Oops… I Went Into Heat and My Alpha Daddies Claimed Me

KEISHA’S POV

By the time I returned to my room, Nadia was already there. She had clearly been waiting for me because the moment I stepped through the door, she looked up from where she was sitting and immediately started apologizing for not joining me on the walk.

She explained that she had finished seeing Vera off and had searched around the estate for me before eventually returning to my room when she couldn’t find me.

I assured her it wasn’t a problem, and when she asked whether I’d gone somewhere else, I shook my head. I wasn’t ready to tell her about the council meeting or the priestess, especially after everything she’d already had to worry about.

She accepted the answer without pressing me, and it was only when I looked more closely at what she was holding that I realized something was sitting comfortably in her hands.

A raven.

I stopped in the middle of the room. "Nadia."

She looked down at the bird and smiled. "What?"

"Where did you get that?"

She lifted it slightly as though showing me a pet she’d found. "It flew in through the window. I thought it was beautiful, so I’ve been keeping it company."

My eyes widened. "Nadia, that’s the raven."

She stared at me for a second before looking at the bird again. "The one that brings your letters?"

I nodded. She laughed softly, completely unfazed by my reaction, and began stroking the bird’s dark feathers again. "I can see why you like it. Look at these feathers. They’re gorgeous."

"I don’t like it." I laughed.

She hummed. "You were just talking to it like it was a person yesterday."

"That doesn’t mean I trust it." I chuckled.

The raven shifted its head toward me, almost as though it understood the conversation. Nadia noticed and laughed again before carefully reaching toward its leg. "There’s another message, it seems."

She untied the paper and handed it to me, and I unfolded it.

The message was short, but it immediately made my expression change. The sender said I would know who he was soon enough. He claimed he only needed to finish the acquisition of the empire before he could reveal himself properly.

I read the sentence again. Acquisition of the empire? What empire?

I looked at the raven. "What does that even mean?"

Nadia leaned closer. "Maybe he’s involved in some business."

I read the message once more, trying to find some clue hidden between the words, but there was nothing else. No explanation of why this person knew so much about me or why he had decided to communicate through a raven.

Nadia watched me. "What are you going to tell him?"

"I don’t know." I muttered.

I took a fresh piece of paper and wrote a brief response. I told the sender that I still didn’t trust him, and until he revealed who he was, I had no reason to believe that his intentions were as harmless as he claimed.

I tied the message securely to the raven’s leg. "If you really want me to trust you, stop hiding."

The bird spread its wings and flew through the window and Nadia watched it disappear. "I have to admit, this is becoming interesting."

I looked at her. "Interesting?"

"Yes. Mysterious person, secret messages, a trained raven, some mysterious empire he’s supposedly acquiring. It’s strange, but you have to admit it’s interesting." She shrugged.

"I’d prefer boring." I rolled my eyes.

She laughed. "Fair enough."

We spent a little longer discussing the mysterious sender, though neither of us could come up with a reasonable explanation.

Nadia wondered how he was connected to my parents somehow, while I kept thinking about the wording of his latest message. If he truly was acquainted with one of them, why had he waited this long to reveal himself? And what exactly did he mean by acquiring an empire? It sounded too grand to be ordinary business, but I had no evidence to support any other conclusion.

Eventually, Nadia’s stomach interrupted the investigation. "I’m hungry."

I smiled. "You’ve been hungry every hour since I met you."

She groaned. "That’s because you’re not the one eating enough."

We went downstairs for lunch, and the moment I saw what had been prepared, my stomach turned. Nadia, meanwhile, looked delighted by the meal and immediately took her seat. I remained standing for a moment, wondering how something that looked perfectly normal could suddenly make me feel like I was about to be sick.

Becca noticed. "Don’t tell me you don’t like it."

"I thought I did." I muttered. "I don’t think the babies do though."

She laughed and immediately began preparing something else for me. "Pregnancy does strange things. One day you can eat something you love, and the next day even the smell of it will make you hate yourself."

Nadia laughed from across the table. "That’s exactly what I’ve been telling her."

Becca placed another meal in front of me. "Try this instead. It’s lighter."

I did, and thankfully my stomach accepted it. Nadia finished her own meal with obvious satisfaction, and once we were done, she suddenly remembered the conversation we’d had earlier. "The nursery."

I looked at her. "Huh?"

"We need to start buying things." She clicked her fingers.

"Oh right, that."

"No, you keep saying that, but I mean we should actually start. The babies are going to be here before we realize it." She started listing everything we would need, from clothes and blankets to furniture and supplies. I listened while imagining the empty room upstairs finally being transformed into a proper nursery. "What do you think?"

I paused. "I think we should wait until we know whether they’re boys or girls."

Nadia gave me a look. "You’re really going to wait?"

"What else can I do?" I looked confused.

Nadia thought about it. "We could just buy neutral things."

Oh. I nodded. "That’s probably what we’ll do."

She leaned back in her chair. "I still can’t believe Dad and Dane haven’t been obsessing over this already."

I laughed. "Oh, they are. Asides that they’re always busy making sure I’m fully protected, they make sure to check in every time. I can’t start telling you the amount of texts I receive daily from those two. They’re doing what they can to balance the two."

"That’s exactly why I’m annoyed. They’re supposed to be worried about baby clothes and nursery furniture, not spending all their time looking serious and discussing threats."

I couldn’t help laughing at the image. "Nadia, I’m sure they’ll care to your satisfaction when the babies arrive."

She looked satisfied, already seeming to have forgotten about the mysterious raven for the moment but I wasn’t as successful.

Even while we talked about nursery furniture and baby clothes, my mind kept returning to that strange message.

You’ll know who I am soon enough.

But something told me I would find out soon enough.