#Chapter 79: Truly Happy

Elara The air that night was quiet—quieter than it had been in weeks. The house had settled into the kind of stillness that only came with exhaustion, the last embers in the fireplace flickering softly behind the glass. Even the wind outside had gone still, barely rustling the edges of the curtains as the moon hung full and bright over the treeline. I should have been sleeping, but I wasn’t. Instead, I lay on my side, one hand resting against the swell of my stomach, the other stretched across the sheets until my fingers brushed against Alaric’s wrist where it rested on top of the blankets. His breathing was steady, deep and slow, the faint rise and fall of his chest nearly lulling me into the sleep I had been chasing for the past hour. But something was keeping me awake tonight. Maybe it was the quiet. Or maybe it was because I was so busy mulling over everything we had been through over the past six months—the nonstop fighting, negotiating, and clawing toward