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"Miss Wren, you're late."
I blinked at the receptionist. White marble lobby. Glass doors behind me. I didn't remember walking here.
"I'm here now," I said.
She nodded like I hadn't just shown up twenty minutes late with no memory of the last three months. Typed something. "Room twelve. Dr. Grey's waiting."
I walked down the hall. My jeans dug into my hips. My bra cut lines under my ribs. Nothing fit right. I'd woken up on a bathroom floor an hour ago—cold tile, expensive kind, the kind you see in hotels that cost more than my rent. My mouth tasted like I'd licked an ashtray and my head felt stuffed with cotton and broken glass.
Last thing I remembered was Dorian's teeth in my wrist. The burn of the mark. Three months, he'd said. Three months to prove I wasn't a hunter before he killed me.
The date on the phone I'd found said March twenty-third.
I'd triggered the ritual December eighteenth.
So where the hell had I been?
Room twelve had my name on the chart. I pushed the door open.
The man inside looked up. Older. Grey hair, grey eyes, grey suit like he'd crawled out of a corporate brochure. "Miss Wren. Please, sit."
"I don't remember the last three months," I said. No point lying. "I don't remember coming here. I don't remember any of this."
He didn't look surprised. Just set down his pen. "The bond can do that. Your body's adjusting."
"Adjusting to what?"
"Sharing space." He stood. Gestured to the exam table. "Lie back. Let me show you."
Every part of me screamed run. But I lay back anyway. He lifted my sweater. I stared at the ceiling. Tried not to think about the way my jeans wouldn't button this morning. The way my body felt like someone else's.
The gel was cold. He pressed the wand to my stomach. Turned the screen.
Grey. Black. White static.
Then a flutter. Small. Fast.
A heartbeat.
"Thirteen weeks," Dr. Grey said softly. "Right on schedule."
I couldn't breathe.
"What—" My voice cracked. "What is that?"
"Your baby." He said it like it was simple. Like it made sense. "The bond's holding. No complications so far."
"I'm not pregnant." The words came out flat. "I haven't been with anyone in over a year."
"The blood ritual doesn't require intercourse, Miss Wren. It requires exchange. You gave him your blood. He gave you his. The magic did the rest."
My hand moved without permission. Slid down. Pressed against my stomach right where that heartbeat flickered on the screen.
"He didn't tell me this would happen."
"Royal bonds are different," Dr. Grey said. "Stronger. The magic doesn't ask permission. It just completes."
Royal.
"He said he was Night Court. He didn't say he was royalty."
Dr. Grey's face went still. "You didn't know."
"Know what?"
The door opened.
I sat up fast. Too fast. The room spun.
Dorian stood in the doorway.
Same perfect face. Same cold eyes. He looked at me like he'd expected to find me here. Like he'd been waiting.
"You missed your last two appointments," he said. Voice flat. Empty. "I thought you'd run."
"I don't remember them." I wiped the gel off my stomach. My hands were shaking. "I don't remember anything."
Something flickered across his face. Too fast to read.
"The bond does that," he said. "It will pass."
"You didn't tell me this would happen."
"You didn't ask."
I slid off the table. Anger was steadier than fear. "You said I had three months to prove I wasn't a threat. You didn't say you were going to put a baby in me and erase my memory."
"I didn't put anything in you." His voice stayed cold. Controlled. "The ritual did. And I didn't erase your memory. The bond's protecting the child. Your body will release it when you're ready."
"When's that?"
"I don't know."
I wanted to scream. Wanted to hit him. "What happens now?"
Dorian looked at Dr. Grey. Then back at me. "Now you come home."
"I don't have a home. You took it."
"You have one now." He stepped closer. Close enough I could feel the cold coming off him. "The child is mine. Royal heirs must be born in the palace. Under protection. It's law."
Palace. Royal.
My heart was pounding. "Who are you?"
He looked at me for a long moment. Those perfect, cold eyes.
"I'm the crown prince," he said. "And you're carrying the heir to the Night Court."
The room tilted.
"No." I stepped back. Hit the exam table. "No. I'm not going anywhere with you. I don't care what the bond did. I didn't consent to this."
"The magic doesn't care about consent." Dorian's voice didn't change. "It only cares about completion. And the bond is complete."
"Then break it."
"I can't." He moved closer. I had nowhere to go. "If I break the bond, the child dies. You die. That's how royal magic works."
Dr. Grey cleared his throat. "Your Highness, perhaps—"
"Leave us," Dorian said.
The doctor left. The door clicked shut.
I was alone with him. With the crown prince. With the man who'd bitten me three months ago and erased everything after.
"I don't want this," I said.
"I know." For the first time his voice softened. Just a fraction. "But you triggered a royal blood ritual. You bound yourself to me. And now there's a child. My child. Which means you're coming home whether you want to or not."
"And if I run?"
"You won't make it a mile." He said it like a fact. "The bond will drag you back. It always does."
I looked at him. Really looked. At the perfect face and the cold eyes and the way he stood like he'd never been told no in his life.
"You're a monster," I said.
"Yes." He didn't deny it. Didn't even blink. "But I'm your monster now. And you're carrying my heir. So you're going to come home. You're going to stay in the palace. And you're going to let me protect you and the child until they're born."
"And then?"
"Then we'll see." He held out his hand. "Come on. The car's waiting."
I looked at his hand. At the door. At the ultrasound machine still humming in the corner.
That tiny heartbeat. Fast. Impossible.
Mine.
I didn't take his hand. But I walked past him. Out the door. Down the hall.
The receptionist didn't look up.
Outside, a black car idled at the curb. Tinted windows. Driver in a suit.
Dorian opened the back door. "Get in."
I got in.
He slid in beside me. The door shut. The car pulled away from the curb.
I watched the city slide past the window. People on sidewalks. Coffee shops. Normal lives.
I'd woken up this morning on a stranger's bathroom floor. Now I was in a car with the crown prince of the Night Court. Pregnant with his child. No memory of how I got here.
"Where are we going?" I said.
"The palace."
"Where's that?"
"You'll see."
I turned to look at him. He was staring straight ahead. Perfect profile. Marble-cold.
"Why me?" I said. "You said I triggered the ritual. But I didn't know what it was. I didn't know what it would do. So why didn't you stop it?"
He didn't answer for a long time.
Then: "Because you have hunter blood."
My stomach dropped. "What?"
"Your grandmother was a hunter. Your mother suppressed the line, but it's still there. In your blood." He finally looked at me. "And I needed to know if you were a threat."
"So you let the ritual complete. You let it—" I couldn't finish. Couldn't say it.
"Yes."
"You're insane."
"Maybe." His eyes were still on me. Cold. Unreadable. "But now you're bound to me. Which means you can't hurt me. Can't hurt the court. And the child will have hunter blood and royal blood. The first in three hundred years."
I stared at him.
"You did this on purpose," I said slowly. "You wanted this."
He didn't deny it.
The car turned. Stone walls rose up on either side. Iron gates. Guards.
We passed through.
And I realized—looking at the palace rising ahead, all black stone and narrow windows and towers that scraped the sky—I realized I'd just walked into a prison.
Dorian's prison.
And I was never getting out.
"Welcome home," he said.
The car stopped.
The door opened.
And someone I didn't recognize leaned in, smiled, and said—