Chapter 16: The Doctor's Visit
Dr. Aris was a beta woman with the kind of no-nonsense efficiency that Darian usually reserved for his best project managers. Her presence in the penthouse was both a relief and a violation. The Nest, still saturated with their scents and the charged memory of the last few days, felt abruptly clinical under her calm gaze.
Ethan sat on the edge of the bed, wrapped in a blanket, feeling absurdly small as she unpacked a portable scanner.
“Congratulations are likely in order, Mr.Flynn,” she said, her voice cool and kind. “But let’s confirm.”
Darian stood statue-still by the floor-to-ceiling window, a silhouette against the gray afternoon.He didn’t watch the city. He watched the scanner, the gel bottle, the doctor’s hands.His jaw was tight.The gel was cold on Ethan’s stomach. He flinched.“Relax,” Dr.Aris murmured.The scanner hummed.
A strange, swishing rhythm filled the quiet room a moment later. Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh.Fast, like a tiny moth trapped in a jar.Darian moved then. Three long strides brought him to the bedside. He stared at the holographic display that bloomed from the scanner—a grainy, pulsating gray orb.A flickering, rapid light at its center.
“There’s the gestational sac,” Dr.Aris said, pointing.“Perfect implantation. And there,” she added, her finger tracing the flicker, “is the fetal heartbeat. Strong.Textbook for five weeks.”
Five weeks.The math was damning. It had been that first time, in the frantic, brutal coupling against the Nest wall. A product of fury and fate.
Ethan’s own heart thudded against his ribs, keeping erratic time with that swift, alien rhythm.A pup.His pup.Theirs.
“Vitals are good,” the doctor continued, glancing at Ethan.“But you’re underweight.Marginal iron. Your old suppressants leached nutrients. That stops now.” She handed him a foil packet of prenatals, then a data-slate with a meal plan.“Small, frequent meals. Lean protein, dark greens, complex carbs.No caffeine.Limited sugar.Rest. Stress is your enemy.”
Darian snatched the slate from Ethan’s hands before he could even look at it. “I’ll handle this.”
“I can read,” Ethan said, the words coming out thinner than he intended.
“I’m aware.” Darian’s eyes were still glued to the hologram, to that relentless little flicker. “But compliance will be higher if I manage the sourcing and preparation.Our kitchen will be optimized.”
Dr. Aris looked between them, a flicker of professional assessment in her eyes.“The pregnancy is healthy.The carrier is resilient. But he’s not a machine, Mr.Blackwood. He needs agency, not just protocols.”
Darian’s gaze cut to her, icy.“His agency is to grow our child safely. My agency is to ensure the environment allows it.Are we clear?”
The beta doctor didn’t flinch. “Perfectly.” She cleaned the scanner, packed her bag.“Monthly check-ups. My direct line is on the slate for any concerns—nausea, bleeding, dizziness. Use it.” She gave Ethan a final, softer look.“Congratulations, Ethan. It’s a lot to process.”
Then she was gone, the elevator door sighing shut behind her, leaving the scent of antiseptic in her wake.
The sound of the heartbeat was still playing on a loop in Ethan’s head.Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh.Darian sank to his knees beside the bed. He didn’t speak. He simply leaned forward and pressed his ear against the exact spot where the gel had been, displacing the blanket.His eyes closed. He was listening for the real thing now, not the amplified recording.
Ethan watched the silver streaks in his hair, the intense furl of his brow. The city’ reflection glimmered in the window behind him, a kingdom he owned, but he was here, kneeling on carpet.
“I can’t hear it,” Darian whispered, his voice gravel.
“You heard the scanner.”
“That’s not the same.” He turned his head, his cheek resting on Ethan’s abdomen.“I want to hear it from here. With nothing between us.”
The raw wanting in his tone unspooled something in Ethan’s chest.He let his fingers thread through Darian’s hair. “It’s too small.”
