Two days passed.
His mates had noticed.
Max offered back massages. Silas kept asking if he was sick. Noah was tense—hovering. Lucien was strangely quiet but alert.
They didn't push him.
But tonight, Sam couldn't carry it anymore.
He stood at the dinner table as the others sat down.
Max looked up. "Sam?"
He rested both hands over his belly.
"This is for you, baby," he whispered under his breath.
Then louder: "I have something to tell you."
Every head turned toward him. Even Silas stopped mid-cutting his steak.
"I'm… pregnant."
Silence.
Then—
Noah stood so quickly his chair fell over. His eyes filled instantly with tears. He crossed the room, took Sam's face in his hands, and kissed him hard—then knelt and kissed his stomach.
"You're giving me everything I ever dreamed of," Noah whispered, his voice breaking.
Lucien stood next, approaching slowly.
"Which hospital?" he asked gently. "I want to check everything myself."
"I went to one of ours. Everything was fine, but—"
Lucien nodded. "I still want to see it. Not because I don't trust you. Because I need to see it with my own eyes. You and the baby."
Max came next, eyes shining. He kissed Sam's forehead. "You're not just our mate now. You're… you're the mother of our child."
Silas stood last, pulling him into a long embrace. "We're going to protect you. Both of you. Always."Sam, overwhelmed, could barely speak.
"I thought you'd be scared."
Max smiled. "We are. But we're also in love. That always makes you a little crazy."
The very next morning, Queen Anderson nearly broke the front gate trying to get in.
Behind her, Papa Miller and Elias Vincent stood proudly while Leo wept openly.
Oliver stood in the middle of the chaos, laughing as he pointed to Sam. "He's the pregnant one! I didn't even mean to tell—I just started smiling too hard when someone mentioned babies!"
Everyone gathered in the living room. Sam was surrounded, touched, hugged, kissed. Even Lucien lifted him gently onto the couch while Noah hovered like a possessive dragon.
The family was whole.
Max and Silas stood behind Sam's chair like guards—silent, protective, proud.
Lucien sat beside him, going over scans from the hospital. "You're perfectly healthy. Hormones are stable. The pup's growing strong.""And beautiful," Noah added, kissing Sam's temple. "Like their mama."