CHAPTER 432: NEW YEAR

ARIA

The classroom air was thick with big words and boredom. Finance 301. Professor Martinez’s voice was a distant, droning hum, a background noise to the only thing that mattered.

Sarah sat beside me, her pen moving in swift, sure strokes. Her focus was a force field. Her brow was furrowed just so. A strand of hair fell across her cheek, and she tucked it behind her ear with a precise, familiar motion. My heart did not swell. It cracked open, a fissure leaking a desperate, aching longing. I missed her with a physical sickness, even as she occupied the space eighteen inches away.

She felt my stare. She turned, her lips parting to form a question.

I moved before thought. I launched myself at her, my arms wrapping around her shoulders in a grip that was too tight, too desperate. The chair scraped. Students gasped.

"Miss Thorne!" The professor’s voice sliced through the room. "What is the meaning of this?"

"Sorry!" I called, my face buried in her hair, inhaling the scent of her shampoo. I couldn’t let go.

"Both of you. Out. Now."

We stumbled into the hallway, outside the lecture theatre.

"I’m sorry," I babbled, my cheeks burning. "I know you hate disrupting class—"

"I don’t mind," she said, and her smile was a soft, sun-warmed thing. The real one. "I was dying in there anyway."

Relief was a cool balm, washing through me.

"Want to go to watch a movie?" I asked. "Our spot?"

"Always."

---

We sat in the throne of our kingdom. Back center. The two rusted claws where speakers once lived between us.

A forgettable romcom flickered on the giant screen, its dialogue a script we knew by heart. I laughed at the predetermined moments. Sarah murmured the lines a beat before the actors.

It was perfect. This was the truth. The other life, the one of hospitals and betrayals and shattered glass, that was the nightmare. This was the waking world.

Then the edges of the screen blurred. The world softened,warping at the corners like film burning. Sarah vanished from the seat beside me.

"Sarah?" My voice echoed in the sudden, vast emptiness.

I stood and the theater melted, the sticky floor dissolving into cold, wet concrete.

An alley. An alley that shouldn’t be.

And Sarah. Standing over a nightmare. Blood splattered her clothes, her hands. A knife, heavy and dark, hung from her fingers. At her feet lay Cain, or what was left of him. A puzzle of a person, disassembled. The metallic smell of blood filled the air, thick and coppery.

She looked at me. Her expression was a clean, empty slate.

Then she smiled. That hollow, terrifying smile.

"Do you love me?" Her voice was conversational, curious. "Because I love you. So you wouldn’t mind if I did this, right? You wouldn’t mind at all."

---

I woke with a gasp that tore at my throat.

My heart was a wild, frantic animal trying to beat its way out of my chest. The space behind my ribs felt scooped out, raw and cavernous.

The dream was a stain on my consciousness, its images seared onto the back of my eyelids. That smile. That blood. That monstrous, loving question.

The betrayal was a fresh wound, salt rubbed deep into the grain of my soul.

Then I felt him.

Kael. His body was a solid wall of heat against my back. His arm was a heavy, possessive weight across my waist. His chest rose and fell against my spine, his breath a warm, steady rhythm on my neck.

An anchor. A tether dragging me back from the abyss.

The realization was a sobering douse of cold water. He was always there. In the wreckage of every nightmare, in the aftermath of every fracture, in the deep, silent hours when the darkness felt absolute. He was always there.

I shifted, a minute movement to see his face.

Instantly, he was awake. He sat up in a fluid, alarmed motion, his hands coming to cradle my face. His eyes, dark and deep, scanned my features, swimming with a fear that mirrored my own.

"Are you okay?" His voice was gravel, shredded by sleep and a terror I had put there. "Aria, talk to me. Are you hurt?"

I looked at him, and the wave that hit me was a riptide of feeling. Guilt, sharp and acidic, for being the source of his fear. A gratitude so immense it felt like its own kind of grief. A love so vast and terrifying it threatened to dissolve the very boundaries of my self.

"I’m fine," I whispered, the words a fragile vessel on a turbulent sea.

"Are you still in pain?" His thumbs stroked my cheeks, as if trying to wipe away the memory of last night’s tears. "Do you need the nurse? I’ll get them now—"

"No." I shook my head, my hands coming up to cover his. "I’m fine. I promise."

In the quiet of my mind, a thought crystallized. I had almost forgotten. Almost forgotten that this man loved me with a ferocity that could alter orbits. A love that lived in the silent space between one heartbeat and the next. A love that did not dim or waver but grew roots, digging deeper with every shared breath, every touch, every scar earned together.

The kind of love that was the only definition of home.

