Chapter 283

Chapter 283
Drea stayed sitting after Logan knocked, though every part of her wanted to rise and pace. She had spent the entire day staring at the ceiling, answering questions with the same tired lie, and waiting for the moment when the truth would finally force its way out of her. Now he stood on the other side of the door, close enough that she could picture the weight of his hand against the wood, and the words she had rehearsed all afternoon disappeared.
“It’s Logan.”
Her palm settled against her stomach. The gesture had become instinctive, which was one reason she had failed to hide the pregnancy from everyone except the man who mattered most. Kathryn suspected. Alice knew. Noel knew now because Drea had practically placed the truth in his hands. Logan remained outside her door, asking permission to enter a room in his own palace while she tried to convince herself she could still control how he learned about their child.
“Come in,” she said.
The door opened slowly. Logan stepped inside and closed it behind him, but he did not approach the bed at once. He wore a dark shirt and trousers, and his hair was still damp, as though he had bathed recently. The sight of him fully dressed and composed should have made things easier after what she had seen on the terrace. Instead, she remembered the sweat across his bare chest, the brutal rhythm of his fists striking the training bag, and the way he had looked at her when he realized she was watching.
He studied her from across the room. His eyes moved over the cloak she still had not removed, the untouched tray near the fire, and the stiff way she sat on the edge of the mattress. “You stayed in here all day.”
“I was told to rest.”
“That usually involves sleeping.”
“I did some of that.”
His gaze lingered on her face. “Alice said you were sick again.”
Drea’s stomach tightened. She could tell him now. The opening was there, plain enough that she almost resented him for providing it. All she had to do was say that the sickness had a cause, that it was growing inside her, and that she had known for days.
Instead, she looked toward the fire. “Alice talks too much.”
“She is a doctor. Talking about the health of the people under her care is part of her work.”
“I did not realize I had become pack business.”
“You became pack business the night I brought you here.”
The blunt answer irritated her, but there was no cruelty in his tone. He seemed tired, as if they had both reached the point where anger required more strength than either possessed. Drea folded her hands together so he would not see them tremble.
Logan crossed the room and stopped near the fire. He rested one hand against the mantel, keeping enough distance between them to make it clear that he remembered how quickly she had retreated from him on the terrace. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine.”
“You have given that answer to four people today.”
“You counted?”
“Cole reports to me. Rita worries loudly. Alice came to find me herself.”
Drea looked at him sharply. “Alice came to find you?”
“Earlier. She said you would not let her examine you properly.” His expression tightened. “Why?”
Drea’s heartbeat quickened, but she forced her face to stay calm. “Because I was tired, and I did not want another person asking what was wrong when I had no answer I was ready to give.”
Logan went still for a fraction of a second. She heard the meaning in her own words and knew he had heard it too. He could have pressed. He could have crossed the space and demanded the secret he had already accused her of carrying. Instead, he lowered his hand from the mantel and watched her with a restraint that made the silence between them more difficult.
“You are ready to give an answer now?” he asked.
Drea opened her mouth.
The word pregnancy formed in her mind. She imagined saying it and watching his face change. She pictured anger first, because anger was familiar. She pictured satisfaction next, which frightened her more. She could hear him reminding her that this was the purpose he had chosen for her when he named her his breeder. She could see the pregnancy becoming proof that he had won something she had never agreed to lose.
Then she remembered the boy behind the curtain, watching Damien die, and the grown man on the terrace trying to beat his grief into a leather bag. She no longer knew which version of Logan would answer her.
“I was going to ask whether you slept,” she said.
His brows drew together. “That was not what you were going to say.”
“You cannot know that.”
“I know what you look like when you lie.”
Drea’s cheeks heated. “You are very confident for a man who has known me for such a short time.”
“I have spent most of that time watching you.”
The words landed between them with more intimacy than either of them seemed prepared for. Drea’s gaze dropped to his hands. His knuckles were wrapped now, but she could still picture the blood on them. When she looked back up, Logan was watching her mouth.
The air seemed warmer, though the fire had not changed.
Drea shifted on the bed. “You should stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Looking at me as if you have forgotten the conversation we had earlier.”
“I remember every word of it.”
“Then you should know I am still angry.”
“I know.”
“You do not appear bothered.”
“That would be dishonest.”
The quiet answer stripped some of the fight from her. She hated that he could be difficult in loud ways and more dangerous in calm ones. She tried to look away, but his attention held her in place.
