Chapter 4 - The Unraveling
The weeks that followed should have felt domestic, but instead, they felt like living inside a tightly wound clockwork mechanism just waiting to snap.
My mother and Gavin were sickeningly, blissfully happy, spending their days designing custom dining sets in the massive ground-floor workshop. That left me alone in the sprawling lodge with Rowan. Not that we spent time together—at least, not intentionally. He was constantly out on the ridge, tending to timber or dealing with “property boundaries,” but our paths crossed constantly in the high-ceilinged kitchen, on the stairwells, and in the narrow hallways.
And every single time we crossed paths, the air between us felt denser, heavier, vibrating with a silent, unspoken friction that was driving me insane.
By late spring, the snow on the lower slopes had melted into rushing, muddy creeks, but the high ridge remained locked in winter. My art had completely stalled. Every canvas I touched ended up covered in thick, dark strokes of charcoal and deep forest greens, capturing a raw, animalistic energy that Professor Lang would have undoubtedly called “disturbingly obsessive.”
Worse, my body was staging a quiet, terrifying mutiny.
For three weeks, I had been waking up with a bone-deep fatigue that no amount of sleep could fix. My sense of smell had gone into hyperdrive; I could smell the copper in the well water, the damp earth beneath the floorboards, and the specific, intoxicating scent of cedar and crushed pine whenever Rowan entered a room before I even saw him. Worst of all, my clothes were beginning to feel uncomfortably tight across my ribs and abdomen, despite the fact that I barely had an appetite.
One afternoon, I sat at the wooden kitchen island, staring blankly at a small, white plastic stick resting on a paper towel.
The two bright pink lines stared back at me with unyielding, terrifying clarity.
Pregnant.
The word echoed in my skull like a gunshot. I hadn’t... we hadn’t...
My mind flashed back to a night three weeks ago—a night during a sudden, violent spring blizzard when the power had gone out and the entire lodge had been plunged into pitch blackness. I remembered stumbling down the hallway looking for candles, running straight into a wall of solid muscle, and the frantic, heat-drenched hours that followed in Rowan’s bedroom—hours where the world outside had dissolved into howling wind and primal, desperate instinct.
We had been careful. Or at least, I thought we had.
“No,” I whispered, clutching the edge of the counter as a wave of sudden, blinding nausea hit me. “No, no, no. This is a practical joke. This is stress. This is altitude sickness.”
Footsteps echoed on the stairs. Heavy, familiar footsteps.
Panic, hot and sharp, flared in my chest. I snatched the test off the counter, shoved it deep into my coat pocket, and turned around just as the kitchen doorway darkened.
Rowan stepped inside, pausing as his green eyes locked onto my face. He took two steps closer, his nose flaring slightly as he drew in a deep breath. A muscle jumped in his jaw.
“You’re shaking,” he said, his voice dropping into that low, dangerous register.
“I’m fine,” I lied, my voice cracking. “Just... a headache. The altitude.”
Rowan didn't buy it. He crossed the kitchen with three long strides, closing the distance between us until I was trapped between his body and the counter. He reached out, his large hand hovering just inches from my cheek as if he wanted to touch me but was forcing himself not to.
“You smell different today,” he murmured, his gaze dropping slowly from my eyes down to my stomach, then back up with a jolt of sudden, terrifying realization. “Chloe... what is happening?”
“Nothing!” I lied shrilly, ducking under his arm and grabbing a glass of water from the sink. My hands were shaking so violently I could barely hold it. “Just leave me alone, Rowan! Stop looking at me like that!”
“Like what?” he stepped closer, his voice dark and urgent. “Like I know every secret your body is trying to hide from you? Like I can feel your heart hammering against your ribs?”
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“You don't know anything!” I screamed, my voice echoing off the timber walls.
The glass in my hand shattered.
