at the precise same second. Polite tension evaporated as words turned sharp and aggressive. Killian stepped forward to close the distance, and Julian shoved him firmly back a step. Killian retaliated, and the two of them collided with enough brute force that the heavy sound echoed down the empty concrete passage. Accusations flew between them—arguments over ownership, boundaries, and the volatile edge of alpha posturing that threatened to turn physical in s
Asher stopped dead in his tracks. His breath caught in his throat. Without a single second of hesitation, he spun on his heel and walked rapidly in the exact opposite direction, his long strides carrying him all the way across campus until he reached the dusty, forgotten corridors of the old administrative building. He slipped inside, looking like a man pursued by ghosts, and spent twenty agonizing minutes pretending to closely inspect laminated campus notice boards he had already memorized by heart, just to waste enough time before risking the open paths again.Days blurred into a heavy week of radio silence and strategic avoidance.Across the other side of the city, however, a very different kind of quiet intimacy was taking root.Every evening just after six o'clock, Marcus arrived at the small restaurant. He never made an announcement, never paused to check if he was welcome. He simply pushed through the swinging kitchen doors, rolled up the sleeves of his button-down shirt, and i
Ethan answered on the second ring, his voice still thick.“Hello”“Ethan, where are you?” Asher demanded, his voice tight and breathless. “We’re leaving. Right now. Pack your things, we’re going back to the city.”There was a brief pause on the line, accompanied by the muffled rustle of a car door opening in the distance.“I’m already downstairs in the main kitchen,” Ethan said, sounding mildly confused. “Come down, grab some breakfast first… then we’ll head out.”Asher closed his eyes, pressing his forehead against the wall. He did not want breakfast. He did not want to look at food, at the kitchen, or at Killian’s face ever again. But he also refused to look like a coward running away with his tail between his legs. He dragged a shaky hand through his messy hair, squared his shoulders, and forced himself to unlock the door and walk out.Downstairs, the long, polished mahogany dining table was already set with a lavish spread. Marcus and Ethan sat side-by-side on one bench, both look
The rain had not stopped. It hammered a relentless, heavy rhythm against the black metal roof of the car, washing the world outside into a blurred smear of shadow and neon streetlights reflected in the wet asphalt. Inside the dark, secluded vehicle parked on the narrow coastal shoulder, Marcus and Ethan sat close, the cabin insulated from the chill by the weak amber glow of the dashboard and the occasional electric flash of distant lightning. Thunder still rolled over the jagged cliffs, but the storm had softened into a steady, brooding bass note.Ethan’s hand, resting on the console, had never left Marcus’s sleeve. The fabric was slightly damp from the dash down from the house, but neither of them cared. Marcus turned fully toward him, his dark eyes catching the faint dashboard light. For a long moment neither spoke, the weight of everything unsaid hanging thick in the air between them. Then, with a slow hesitation, Marcus leaned in and kissed him.It was slow at first—careful, almos