Logan came one step closer, then stopped. “I did not come here to argue.”
“Why did you come?”
“To see you.”
The answer was immediate.
Drea stared at him, unable to hide her surprise. Logan’s jaw tightened as though he regretted the honesty but would not take it back. The sexual tension between them did not come from touching. It sat in the space he had chosen not to cross, in the memory of his bare body, in the way her own body had begun reacting to him before she could decide whether she wanted it to.
“You saw me this morning,” she said.
“That was before Noel told Cole you left his room looking frightened.”
Her stomach dropped. “Noel said that?”
“He said you were upset. Cole said you nearly ran back here.”
“I did not run.”
“You are correcting the wrong part.”
Drea stood because sitting made her feel cornered. The movement brought them closer than she intended. Logan’s gaze dropped briefly to the line of her throat, then returned to her eyes. She could smell soap on his skin, mixed with the clean winter scent that belonged only to him.
“Noel and I had a disagreement,” she said.
“About what?”
“Project X.”
Logan studied her. “That was all?”
Drea’s hand almost moved toward her stomach again. She caught it in time and folded her arms. “You told me the truth, and I wanted another perspective.”
“Noel is not the man I would choose for that.”
“Why?”
His expression cooled. “Because Noel turns every truth into a weapon eventually.”
The warning was too late, and Logan seemed to realize it from the change in her face.
“What did you tell him?” he asked.
Drea held his gaze. “Nothing that concerns you.”
“Everything about Noel concerns me.”
“That is convenient.”
“It is experience.”
He stepped closer, and this time Drea did not move away. The heat between them sharpened, threaded with frustration. Logan’s voice dropped. “Tell me what happened.”
“I told him I knew about Project X. We argued about Westside. He said I could not do anything useful with the truth because I still cared about innocent people.”
A muscle shifted in Logan’s jaw. “That sounds like Noel.”
“He also said I am surrounded.”
Logan’s eyes hardened. “By whom?”
“He did not give me names.”
“That does not mean he does not have them.”
Drea watched the Alpha return to his face. She saw his mind moving beyond the room, assessing threat and loyalty, deciding who would be questioned before dawn. “Do not punish him because I went there.”
“I punish people for what they do, Drea. Your involvement does not protect them.”
“That is exactly the sort of sentence that makes speaking to you difficult.”
His gaze returned fully to her. “You are still speaking.”
“Against my better judgment.”
The corner of his mouth moved, almost a smile. Drea’s breath caught at the small change, and Logan noticed. His eyes lowered again, this time lingering long enough that warmth spread through her body despite the fear and exhaustion that had ruled her all day.
He could have touched her. She knew that. He was close enough that his hand would only have to move a few inches to reach her waist. Instead, he held himself still.
Drea hated the restraint because it made her more aware of what she wanted.
“Rest,” he said, his voice rougher now.
She frowned. “That is all?”
“It is what you need.”
“You came all the way here to tell me to sleep?”
“I came to make sure you were alive, and then you started arguing.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“I am trying not to be.”
The honesty returned, quieter and more dangerous than before. Drea looked at his mouth, then immediately looked away. If he kissed her now, she did not know whether she would stop him. That uncertainty frightened her enough to restore some sense.
Logan stepped back first.
“I will leave you alone,” he said. “Eat something before you sleep.”
Drea nodded, though she had no intention of touching the tray.
He walked to the door and paused with his hand on the latch. “Whatever you are trying to tell me, tell me before someone else does.”
Drea’s throat tightened.
Logan waited, giving her one final chance. She nearly took it. The words rose, pressed against her teeth, and failed again.
“I will,” she said.
He left without asking when.
The room felt colder after the door shut. Drea sat back on the bed and covered her face with both hands. She had planned to tell him. She had been certain she would. Then he had stood in front of her looking like a man instead of an Alpha, and somehow that made the truth harder to give.
Hours passed before another knock came.
Drea expected Rita or Alice. When she opened the door and found Brianna waiting, every muscle in her body tightened.
The older woman wore a dark blue gown with a white fur wrap across her shoulders. Her expression was composed, but the hostility Drea had seen from the terrace remained. It lived in the hard set of her mouth and in the way her eyes moved over Drea as though searching for evidence.
“I heard you were ill,” Brianna said.
“Everyone has.”
“May I come in?”
