Chapter 91: The Weight Comes Back

By the seventh month, I had gained enough weight that strangers began discussing my body again.

Apparently pregnancy did not exempt women from public measurement.

One article praised my "healthy maternal glow."

Another asked whether Alpha Nessa had "let herself go."

I stared at the headline.

Then laughed.

Not because it was funny.

Because the alternative was throwing my tablet through a window.

Tessa read over my shoulder.

"Want me to destroy them?"

"Legally?"

"No."

"Then no."

She looked disappointed.

The article compared photographs.

Me at one hundred ten pounds.

Me now.

Red circles.

Arrows.

Commentary.

The exact visual language Felix Voss had used in his research.

Before.

After.

Except now the direction was reversed.

People who once celebrated my transformation treated pregnancy weight as decline.

My counselor asked what I felt when I saw the images.

"Angry."

"What else?"

I hated that question.

"Scared."

There.

The truth.

Some old part of me still believed weight could take everything back.

Beauty.

Attention.

Respect.

Rowan.

That last fear embarrassed me most.

I knew him.

I knew our history.

He had loved the photograph of me at two hundred pounds before he ever saw my current face.

Still, insecurity wasn't a courtroom argument.

Evidence didn't always silence it.

So I told him.

We were in bed.

His hand rested on my stomach.

"I had a stupid thought."

"Tell me."

"I wondered whether you'd still want me if I stayed this size."

He went very still.

Not offended.

Careful.

"After pregnancy?"

"Yes."

"Yes."

Immediate.

Then he added:

"But I don't want to answer only with reassurance."

I looked at him.

"What do you mean?"

"You've spent years having people evaluate your body."

He touched my hand, not my stomach.

"I don't want my approval to become another scale."

That hit deeper than you're beautiful.

He continued.

"I want you. Your body will change. Mine will too. We can care about health without turning attraction into a performance review."

I laughed.

"Romantic."

"I'm excellent at romance."

"Debatable."

The next morning, I removed the scale from our bathroom.

Not forever.

Just for now.

Evelyn tracked medically necessary changes at appointments.

I didn't need daily numbers.

That decision felt strange.

At seventeen, numbers had controlled my life.

Calories.

Miles.

Pounds.

Training minutes.

Now I practiced not knowing.

It was harder than knowing.

The public conversation grew after I wore a fitted dress to a Council event.

My pregnant stomach was obvious.

So were my fuller arms and face.

A reporter asked whether I planned to "return to Alpha shape" quickly after birth.

I stared at him.

"What is Alpha shape?"

He stammered.

"You know, your previous fitness—"

"My current body is the body of Alpha Lunaris."

Silence.

I smiled.

"So apparently this is Alpha shape."

The clip spread everywhere.

Rhea printed the quote and hung it in the archive office.

I made her remove it.

She moved it to her private office.

Technical compliance.

At the Seraphina Center, we launched a program on body transitions.

Not weight-loss promotion.

Not body positivity slogans.

Actual support.

Pregnancy.

Injury.

Illness.

Aging.

Training changes.

Shift-related metabolic changes.

Wolves experienced bodies across time.

No single form represented moral success.

One participant was a retired warrior who had gained weight after losing a leg.

He said he avoided Pack gatherings because people kept telling him he "used to look powerful."

I understood that sentence too well.

Power shouldn't have a dress size.

Neither should worth.

Near the end of the pregnancy, I visited Willowmere.

My childhood room still existed.

Mom had preserved too much.

I found an old pair of jeans from high school.

Huge compared with the clothes I'd worn before pregnancy.

I held them against myself.

Once, they had represented everything I hated.

Now they were simply fabric.

I didn't try them on.

Didn't burn them.

Didn't turn them into a symbolic art project.

I folded them and put them back.

Progress could be boring.

I liked that.

Dad found me.

"You okay?"

"Yes."

He looked at the jeans.

"Those were your favorite."

"They were the only ones I thought hid me."

His face tightened.

"I didn't know."

"I know."

He hugged me.

My stomach got in the way.

We laughed.

Back at Lunaris, Rowan had assembled the crib incorrectly.

Very incorrectly.

One side was backward.

I stared.

"You govern multiple Packs."

"Different skill set."

"Clearly."

We rebuilt it together.

Halfway through, I got tired and sat on the floor.

Rowan finished while I gave instructions.

At one point, I caught my reflection in the window.

Rounder.

Heavier.

Pregnant.

Happy.

Not happy because of the body.

Not unhappy because of it.

Just living inside it.

That distinction felt enormous.

I placed a hand on my stomach.

The baby kicked.

My wolf responded with a warm pulse.

For years, I had treated my body like a project that needed to reach a final version.

There was no final version.

There never had been.

There was only the body carrying me through each chapter.

I owed it more kindness than I had given.

Maybe that was something I could teach my child.

Not love your body every second.

That sounded impossible.

Maybe something simpler.

Your body is not an audition.

That, I could believe.

I also asked Evelyn to keep weight numbers off routine visit summaries unless medically useful. She agreed without making it dramatic. Small environmental changes mattered. Healing was not only changing thoughts inside my head; sometimes it meant changing which numbers, comments, and comparisons I invited into the room.