E

    Over the following weeks, we fell into a tentative yet strangelyfortable routine. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it felt like a real marriage, not by a long shot, but between the baby and the election, Alexander and I almost felt like…

    Partners.

    Mostly, Alexander just threw himself into election preparations, while I found myself caught between the excitement of preparing for our baby and the misery of morning sickness that seemed determined tost all day long.

    Morning sickness. What a joke. Try afternoon sickness, evening sickness, middle- of–the–night–wake–up–and–sprint–to–the–bathroom sickness.

    But Alexander was always there when I was ill. And every night, even when I didn’t see him all day because of the election, he came home for dinner. At every event, we were by each other’s sides, quietly supporting each other.

    Again, it wasn’t a real marriage by any stretch of the imagination. If anything, it felt more like a strange sort of limbo. But in an unexpected way, it was also sort offortable. And I found myself smiling a lot more during those days, although that could have been chalked up to the excitement of preparing for the baby.

    The baby preparations, in particr, were going smoothly. The cherry wood crib and matching furniture had arrived right on schedule, and we’d spent an entire afternoon setting up the nursery.

    Alexander had insisted on assembling everything himself, muttering about proper safety protocols and refusing to let any of the pack members help.

    Watching him wrestle with the crib instructions, red hair falling across his forehead as he concentrated, had done something dangerous to my chest.

    He’d looked so… domestic. Like a real husband preparing for his first child.

    I tried not to think about what our life would be like if that were the case, but it wasn’t easy. Especially not when his face lit up every time I mentioned the baby or when he would bring me ginger ale and crackers in the middle of the night when I

    was sick.

    The campaign, meanwhile, was going better than anyone had expected. Alexander’s approval ratings had skyrocketed after our public announcement about the pregnancy. Apparently, voters loved the idea of a stable family man as their Alpha King.

    Surprise, surprise.

    The photos from our maternity shoot were still circting on social media, along with candid shots from various events where Alexander’s hand could be seen resting protectively on my lower back. No one knew it was all an act. Sometimes, I forgot it was, too.

    By the time I was five months along, Alexander had taken the lead in the polls for the first time since the campaign had begun.

    “I think I might actually win this thing,” he’d said one evening, copsing into bed beside me while I sat up on my side, reading a book. I could feel a wave of sicknessing, so I knew it was pointless to try to sleep yet.

    I nced at him. “You sound surprised.”

    “I am, a little. When this whole thing started, it felt like such a long shot.” He shrugged. “But the family man angle is working better than I expected.”

    The family man angle. Right. It was so easy to forget sometimes that that was what we were ying at. Sharing a bed had be so routine that I often needed a reminder that none of this was real.

    I forced a smile. “Good. That’s what you hoped for when we made the arrangement, isn’t it?”

    Something flickered across Alexander’s expression, too quick for me to interpret. But before I could ask about it, the sickness came, and that was the end of the

    discussion for the night.

    The following morning, I was passing by Alexander’s office when I overheard him talking to Gabriel within.

    “We need one final push,” Gabriel was saying. “Something big and public that will cement your image as the candidate of family values, I’m thinking a massive supporter pic, right here in our territory. Families wee, activities for children, the whole thing. Of course, E won’t be able toe…”