The politeness surprised Drea enough that she stepped aside.
Brianna entered and stopped near the fire. She did not sit. Her gaze went to the untouched food, then to the bed, and finally to Drea’s face. “Alice said you refused an examination.”
“I was tired.”
“That does not explain why you were sick during patrol.”
Drea’s stomach tightened. “News travels quickly here.”
“People pay attention when Logan’s breeder vomits in the snow.”
The title should have angered her. It did, but the feeling came tangled with something else now. After hearing Logan’s story, Drea could not look at Brianna without seeing the woman beside Damien’s body, the widow who had spent years raising a son full of grief. She could imagine Brianna watching Logan harden, watching him become more like the father she had lost, and fearing that the world would take him too.
The pity came without permission.
Brianna noticed the change in her expression. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Do not look at me like that.”
Drea swallowed. “Like what?”
“As if you know me.”
“I do not.”
“Then stop pretending you understand what I have survived.”
Drea could have told her that Logan had explained everything. She could have offered sympathy. Both choices would have sounded false in a room where Brianna had spent weeks treating her like an intruder. Instead, Drea kept the pity to herself.
“I am not trying to understand you,” she said. “I am tired.”
Brianna’s gaze narrowed. “You have made that clear.”
They stood in silence, neither willing to offer more. Drea felt the cold threaten her fingertips and tucked her hands into the folds of her skirt.
Brianna watched the movement. “You should be careful.”
The warning was quiet.
Drea looked up. “About what?”
“About confusing Logan’s attention with protection.” Brianna adjusted the fur at her shoulders. “He becomes attached to things he believes he must save. Attachment has cost him before.”
“Am I a thing now?”
“You are a complication.”
Drea’s anger sharpened enough to overpower the pity. “Then you can stop checking on me.”
Brianna held her gaze for a moment. “Perhaps I should.”
She turned and walked to the door. Before leaving, she looked back once, her expression unreadable. “If something is wrong with you, Logan will discover it. He always does.”
Then she left.
Drea closed the door and leaned against it. Brianna’s grief did not make her kind. It did not erase the threat in her eyes. Understanding someone’s pain did not require trusting what they might do with it.
Night settled fully over the palace.
Drea changed into a nightdress but could not sleep. She sat near the fire, replaying every conversation of the day. Noel knew. Kathryn suspected. Brianna was watching. Logan was waiting. The secret had become a crowded room.
The next knock came hard enough to make her jump.
Before she could answer, Logan’s voice came through the door. “Drea.”
Something in his tone made her stand at once.
“Come in.”
He opened the door and stepped inside. His face was pale.
Drea had never seen Logan Frost look pale. Even wounded, furious, or exhausted, he carried warmth under his skin. Now his expression looked drained of everything except fear.
He closed the door behind him. “Alice just told me what happened.”
Drea’s pulse stumbled. “What did she tell you?”
His eyes locked on hers. “Is it true?”
She knew at once.
Her mouth went dry. “I was going to tell you.”
Logan closed his eyes briefly, and the movement looked like pain. “So it is true.”
Drea gripped the back of the chair beside her. “Logan, I was trying to find the right time.”
“You’re pregnant.”
She nodded.
The truth finally existed between them, smaller than the fear it created and larger than anything else in the room.
“Yes.”
Logan stared at her stomach. His breathing changed, becoming shallow and uneven. He lifted one hand to his mouth, then dragged it down over his jaw.
“Oh God.”
Drea’s fear deepened. She had imagined anger, possession, even satisfaction. She had never imagined this.
Logan took one step toward her and stopped.
“Oh God,” he said again, his voice breaking. “Please tell me I’m not too late.”
Drea’s fingers tightened around the chair. “Too late for what?”
He looked at her as if he had forgotten she knew nothing. His face twisted with guilt. “You have no idea.”
“About what?”
“Why would you?” He turned away, ran one hand through his hair, then faced her again. “Why didn’t I tell you?”
Drea’s heart pounded. “Logan.”
He seemed unable to hear her. “I should have told you before. I should have warned you before I ever touched you.”
“Logan!” Her voice cracked across the room. “What are you talking about?”
He stopped.
For several seconds, he only stared at her. Then his gaze dropped to her stomach again. His throat moved when he swallowed.
“The baby,” he said.
Drea could barely breathe.
Logan lifted his eyes to hers, and the terror in them made the room seem to tilt.
“It’s going to die.”