“I don’t care.” Darian’s arms came around Ethan’s waist, holding him there.Not with force, but with a desperate kind of anchor. “I already love them,” he murmured into Ethan’s skin, the confession muffled, seismic.
Tears pricked hot behind Ethan’s eyes. He stared up at the ceiling, at the holographic stars Darian had projected there the second night because Ethan had mentioned missing the sky. He hadn’t asked for it.Darian had just done it.“I’m scared,” Ethan admitted to the artificial constellations.
Darian’s hold tightened.“I know.I am too. But not of the same things.” He lifted his head.His eyes were clear, fierce. “You’re scared of being trapped.Of losing yourself in my world. Of not being enough.” He stated it as fact.“I’m scared of a single cell dividing wrong. Of a nutrient deficiency I failed to account for. Of a threat I didn’t see coming.” He took Ethan’s hand, placed it over his own stomach.“We’ll work on your fears.Slowly. Mine, I will eliminate.One by one.”
It was the most honest thing he’d ever said. He wasn’t promising not to be controlling. He was promising to direct that control outward, into a fortress, while maybe—maybe—leaving the interior gates unlocked for Ethan.The intercom chimed softly. “Mr.Blackwood?The team is back with Mr.Flynn’s effects. And the feline. There’s… a situation.”
Darian stood, his protective crouch morphing back into CEO posture in a blink. “Send it up.”
The “situation” was Mochi, a one-eared ball of ginger fur, yowling bloody murder inside a premium pet carrier, and the palpable discomfort of two security detail guys holding boxes that smelled of old books and cheap coffee.
Ethan scrambled off the bed, the blanket falling away. “Mochi!”
The cat’s cries turned into plaintive wails. Ethan fumbled with the carrier latch, finally springing it open. Mochi shot out like a damp fuse, streaked across the polished marble floor, slid, recalibrated, and launched himself into Ethan’s arms, purring like a broken engine.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Ethan whispered, burying his face in the cat’s fur.The familiar scent of his old shampoo, of home, flooded his senses. He felt his shoulders drop an inch.Darian observed the reunion, his expression unreadable. He directed the men to place the boxes in the adjoining room he’d already designated as Ethan’s study. His nose wrinkled slightly at the modest, worn cardboard.“The cat requires anything?Specific litter? Food?” he asked, as if debriefing after a corporate acquisition.“He’s fine. He’s just freaked out.” Ethan nuzzled Mochi, who was kneading his robe.“He’ll adjust.The environment is superior.” Darian approached, hesitant. He extended a hand.Mochi stared at it, then sniffed his fingers imperiously. After a tense moment, he shoved his head under Darian’s palm.
Darian froze, then carefully stroked the cat’s head. A slow, rumbling purr filled the space between them.Something in Darian’s posture softened, just a fraction.“See? He knows you’re the sucker who pays for the gourmet tuna now,” Ethan teased softly.
A ghost of a smile touched Darian’s lips. “A small price.” He looked from the cat to Ethan’s face, his gaze lingering. The sterile bedroom, with its holographic stars and nervous cat, finally felt like it was being lived in.Occupied.“Your books.Your poetry. It’s all there. You can arrange things however you like in the next room.”
It was an offering.A tiny pocket of sovereignty in the heart of his empire.
Ethan hugged Mochi closer.The puppy-soft fear was still there, a constant hum beneath his ribs. But so was the heartbeat.Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh. And the man before him, learning to pet a cat, learning to love a pup he couldn’t even hear yet.
“I think,” Ethan said, his voice steadier now, “I’d like my notebook.The blue one.And a pen.”
Darian didn’t ask why. He just turned and retrieved it from a box, his movements efficient, sure. He handed it over, his fingers brushing Ethan’s.Ethan opened the book to a fresh page.He held the pen. He looked at Darian, at the city sprawled behind him, at the cat in his arms. He wrote the first line, not of a poem, but of a new story.
Today, I heard your heart. It was faster than mine.