(Woohoooo!!! We made it to Chapter 400, ya’ll. I’m so happy you made it to this Chapter with me. Let’s keep up this effort and don’t forget the congratulatory gifts, my lovely readers. I’ll be looking forward to it.)

I got up from the bed and walked out into the main hall. My eyes fell on Noah. My poor Wolf King. He looked so pathetic, leaning against a pillar, being the very last one in the marking schedule.

He’d spent two weeks watching the others walk around with their glowing marks and their smug faces, acting as a caretaker for the babies, and he looked like he was at his breaking point.

Hungry. The word echoed in my mind again, and so I didn’t even think. I just pounced on him.

"Arinya! Whoa!" Noah yelped as I wrapped my legs around his waist and buried my face in his neck. "What are you doing? Fenric just finished with you, right? You need to sleep!"

"I don’t want to sleep," I growled, and I meant it. I felt this insane, bottomless hunger. "I want you. Right now."

"What?!" he exclaimed, and my eyes fell on Thalor.

"Give me the last pearl, Thalor,"

Damar and Thalor actually flinched. They looked at me like I’d grown a second head.

"Ari, is something wrong?" Damar asked, taken aback and visibly confused.

"It doesn’t look like she’s in heat again," Thalor whispered, his eyes wide as he checked my energy. "But she’s... ravenous."

Noah didn’t care about the logistics, though. He saw his chance and snatched the marking pearl right out of a worried Thalor’s hand.

"Well, if the Queen wants her wolf, she gets her wolf," he rasped, his tail wagging so hard it hit the stone wall with a thud. "Don’t worry, Arinya. I’ll try not to push too hard."

"It doesn’t matter," I rasped. "Just give it to me," I crashed my lips onto his, and though he was surprised at first, he grinned into my lips.

He loved this energy. He didn’t know what was causing it, but being wanted so desperately made his ego rise.

He carried me to the second room in the Sovereign Wing while our lips were still locked. And then, the doors shut with a deafening thud that marked yet another three-day sex marathon.

...

After those extra three days with Noah, the marking on his wrist, the same place as mine, surfaced, and my body finally gave up.

I slept for two straight days.

My husbands were terrified—apparently, I wouldn’t wake up for anything, not even the smell of grilled meat—but my pulse was steady, and my skin was glowing. Literally.

My body was just forcing a hard reset after twelve days of... well, a lot.

That was the conclusion they came to, and that was how they stopped themselves from tearing each other apart, asking whose fault it was that I had become Sleeping Beauty, haha.

On the third day, however, I finally opened my eyes, but the first thing I said was,

"Berries," I croaked. "I want berries."

They, who had been watching at the time, were relieved I had woken up.

"I’ll go get them right away, Ari," Damar said and quickly scrambled to get them, but when I saw the mix of red, purple, and black forest berries, I pushed them away.

"No. Not these. They taste like dirt." I complained, quite harshly. Something I would’ve never done, and then came back to my senses. "Ah, sorry. I... I don’t know what came over me."

"Ari, these are the best ones the sheep gathered," Damar said, looking confused. "Are you sure it’s berries you want?"

Yes, berries. I could feel something screaming inside me for berries.

I wanted to eat berries and...

I looked at Thalor. "I want something... salty. And sweet. Like the ocean."

Thalor tilted his head, thinking. "Are you referring to sea berries?"

I didn’t know what that was, but I nodded.

"Yes, yes, get me sea berries. Maybe that’s what I’m craving for."

"Well, they grow on the reefs, but they are a little hard to get."

I gripped the furs, my blood boiling with impatience.

"Get them," I pleaded. "Please, Thalor." There were tears in my eyes.

It was as if without those sea berries, I would die.

Thalor could not understand my craving, and neither could the others, but he decided to go ahead and get them.

"I will come with you," Damar said. "You said they were hard to get, and I have a feeling Ari will want these berries more frequently, so better for me to know their growing spot as well."

It was reasonable, and I wondered if this was the bonding I so desperately wished to see. But I couldn’t even dwell on it because of hunger.

I clutched my stomach. I was so hungry I could eat a whale.

They both left and came back an hour later with a bowl of translucent, blue-tinged berries. I inhaled them, and my mouth immediately salivated.

This was what I was looking for. This sea scent.

I ate one berry, and it did not take time before I ate the entire bowl, then demanded three grilled fish. They had to be as big as my forearm.

They brought it, and I ate.

I finished them so quickly that I didn’t even have time to pick out the bones.

I just... I couldn’t stop eating, and this no longer looked like a normal pattern of eating.

"Ari," Damar said softly, sitting on the bed as he watched me stuff my mouth with fish. Fenric caught extra, just in case, and I was gobbling it up. "Are you okay? Your behavior... It’s not normal."

I paused, a piece of fish halfway to my mouth. Now that he asked, I actually began to wonder... Why?

I felt a weird tightness in my lower abdomen that I had ignored due to the hunger. Now, I placed my hand on it, and my heart stopped. My lower abdomen wasn’t flat anymore. It was slightly, firmly swollen.

The crazy horniness with Noah... the salt cravings... the sea berries...

I looked at Thalor, then at the others, my eyes wide with a mix of shock and "oh-crap."

"I think..." I whispered, looking down at my stomach. "I think the ’jackpot’ in the cellar isn’t the only thing we’ve been building."

"What are you saying?" Fenric asked, unable to understand my words, and I gulped.

"I think... I’m pregnant."

And judging by the sea-fruit and seafood obsession, Thalor’s little ’swimmer’ or ’swimmers’ had definitely won the race.