Chapter 4 — He Woke Up

POV: Aria

Five days later, Doctor Revan turns the laboratory report toward me. Three embryos reached the blastocyst stage. Two are graded well enough for transfer.

He recommends transferring one.

I know Eleanor would prefer two. Two embryos would raise the possibility of an heir, and she has never been the person expected to carry the medical risk.

I choose one.

The transfer is over faster than I imagined. There is no dramatic pain, no sudden sacred feeling of motherhood—only bright clinical lights, the smell of disinfectant, and the faint pressure of a catheter being withdrawn.

An embryo too small to see now rests inside my body.

I place a hand over my abdomen, then pull it away. It is too early to call it a child. It may never implant. It may remain only a possibility for a few days. Still, I can no longer pretend this is only a contract.

The nurse covers me with a blanket and warns me not to overexert myself during the two-week wait. She also tells me not to test early. Apparently almost everyone does.

When I return to the estate, a maid runs down the stairs, breathless.

Ronan is awake.

He regained consciousness minutes ago, asked for water, and demanded to know where he was. Everything else the maid says dissolves beneath the pounding of my heart.

The hallway outside the master bedroom is crowded with doctors, nurses, elders, and Vale relatives. Eleanor is already discussing his recovery and the Council's next steps.

The people gathered there all wear different versions of relief. The nurses look genuinely astonished. Cole stands rigid near the door, watching every movement with the focus of a man who has been waiting months to resume his real duty. The elders whisper about medical capacity and emergency authority before Ronan has been awake for ten minutes. Gavin and Monica keep glancing at Eleanor, trying to determine whether their mother's control of the family has just ended.

I am the only person in the corridor who cannot decide whether his recovery is salvation or disaster.

Then Ronan's voice comes through the open door.

“Everyone out.”

The corridor falls silent.

With three words, the order of the estate changes. A few minutes ago, Eleanor controlled the room. The elders were already arranging the Alpha's recovery as though it belonged to them. Now the man they treated as an incapacitated patient speaks, and they remember who ruled Blackridge before he fell.

Eleanor tries to remain. Ronan repeats the command, and this time no one argues.

I stay at the far end of the hall, one hand hovering near my abdomen. Hours ago, his embryo was placed inside me. He has not even had time to ask who I am.

When Ronan sees me, his gaze settles on my face. “She stays,” Ronan tells the others.

Eleanor starts to explain, but he already knows my identity.

Every curious gaze settles on my back as I enter the room.

The door closes behind me.

For the first time, I hesitate to approach the bed. Unconscious, Ronan felt distant and safe. I could tell him anything. Awake, he is a blade pulled from its sheath. Medical leads still cling to his chest, and an IV remains in his hand, yet weakness has not dulled the way he studies me.

He knows my name. He knows the marriage is provisional. He also knows Adrian grabbed me.

That knowledge strips away the small preparation I made on the walk upstairs. I had imagined explaining the wedding first, then the contract, then the procedure in careful chronological order. Instead, Ronan has awakened with broken pieces of six months already lodged in his memory. He knows enough to recognize betrayal, but not enough to know which of us participated willingly.

“I heard more than they realized,” he says. “Not constantly. It was like being underwater and catching voices from the shore.”

“Does that mean you heard me accuse the Vale men of being insane?” I ask.

The corner of his mouth shifts. “That part was particularly clear.”

For one absurd second, I do not know whether to apologize or laugh.

Then his expression hardens. “What happened to my preserved sample?” Ronan asks.

I do not protect Eleanor. I confirm that she invoked the authorization before its conditions were met. Ronan's eyes hold mine. “Did you consent?” he asks.

“To each medical stage, yes,” I tell him. “But the choice was never free.”

I agreed to testing, stimulation, egg retrieval, and—only hours ago—the transfer of one embryo. I signed each medical form myself. But the choice was never fair. Eleanor tied my father's treatment and Quinn Tech's survival to my cooperation.

I expect disgust, perhaps even accusation. If our positions were reversed, I do not know whether I could look at the stranger carrying my embryo and separate her desperation from the violation. The thought makes me notice every physical detail of the room: the half-empty water glass, the adhesive marks on his skin, the faint tremor in the hand gripping the sheet. Ronan has only just regained control of his body, and I am telling him how thoroughly everyone used it while he was helpless.

His fingers slowly tighten in the sheet.

Ronan is angry, but not in the way Adrian becomes angry. He does not shout or throw anything. He rearranges every fact, identifying each person who crossed a line while he could not defend it.

I force myself not to hide behind Eleanor. My circumstances deserve to be understood, but I still made choices. I will not pretend otherwise.

If he wants to dissolve the marriage, I will cooperate. He may also tell me honestly whether he wants the pregnancy to continue, if it is established. But the final decision remains mine.

“I won't order you to end it,” he says. “And I won't order you to keep it.”

His answer loosens something inside my chest.

It is not forgiveness. He has known me awake for less than an hour, and I have no right to expect that. But he gives me the one thing no one else in the estate has offered: room to remain uncertain. I do not have to become a grateful wife, a willing surrogate, or an obedient Luna before I have even processed what happened.

Eleanor knocks and announces that the Council is waiting to confirm his condition.

“Let them wait,” Ronan tells her. “My life is not a Council agenda.”

When the hallway quiets again, I force myself to meet his eyes. “After the retrieval, I heard a voice in my head,” I tell Ronan. “A wolf said mine, then ours.”

For the first time, his composure breaks.

“That was my wolf.”

I step back without meaning to. Since I was sixteen, unawakened has been stamped onto me like a defect. It cost me standing within my family and made Adrian believe I would always accept his contempt. Now Ronan claims his wolf reached across consciousness to touch me.

It does not fill the old emptiness. It opens the door to a world I do not understand.

Ronan raises one hand, stopping before he touches me.

“You may be my fated mate.”

I look at the space between his fingers and my skin.

Then I ask the only question that matters. “Do you want me to stay because of the embryo, because of the marriage, or because your wolf decided I belong to you?”