Kael began to rise. "I should still call someone—"

I grabbed his wrist, my grip surprisingly strong. "Stay. Please. Just stay with me."

He settled back without hesitation, his arms enveloping me, pulling me into the fortress of his body.

"I’m okay now," I assured him, my voice muffled against his chest. "Really."

But I could feel the tension in his muscles, the hesitation in the way he held me. The ghost of my words...I want to die... still hung in the air between us.

"Promise me," he said, his voice low and raw, stripped bare. "Promise me you will never leave. Because if you go, I am following you. There is no world for me without you in it."

My eyes burned, hot tears welling, spilling over.

"I won’t," I choked out, holding him so tightly my arms ached. "I’m so sorry I said that. I didn’t—"

"I don’t want an apology," he interrupted, his voice firm. "I want your word."

"I promise," I swore, the words a vow etched into my bones. "I swear it on my life. I am not going anywhere."

---

Time lost its shape.

Eventually, Kael slipped out to speak with a doctor, his absence leaving a cold space beside me.

The door burst open and Ash flew in.

"I’m so sorry," she blurted, her face pale. "I never should have left you. This is my fault—"

"Don’t," I cut her off, my voice firm. "The fault is mine. I’m the one who made you worry. Again."

Ash sank onto the edge of the mattress, her glare potent. "You scared me to death."

"I know. I’m fine now."

"Are you sure?"

I nodded.

She sighed, the anger deflating, replaced by a cautious solemnity. "Your results are ready."

My stomach plummeted, a freefall into a void.

"I made sure the doctor didn’t speak to Kael," Ash added quickly. "And I don’t know what they say. Maybe you can just... look at them later, when you’re—"

The door opened.

Kael stepped back in. "It’s time to go." His gaze shifted to Ash. "The nurse said you have the results from Aria’s tests."

The air in the room solidified. Ash and I froze.

Ash shot me a panicked look.

"Don’t worry about it," I said, my voice too high. "I have them right here."

Kael’s brow furrowed. "Is that so? Because if there is a problem, we need to address it now. The doctor said you’re malnourished, that you can’t keep food down—"

"I know," I interrupted. "And I will. Can you just... give us one more minute?"

His frown deepened, a storm cloud gathering in his eyes, but he gave a curt nod and retreated, closing the door with a soft, definitive click.

I turned to Ash. "Read it."

"What?"

"The results. I need you to read them first."

"Aria, you don’t have to do that—"

"Please," I begged, the plea ripped from a place of pure terror. "I need you to know before I do."

Ash studied my face, her own a mask of conflict. Finally, she nodded. She took the envelope, her movements deliberate, and turned away from me.

I watched her back, my heart a frantic drum against my ribs. I watched the line of her shoulders, the tilt of her head.

There was a pause. A slight intake of breath. A subtle shift in her posture that gave nothing away.

Then she turned and handed the envelope back, her face expertly neutral.

I stared, searching her eyes for the truth, for a sign, for anything.

Ash offered a small, unreadable smile. "Unfortunately, I won’t give you what you’re looking for."

Defeat was a heavy cloak. I sighed.

We stood and walked to the door together.

Kael was waiting, leaning against the wall, his arms crossed. A statue of controlled tension.

We moved through the hospital and out into the parking lot, the cold morning air a shock.

Ash turned to us with a brilliant, forced grin. "Happy New Year, lovebirds. I’m starting this one with a bang. See you later."

She slid into her car and was gone in a spray of gravel before we could respond.

Kael just shook his head. "She’s insane."

I waved at the empty space where her car had been, then let Kael lead me to his, his hand a steadying pressure on the small of my back.

---

In the car, the weight of it all settled back onto my chest. The confrontation. The breakdown. The unforgivable words I had spoken.

But I made a vow to myself, silent and fierce. I would not be pulled under again.

Because I had Kael.

The previous year had been a crucible of fire, but it had forged this. It had given me the man beside me, his profile stern in the dashboard lights, one hand on the wheel, the other gripping my thigh as if the seatbelt alone was insufficient to keep me safe.

No matter how deep the darkness, I would remember. I had survived. I had clawed my way out of the worst moments a life could offer, and I was still here.

Still breathing.

Still fighting.

We reached the hotel. Kael was immediately in motion, talking to staff, ordering food, his entire being focused on my care, on what I might be able to stomach.

I sat on the bed, the world muffled and distant.

The envelope lay before me on the duvet.

My heart began to hammer again, a frantic, hopeful, terrified rhythm.

I took a single, sharp breath and tore it open.

My eyes scanned the clinical print.

And my heart did not just lift.

It erupted.

It broke free from the weight, from the grief, from the pain.

It soared.

I was pregnant.