Chapter 40 Final Preparations (Thalia's POV)

Chapter 40 Final Preparations (Thalia's POV)

The dress fitting happens on day three of recovery.
"Miss Thornewood, you've lost weight." The seamstress frowns, pins between her teeth as she adjusts the gown's bodice. "We'll need to take in the waist."
"Stress." I offer the explanation Petra and I rehearsed. "Wedding planning is exhausting."
"And you've gained here." She gestures to my chest, then lower. "Hips are fuller too. Very strange distribution."
"Hormones." Petra intervenes smoothly. "Young women's bodies fluctuate. Nothing unusual."
The seamstress accepts this, returning to her pins. But I catch her skeptical glance in the mirror. She knows something is off. Just can't identify what.
I'm six weeks pregnant now. What should take months in humans is compressing into weeks for werewolves. The curve of my stomach is barely noticeable yet… easy to hide with the right undergarments and strategic dress construction. But it's there. Growing. Changing my body at supernatural speed.
Four more months until birth if Nikolai's estimates are correct. Four months of hiding pregnancy while preparing to marry someone who isn't my mate. Four months of watching Lucien serve as "advisor" to Casimir while pretending we're just colleagues.
Four months of hell.
"The dress will be ready in one week." The seamstress is packing up. "Final fitting three days before the wedding."
"Thank you." I manage a smile until she leaves.
Petra closes the door, turning with concerned eyes. "Thalia. You can't hide this much longer. Another week, maybe two, and everyone will know."
"The wedding is in eleven days." I'm counting every single one. "I just need to make it to the ceremony. After that, it doesn't matter who knows."
"Morrigan will figure it out before then." She's worried. "She's been watching you like a hawk. Questioning every meal you skip, every bout of nausea, every time you touch your stomach unconsciously."
"I'm being careful… "
"You're being obvious." She's gentle but firm. "Yesterday you fell asleep during the menu consultation. This morning you threw up twice before breakfast. These aren't subtle symptoms."
"Then help me hide them better." I'm desperate. "Please, Petra. I just need eleven more days."
She studies me for a long moment. "Why? Why does the timing matter so much? If people know you're pregnant before the wedding, it doesn't change the legality."
"It changes the optics." I'm honest about this. "Right now I'm entering the marriage as Thornewood heir making strategic alliance. If everyone knows I'm pregnant, I become unwilling bride being forced into arrangement to legitimize pregnancy."
"Aren't you?" She asks quietly.
"Yes. But there's a difference between being that and looking like it." I move to the window, staring out at London. "Perception matters in pack politics. I need to look like I'm choosing this."
"Are you? Choosing it?"
"Choosing implies alternatives." I don't turn around. "I'm accepting the only option that keeps everyone alive. That's not the same thing."
She's quiet behind me. 
She leaves with promises to help with the continued deception. I'm alone with mirrors reflecting a body I barely recognize… altered by pregnancy, by the curse counter trauma, by weeks of stress that show in hollow cheeks and shadows under golden eyes.
My phone buzzes. Lucien: "Can you get away? Need to see you."
"Where?"
"The park. Twenty minutes."
I check the schedule Petra maintains. Clear until dinner with Morrigan and Casimir at seven. Three hours of freedom.
"On my way."
The walk to the park takes fifteen minutes through autumn cold that bites despite my jacket. Lucien is waiting on our usual bench, looking as exhausted as I feel.
"You look terrible." I sit beside him, close enough that our shoulders touch.
"You look worse." But he's pulling me against his side, warmth seeping through layers. "When's the last time you slept properly?"
"Define properly." I rest my head on his shoulder. "If you mean without prophetic nightmares, probably never."
"The dreams are getting worse?"
"Every night." I close my eyes, remembering. "Last night I saw seventeen different futures. In thirteen of them, something terrible happens to the baby. In the other four, something terrible happens to you."
"Nothing where we're all okay?" He's trying for humor.
"One. One future where we're all relatively okay." I open my eyes. "And even in that one, we're living in secret for two years while Casimir slowly dies and I pretend to be content as his wife."
"Two years isn't forever."
"Two years is eight hundred days of lying in public while bonded to you in private." I'm bitter about it. "Eight hundred days of watching you serve as advisor while pretending we're just colleagues. Eight hundred days of raising our baby as Casimir's heir."
"Eighteen months maximum." He corrects. "That's his medical prognosis. Maybe less if the genetic condition accelerates."
"You're hoping your cousin dies faster?" I'm shocked despite understanding the logic.
"I'm hoping we get our autonomy sooner." He's honest. "Is that terrible?"
"Probably." I lean against him more heavily. "But I'm hoping the same thing. Does that make us both terrible?"
"It makes us desperate." He kisses the top of my head. "And trapped. And doing our best with impossible circumstances."
"How's the advisor position?" I ask eventually.
"Exactly as dystopian as expected." His voice carries dark humor. "Casimir has me reviewing intelligence reports from the Voss spy. Comparing information. Building profiles on the three suspects."
"Viktor, Marina, or Alexei."
"One of them killed Elara." He's grim. "And I have to figure out which one so I can deliver justice before Casimir dies."
"Have you narrowed it down?"
"Not definitively." He shifts slightly. "But Alexei is most likely. The timeline matches perfectly. His presence in Dragomir territory overlaps exactly with when Elara would have conceived. "
"So you think Alexei seduced Elara, got her pregnant, and abandoned her to die?"
"I think he was sent to seduce her." Lucien's voice is cold. "Think Ravenna ordered it as intelligence gathering. Elara was Alpha Dragomir's twin sister… perfect access point for compromising security."
