Chapter 282
Chapter 282
Drea stopped breathing.
For one foolish second, she considered pretending Noel had misheard her. The lie rose to her tongue out of pure instinct, quick and useless. She could say she meant something else. She could say she was speaking in fear, in theory, in some future she did not actually carry inside her body.
Noel’s face told her none of that would work.
He stood a few steps away from her, his sharp expression stripped down to something more dangerous than suspicion. Focus. He had heard the words clearly. He had seen her hand go to her stomach. He had watched her go still afterward, caught by her own mistake.
Drea swallowed.
“Yes,” she said.
The word left her quietly, but it seemed to change the whole room.
Noel’s gaze dropped to her stomach again, not crudely, not with softness either. He looked at her like the shape of the entire pack had just shifted under his feet. His mouth parted, then closed. For once, the man seemed to need a moment before finding the cruelest or cleverest thing to say.
Drea stepped back. “You cannot tell Logan.”
Noel looked up.
That brought him back.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“No.” He took a step toward her, slow and controlled. “I heard something absurd. Try again.”
Drea’s pulse hammered in her throat. “You cannot tell him. You just can’t.”
Noel stared at her as if she had lost her mind. “Drea, you are pregnant with the Snow Alpha’s child.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” His voice rose, not loudly, but with enough pressure that she felt it in her shoulders. “Because you are speaking like this is a misplaced secret, not a bloodline event that half this place would kill for and the other half would kill to stop.”
Her stomach tightened. The phrasing struck too close to everything she already feared. “That is exactly why he cannot know yet.”
“He is the father.”
“I am aware of how it happened.”
Noel’s mouth tightened. “Do not make this cute.”
“I am not making anything cute.” Drea’s voice sharpened, anger rushing in because fear had too much room when she stayed quiet. “I am trying to survive inside a house where Brianna looks at me like I am a stain on her floor and Kathryn watches me like she is waiting for permission to cut my throat.”
Noel’s eyes narrowed. “Kathryn knows?”
Drea regretted it at once.
The silence that followed was worse than the question.
Noel stepped closer. “Does Kathryn know?”
Drea folded her arms tightly across herself. “She suspects.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the answer I am giving you.”
Noel let out a humorless breath and looked toward the ceiling, as if asking the mansion itself for patience. “You are surrounded by people who would turn this pregnancy into either a weapon or a funeral, and your solution is to tell the one person with enough power to protect you nothing.”
Drea laughed, but it came out thin. “Protect me? Logan is the reason I am here.”
“He is also the reason you are alive.”
“Do not say that to me.”
“I will say it because it is true.”
“He destroyed my home.”
“And your home was ruled by men who helped build Project X.”
“My sister did not build Project X,” Drea snapped. “My brother did not build Project X. The servants did not build Project X. The children did not build Project X. You keep acting like the word Westside explains every body that fell there, but it does not.”
Noel’s jaw flexed. “I am not here to defend every dead body.”
“Then stop sounding like you are.”
“I am trying to make you understand the room you are standing in.” He pointed toward the door. “This place runs on power. Blood. Fear. Lineage. You are carrying Logan Frost’s heir. The moment that becomes known, every person in this palace will choose a side, whether you want them to or not.”
Drea’s throat worked. “That is what I am afraid of.”
“Then tell him before someone else does.”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Why?”
The question came hard.
Drea looked away.
Noel was quiet for half a breath before he pressed again. “Why?”
“Because I do not know what he will do.”
Noel blinked once. “You think he would hurt you?”
“I think Logan hears the word child and becomes someone I do not know how to predict.”
“That is ridiculous.”
“Is it?” She turned back to him, eyes burning. “His father died in front of him. His mother broke. He grew up with revenge as his spine. He destroyed Westside because of blood and legacy and betrayal. Now I am supposed to walk up to him and say, Logan, I am carrying your future, please handle that gently?”
Noel’s expression shifted at that. Not softening exactly. More like the argument had landed somewhere he did not expect.
“He needs to know,” he said, quieter now.
“I know he needs to know.”
“Then say it.”
“I can’t.”
“You mean you won’t.”
Drea stepped toward him this time. “Do not stand there and talk to me like I am being childish. I wake up sick. I freeze things without meaning to. I dream about Logan dying, and last night I was the one holding the sword. Brianna watched me from the terrace like she already knew where to strike. Kathryn knows enough to make me afraid. And now Kael is sending threats to the border, and I do not even know what he wants.” Her breath came faster, and the words followed before she could stop them. “My baby can’t grow here. Not like this. Not with everyone waiting to decide what it means.”
Noel stared at her.
Then his eyes dropped.
Drea felt it before she saw it.
Cold.
It crawled over her fingers in a thin rush, too fast, too clean. She looked down and saw frost beginning to lace across her knuckles, pale and unmistakable against her skin.
Fuck.
She curled her hands into fists and tucked them behind her back in one sharp motion.
Noel’s gaze lifted to her face.
Too late.
Maybe not too late.
She could not tell.
“What was that?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
His eyes narrowed. “Drea.”
“I need to go.”
“No, you need to stay exactly where you are.”
