Chapter 4: Morning Sickness and a New Cage
The first thing Emmett became aware of was the scent. It was everywhere. Inhaled with every breath, soaked into the sheets tangled around his legs, a deep, smoky, masculine musk that was unmistakably Julian. It coated the back of his throat. It felt like being inside the wolf’s lungs.
The second thing was the pain. A low, persistent ache radiated from between his thighs. A sharper, more localized throb pulsed in time with his heartbeat at the side of his neck. He lifted a heavy hand, fingertips brushing the raised, tender skin. The memory crashed over him—the cold glass, the city lights, the searing fusion of pleasure and finality. The bite.
He was in the center of a massive bed in a room that felt more like a museum exhibit. Everything was shades of black, charcoal, and silver. The dawn light, weak and pale, seeped around the edges of a single sheer curtain, doing little to soften the hard lines. This was Julian’s den. And he was in it.
The third thing hit him like a physical blow: a sudden, clenching nausea that boiled up from his gut without warning. It was different from the anxiety sickness he’d grown used to. This was deeper, more insistent, a biological revolt.
He scrambled from the bed, the expensive sheets slipping to the floor. His bare feet hit cold marble. The world tilted. He stumbled, one hand braced against a wall, following the gleam of what he hoped was a bathroom door.
He made it just in time, collapsing on his knees before the pristine, ridiculously large porcelain toilet. His body convulsed, empty save for bile and the acid taste of fear. He shuddered, sweating and pathetic, forehead resting against the cool lid.
This was the reality. Not the fantasy of the ball, not the blurred intensity of the claiming against the window. This was his body, traitorous and changing, housed in a gilded cage owned by a man who dealt in assets and heirs. The sob that escaped was ragged, mingling with the aftermath of dry heaves.
A shadow fell across the doorway.
Emmett froze, his muscles locking. He didn’t need to look. The scent intensified, filled the room, a presence that demanded acknowledgment.
Julian leaned against the doorframe, dressed only in a pair of low-slung sweatpants. His hair was messy, his jaw shadowed. He watched, arms crossed over his bare chest, his expression unreadable. He didn’t speak. He just observed, like Emmett was a fascinating, mildly concerning phenomenon.
“What?” Emmett croaked, the word scraped raw. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, humiliation burning hotter than the nausea. “Enjoying the show?”
Julian pushed off the frame and walked into the bathroom. He moved with a silent, predatory grace that was terrifying in its domesticity. He didn’t touch Emmett. Instead, he filled a glass from the tap, then plucked a small green mint from a crystal dish on the vanity.
He crouched down, placing the glass and the mint on the floor within Emmett’s reach. His eyes, in the gray morning light, were more gold than amber. They tracked over Emmett’s hunched form, the mess of chestnut curls stuck to a damp forehead, the prominent mark on his neck, the pale, trembling shoulders.
“It’s common,” Julian said, his voice a low rumble still thick with sleep. “Morning sickness. The body adjusting to the new hormonal signature. It should pass in a few weeks.”
The clinical explanation was somehow worse than anger or disgust. It made him a specimen. A problem with a known timeline.
Emmett stared at the water glass. A simple act of care. It shouldn’t feel like a landmine. He wanted to knock it away, to scream. His hand, traitor again, reached for it. The water was cool, washing away the bitter taste. He put the mint on his tongue, the sharp sweetness a shock.
“Why are you being like this?” Emmett whispered, not looking at him.
“Like what?”
“This. The water. Last night you… you bit me. You moved me in here like a piece of furniture. Now you’re handing out mints. Which one is real?”
Julian didn’t answer immediately. He shifted to sit on the marble floor, his back against the vanity, legs stretched out. The proximity was overwhelming. “They’re all real. You are mine. I protect what’s mine. That includes making sure you’re hydrated after you’re sick.” He said it as if it were the most obvious equation in the world. “The bite is permanent. The move is non-negotiable. The mint is practical. They’re not contradictory.”
“I feel like I’m going insane,” Emmett admitted, the confession torn from him.
“You’re not. You’re pregnant, claimed, and in a new territory. Your instincts are at war. Submission screams at you to trust me, to nest. Your fear and your previous independence tell you to run.” Julian tilted his head. “You’re not insane. You’re adaptive. It’s why you survived this long on your own.”
He made it sound noble. Emmett just felt carved out and empty. He drew his knees up to his chest, a barrier. “What happens today? Do I get a schedule? A list of approved activities?”
A flicker of something—annoyance? amusement?—crossed Julian’s face. “Today, you rest. A doctor I trust will come this afternoon to see you. Later, we’ll discuss what you need from your old apartment.” He paused, his gaze settling on the claiming bite with a possessiveness that was a physical touch. “And you’ll get used to the scent. It will start to smell like safety. Like home.”
“It smells like you,” Emmett said dully.
“Exactly.”
Julian’s phone, which had been sitting on the vanity, buzzed with a sharp, insistent rhythm. He glanced at the screen, his jaw tightening a fraction. The relaxed predator vanished, replaced by the CEO. He stood in one fluid motion.
“The kitchen is fully stocked. Order anything you want. The system works by voice command. No one unwanted can get past the lobby. The entire floor is secure.” He was issuing directives now, already halfway back to the world of mergers and acquisitions.
He stopped at the door, looking back. “Don’t try to leave, Emmett. The security team has your description. They won’t hurt you, but they will bring you back. And I will be… displeased.”
It wasn’t a shout. It was colder. Final.
Then he was gone, his footsteps silent on the marble.
Emmett sat on the cold floor for a long time, the mint a shrinking pool of sugar on his tongue. He listened to the distant sounds of Julian moving in the penthouse, the quiet murmur of a business call, the efficient click of a closet door.
He finally pushed himself up, his body protesting. He caught sight of himself in the mirror above the vanity. Pale. Hollow-eyed. A vivid, dark bruise of teeth marks stood out starkly on the pale column of his neck. A brand. He looked exactly like what he was: claimed, possessed, incubating.
He walked back into the monolithic bedroom. The bed was a rumpled mess. The scent of sex and Julian and their tangled bodies was strongest there. His omega instincts, the ones Julian had so coolly identified, hummed at him to crawl back into that warm, safe-smelling nest. To bury himself in the proof of his alpha’s presence.
His stomach churned again, a weaker echo of the earlier sickness.
He turned away from the bed and walked to the wall of glass. He pressed his hand against it, looking down at the ant-like world below. No one could see him. He was in a silent, pristine cage in the sky.
His hand drifted down, resting on the still-flat plane of his stomach. A doctor was coming. More reality. More confirmation.
The voice-activated kitchen system could bring him anything. Except the one thing he truly wanted: a way out that didn’t feel like stepping off the edge of the world. He leaned his forehead against the cool glass, the ghost of Julian’s body at his back, the phantom ache of the knot and the bite a constant reminder.
Adaptive, Julian had called him. He closed his eyes, wondering what ugly, beautiful shape he would have to twist himself into next in order to survive.