"That's calculated." I'm horrified despite expecting this. "Deliberately targeting someone for seduction and abandonment."
"That's pack politics." He's bitter. "Using people as tools for strategic advantage. Sound familiar?"
"Very." I think about Casimir's manipulation, about how we're all pieces in his revenge scheme. "We're not so different from Elara, are we? Being used for political purposes beyond our control."
"Except we know we're being used." He takes my hand. "Elara thought she was in love. Thought whoever seduced her actually cared. She died not knowing it was all strategy."
"How do you know that?"
"Casimir told me." He's staring across the park. "Showed me her journals from those months. She wrote about this wolf she'd met, how kind he was, how much she loved him. Right up until she realized she was pregnant and he disappeared."
"That's heartbreaking."
"That's what I have to avenge." He turns to look at me. "When I identify which one it was… when I confirm Alexei or Viktor or Marina deliberately destroyed her… I have to deliver consequences. The oath requires it."
"What kind of consequences?" I'm almost afraid to ask.
"I don't know yet." He's honest. "The oath says justice, not revenge. Proportional to the crime. But what's proportional to deliberately seducing someone, getting them pregnant, and abandoning them to die in childbirth?"
"I don't know." I squeeze his hand. "But you'll figure it out when the time comes. You're not Casimir. You won't choose creative torture."
"Won't I?" He's questioning himself. "After eighteen months of serving him, learning from him, becoming his heir… will I still be me? Or will I be what he's molded me into?"
"You'll be you." I'm certain of this. "Changed by the experience, probably. But fundamentally still Lucien."
"I hope you're right." But he sounds doubtful.
We sit in silence for a while, watching autumn leaves fall around us. Normal people walking normal lives without supernatural complications.
"I had a dream about the wedding last night." I say eventually. "Want to hear?"
"Is it one of the terrible futures?"
"It's one of the inevitable ones." I close my eyes, remembering. "I'm standing at the altar in that beautiful dress the seamstress is making. Casimir is across from me looking distinguished and dying. You're to the side as advisor, watching with this expression that breaks my heart. Morrigan is in the front row looking smug. And I'm saying the vows while screaming inside."
"That's not prophetic. That's just next week." He's trying for humor again.
"The prophetic part comes after." I continue. "In the vision, I see the baby born four months later. Perfect, healthy, carrying markers from all three bloodlines. And Casimir is holding the baby, looking at it with this expression of absolute satisfaction. Like he's finally achieved what he spent five years planning."
"Then what?"
"Then he hands the baby to me and says 'raise them better than we were raised.' And dies. Right there. Just... stops breathing and dies while I'm holding our three-month-old."
"Three months after birth?" Lucien sounds surprised. "That's fast. His prognosis says eighteen months minimum."
"In this vision, seeing the baby fulfilled what he was holding on for." I open my eyes. "Like he was forcing himself to survive long enough to witness the birth and ensure the succession. Once that's done, he lets go."
"That's actually consistent with what Sorin has been saying." He's thinking. "The futures where Casimir dies earliest are the ones where he achieves his goals quickly. Baby born, succession secured, Elara's justice delivered. Then nothing keeping him alive."
"So if we accelerate those goals, he dies faster?" I'm processing the implications.
"Possibly." He's cautious. "But accelerating means identifying Elara's killer sooner. Means delivering justice I'm not ready to deliver. Means rushing through everything Casimir wants."
"Which gets us to autonomy faster." I'm seeing the trade-off. "Eighteen months of suffering or nine months of accelerated suffering to reach the same outcome."
"Except nine months means making decisions I'm not prepared for." He's firm about this. "I'm not rushing justice for Elara just to speed up Casimir's death. That's using her murder the same way he's been using it… as tool for other purposes."
"You're right." I feel ashamed for even suggesting it. "I'm just... so tired of waiting. Of pretending. Of watching you serve him while pretending we're not bonded."
"I know." He pulls me closer. "I'm tired too. But we survive this the same way we've survived everything else… one day at a time, together, without sacrificing who we are for convenience."
"Even when who we are makes everything harder?"
"Especially then." He's certain. "The moment we start compromising our values to make the arrangement easier is the moment we become what everyone fears… Convergence wolves who prioritize power over principle."
"That's a high bar to maintain for eighteen months."
"That's the bar that keeps us human." He corrects. "Wolf. Whatever. You know what I mean."
I do. And he's right. But it's exhausting maintaining integrity when everything pushes toward compromise.
My phone buzzes. Morrigan: "Where are you? Dinner is in two hours and you need to prepare."
"I have to go." I stand reluctantly. "Dinner with Morrigan and Casimir. More wedding planning."
"How is Morrigan handling all this?" He's curious despite everything.
"Suspicious. Watchful. Knows something is wrong but can't prove what." I'm gathering my things. "She keeps asking why I'm so tired, why I'm not eating properly, why I look like I'm carrying the weight of the world."
"Because you are." He stands too, pulling me into a proper hug. "But you're not carrying it alone. Remember that."
"I'll try." I breathe in his scent, memorizing it. "I love you."
"I love you too." He holds me for another moment before releasing. "See you at the wedding if not before."
"That's romantic." I'm being sarcastic. "See you at the ceremony where I marry your cousin."
"Yeah, that's not getting less weird with repetition." But he's almost smiling. "Go. Deal with your mother. I'll handle Casimir's latest intelligence review."
I leave him there, walking back through autumn cold to face dinner with people who are simultaneously family and captors.