“I said I need to go.” She moved toward the door before he could step in front of it. Her heartbeat was pounding so hard she could feel it in her ears. If he had seen the frost, if he understood what it might mean, if he took that to Logan before she could choose the words herself, everything would slip out of her hands.
Noel followed her with his gaze. “You are making this worse.”
“I know.”
That stopped him.
Drea turned at the door, one hand on the handle, the other still hidden in the folds of her cloak.
“I know,” she repeated, voice rougher now. “That is the problem. I know everything I am doing wrong, and I still cannot make myself do it right.”
Noel’s face tightened. “Drea, if Kathryn knows, you are already out of time.”
Her stomach dipped.
She opened the door.
Cole straightened outside, pretending he had not been listening. His face betrayed nothing, but his eyes moved over her quickly, checking for damage.
Drea did not give him a chance to ask.
“I am going to my room.”
Cole glanced past her to Noel.
Noel stood still near the table, his expression grim.
“Take her,” he said.
Drea hated him for that. Not because he was wrong, but because the order made her feel exactly as trapped as she was.
She walked back through the corridors with Cole beside her, every step heavier than the last. The palace had grown busier while she was gone. Servants crossed between halls with careful speed. Guards spoke in low voices near stairwells. Somewhere beneath the ordinary movement, Drea could feel the shift Logan’s mansion had taken on overnight. There was danger in the walls now, organized and waiting.
By the time she reached her room, her body had started to shake.
Cole opened the door for her. “Do you want Alice?”
“No.”
“Drea.”
“I said no.”
He hesitated, then nodded once. “I will be outside.”
“Of course you will.”
She shut the door before he could answer.
The moment she was alone, the strength left her. She crossed the room and crashed onto the bed without taking off her cloak. The mattress dipped under her weight, soft and warm, and she hated that comfort came so easily in a place that made her feel hunted.
She lay on her back and stared at the ceiling.
Straight up.
No blinking at first. No crying. No moving.
If she moved, she might think. If she thought, she might make a decision. If she made a decision, she would have to choose which danger she trusted most: Logan’s reaction, Kathryn’s silence, Brianna’s hatred, Noel’s warning, or the cold waking in her own hands.
Her fingers rested against the blanket at her sides.
She did not look at them.
The hours passed slowly.
At some point, Rita came.
Drea heard the soft knock and the careful opening of the door. Rita stepped inside with her usual gentleness, carrying tea that smelled of ginger and mint. She crossed only halfway into the room before stopping, as if the sight of Drea lying stiffly on the bed told her not to come closer.
“Drea?” Rita asked quietly. “Alice said you looked unwell earlier.”
Drea kept her eyes on the ceiling. “I’m fine.”
Rita waited.
“You do not sound fine.”
“I am resting. Everyone keeps telling me to rest. This is me resting.”
The weak attempt at sarcasm did not land properly. Rita set the tea on the table and came a little closer, her voice softer. “Do you want me to sit with you?”
“No.”
“All right.” Rita sounded hurt, then covered it quickly. “I’ll leave the tea here. It might help your stomach.”
Drea swallowed. “Thank you.”
Rita left.
Later, Alice came. Drea knew it was Alice from the firmer knock, the sigh before the door opened, the way she crossed the room without waiting for permission.
“You cannot scare everyone and then lie in bed like a corpse,” Alice said.
Drea stared at the ceiling. “Watch me.”
Alice stopped beside the bed. “Noel sent for me.”
Of course he did.
Drea’s jaw tightened. “I’m fine.”
“That word has lost meaning in this room.”
“I’m not bleeding. I’m not feverish. I’m not dying. That should satisfy you.”
“It does not.”
Drea turned her head then and looked at her. Alice’s expression softened immediately, and that was worse than annoyance.
“Please,” Drea said quietly. “Not right now.”
Alice studied her for a long moment. Then she nodded. “I will come back later.”
Drea looked back at the ceiling.
The room dimmed as day moved toward evening. Shadows stretched along the walls. The fire was lit at some point by a servant Drea barely noticed. Food came and went untouched. Cole checked through the door twice, and she gave the same answer both times.
I’m fine.
She was there until night.
By then the ceiling had become too familiar. She knew the faint crack near the corner. The carved beam above the bed. The uneven patch where firelight reached and faded. Her body felt heavy, but her mind would not shut off. Noel knew. Kathryn suspected. Alice knew. Rita knew something was wrong. Logan knew she was hiding something.
The secret had stopped being hidden.
It was only waiting for the right person to say it aloud.
A knock came after dark.
Drea turned her head toward the door, her heart kicking once hard enough to hurt.
For a moment, she did not speak.
The knock came again, lower this time.
She pushed herself up on one elbow. “Who is it?”
A pause.
Then his voice.
“It’s Logan.”
Everything in her went still.
Drea sat up slowly.
Her cloak had twisted around her body. Her hair had come loose. She probably looked half-sick and half-haunted, which was close enough to the truth.
The door remained closed.
Logan did not enter without permission.
That alone made her chest tighten.
Her hand went to her stomach, then stopped there.
It was now or never.
She had to tell him the truth.