"How long have you known?"

Cecilia felt the hurt reverberate through her soul. If this was the real world, she would understand what this meant to him.

In the real world, Oathran didn’t want to have a child. The reason had been obvious. It was because of the Key embedded into his bloodline. He didn’t want his children to inherit it.

She understood that he would have refused to pass that burden on to an innocent soul. And if Cecilia ever did become pregnant with his child, he might want to die sooner before the Key could latch onto the baby’s soul.

Before his child became the next sacrifice.

But what about in this world?

She had only just learned that dragons existed here, about the rifts, and that Oathran had been fighting a holy war for four hundred years.

Was there a similar reason here? A divine reason why a dragon might not want to bring a child into the world? Had she just handed him the one thing he had never wanted to have?

Cecilia tried to hide it. But the fear bled through anyway.

And that fear, more than anything else, was what broke Oathran’s heart.

"Yesterday!"

Thalia blurted urgently, her voice high-pitched after watching her employer’s relationship implode in real time and was determined to fix it. "Yesterday! All of us just found out yesterday morning!"

She realized, too late, but better late than never, that Cecilia might have not had the chance to tell him. The pregnancy had been discovered barely twenty-four hours ago, after all.

Cecilia truly was not hiding anything. She just... needed time. And information!

Oathran’s anger fell. It dropped, as though someone had cut the strings that had been holding it up. His expression, which had been hardening cold and fiercely, went slack with confusion.

Why was he even angry? Why was he... in the first place...?

Something in the back of his mind stirred. What... He was not angry at her. He could never be angry at her. So why had his voice dropped like that?

Gregor, sensing the shift, nodded repeatedly. "Yes, yes, we found out yesterday morning, Mr. Oathran. Please don—"

"Yes, Mr. Oathran, we found out yesterday morning. You can check!" Thalia was practically tripping over her words now, the relief of having a solution making her reckless. "Madam fainted at the charity gala and was brought to the hospital, and that was when the doctor ran a tes—"

Cecilia turned to Thalia and shook her head vigorously, her eyes wide with panic. Stop. Stop talking. Don’t mention the—

"You fainted?" Oathran’s expression, which had been easing by the tiniest fraction, immediately snapped back into something far more dangerous.

The anger was back—no, not anger. More like—fear. "You—!"

"Oathran, I-I swear I am okay!" Cecilia stuttered. "The doctor said your baby is okay!"

"My baby?" Oathran’s heart fell. His baby. Not Eastiel’s. Not Arkai’s. But his?! "Did they say it’s an egg insid—"

Cecilia nodded so fast her hair bounced. "C-calcium depo—"

Oathran shot to his feet. The chair scraped against the floor with a sound that made every diner in the restaurant flinch. His hand, still holding hers, pulled her gently but firmly upward.

"Doctor. Let’s go. Now."

"Oathran—" Cecilia held him back, her hand tightening around his, her body leaning into the resistance like a sailor hauling against the tide. And the tide was, as always, strong. "I saw the doctor yesterday. They said I am alright! J-just low blood sugar, I promise!"

She could feel the tension radiating from him. His pale eyes were wild, his jaw tight, and his free hand already reaching for his phone, as if preparing for something. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

"A—h-here, l-let me show you the ultrasound imag—"

Oathran short-circuited. The word ultrasound hit him like a system reboot, his entire body pausing mid-motion, his brain visibly recalibrating. The pause lasted half a second, and then he was back online, shaking his head with renewed determination.

"No. Not human doctors. Dragon doctors." He said firmly. "That child inside you is a drag—"

"DRAGO—MPH!"

Thalia’s scream was cut off mid-syllable by Gregor’s massive hand clamping over her mouth. The lawyer’s eyes bulged over his fingers, her entire body vibrating with the effort of containing the shriek that was still trying to escape.

Gregor, for his part, had turned the approximate color chalk. His hand, pressed against Thalia’s face, was trembling slightly.

A dragon. Their Madam... the woman they had watched over for years, was carrying a dragon’s baby.

The mist white-haired, horned man sitting across from them, the man they had assumed was some kind of bovine beast, was a dragon. A real—

And he was the father?!

Thalia’s muffled noises behind Gregor’s palm suggested she was still processing this information. Or possibly hyperventilating. It was hard to tell.

"C-calm down for a minute." Cecilia said, strained. "Let us continue talking a little bi—"

"Cecili—"

"Ah! I am craving fresh red MEAT!"

...

...

...

The words burst out of Cecilia’s mouth as she reached the absolute limit of her emotional capacity and was now operating on pure instinct.

She had tried reason. She had tried reassurance. She had tried showing him the ultrasound images. None of it had worked. So she had deployed the nuclear option.

The pregnancy craving.

The silence that followed was absolute. Like a bomb had been dropped and everyone was waiting to see if it would explode.

Oathran’s urgency deflated. It simply collapsed like a sail when the wind suddenly died. His shoulders dropped and his jaw unclenched. His hand, which had been reaching for his phone, fell back to his side. He stared at her. Blinked once. Twice.

The entire diner fell into a horrified silence. At the next table, the couple who had been pretending not to eavesdrop had given up all pretense.

The waiter who had been carrying a tray of drinks was frozen mid-step. The businessman who had been checking his phone was holding it upside down.

And then... slowly, carefully, a waitress who was not sure if she was walking into a war zone, inched her way closer to their table. In her hands was a sizzling platter, and on the platter was a steak.

A beautiful, perfectly-seared, medium-rare steak, its surface caramelized to a deep golden brown, its juices pooling on the hot iron plate, a sprig of rosemary and a pat of butter melting slowly on top.

Yes. This entire time. Because the steakhouse had been full, and the kitchen had been busy, and the drama at their table had been unfolding with the relentless pace of a season finale... her order had only just arrived now.

Cecilia looked at the steak. The steak sizzled back at her and the aroma hit her nostrils, rich and savory and exactly, precisely what her body had been demanding, and she forgot, for just a moment, about the dragon doctor, the secret will and the two tiger retainers who were still processing the revelation that their Madam’s baby daddy was a mythological creature—

"Oh," she said, her voice suddenly very small and very grateful. "Thank you."

Oathran stared at the steak. Then at Cecilia. Then at the steak again.

Slowly, very slowly, Oathran sat back down.

"...Eat first," he said. "Then doctor."

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This is the start of the second half of the 12 Chapters mass release! Enjoyyyy!!!