The Alpha Prince's Purchased Maid
Chapter 373: Painful Insecurities

Chapter 373: Painful Insecurities

Many full moons came and went, but the prince and I no longer participated in the monthly mating ritual. I was relieved because that meant that the prince didn’t need to mate with another woman. So far, this seemed to be the only benefit that the committee granted to us. After much discussion, the prince finally convinced me to move in to live with him at his palace permanently. Initially this caused quite a lot of ruckus because something like this had not occurred before. Despite the prince’s words of warning, I still felt no change in my body except for my heightened desire for the prince which I had gotten used to to a certain degree.

Our frequent and intense mating became a part of my new lifestyle. Moving in to live with him and spending more time with him only served to propel our mating activities forward. I didn’t mind this change because it also meant that I got to spend more time with the prince doing things that I expected that newlywed couples would do. Sometimes when I wake up in the morning with him by my side on the bed, I had to stop and focus while I remind myself that this was my new reality now. I told myself that this was real and that I was not dreaming. Sometimes it felt too good to be true and I had to reach out to touch the prince’s warm body or his soft hair just to prove to myself that he was really there with me. I felt well energized and healthier than ever both in mind and spirit despite the change in my circumstances and the attention that we still attracted from the king and the committee members.

“Tomorrow the moon will be full,” the prince said from beside me as we stood on the balcony of his palace together.

I gazed up at the sky at the almost full moon. Just like I had always thought, the moon looked much bigger in this kingdom than from my hometown. The golden light of the moon shone down on us as the wind blew my hair back over my shoulders. I felt a slight chill run down my spine and my body shivered slightly although it wasn’t cold.

“I hope it will be a peaceful night tomorrow,” I murmured softly as I continued gazing up at the moon above.

“Nothing is going to happen. If they want us to do something, they would have told us by now,” the prince replied as if he could read my thoughts and my concerns.

Although many full moons have passed with nothing happening, I couldn’t help but dread that the peace might not last forever.

“I guess I’m worrying over nothing,” I replied as I felt a sense of relief.

Prince Leonard wrapped an arm around my shoulders, and I ended up resting my head against him naturally. Despite his comforting and reassuring gestures, I couldn’t shake off the sense of foreboding that entered my mind. Nothing could explain why I felt the way that I did, but I just felt like something was about to go amiss and that there was nothing that we could do to stop it.

Around a week after that, I found out that my sense of foreboding was actually quite accurate. I sat alone in my bathroom as I stared down at my still flat belly after I realized that I had skipped a period.

Calm down, Mila, this isn’t the first time that something like this has happened...

My period had always been irregular and I had learned by that time that taking my late period as a sign of pregnancy wasn’t accurate. That didn’t mean that my tummy didn’t do somersaults whenever it happened. I knew that just like all the times before, I should take a pregnancy test but I still found myself hesitating. My emotions were complex at best, and I wasn’t sure how I would take the outcome. I was scared that the test would return a positive result; however, at the same time, I was also scared of the disappointment if the test result returned negative.

I felt so unsure about how I would take the news regarding my pregnancy, and that made me wonder how the prince would take it as well. With the way that we have been mating, it was quite unexpected that I wasn’t yet pregnant with his child. Although Prince Leonard and the doctors had reassured me that this was normal, I still fear that something might have gone wrong, not to mention that as the months crawled by, the pressure on us to produce an heir only rose. I found myself asking the same question over and over in my head.

What’s going to happen if I don’t ever get pregnant?

I had no idea how long the king and the community were willing to wait for me to conceive the prince’s child, but I realized that it wouldn’t be much longer. After moving in with the prince, I was certain that I had him all to myself. It would kill me if I had to share him with another woman. I was certain that if I didn’t get pregnant soon, the prince would be under immense pressure to mate with other women. That thought scared me and brought an unbearable pain to my heart.

Just thinking about the possibility seemed to bring me nightmares even though I was still awake. Prince Leonard never voiced his concerns over this issue to me, and I wondered if that was because he didn’t want to have a child. That was that matter of his succession to the throne that we still haven’t discussed in detail. Regardless, I decided not to bring this topic up to the prince. I felt like I had to put in more effort into spending time with him both day and night so that we would have more opportunities to mate.

I took a pregnancy test and soon found out that I wasn’t pregnant. The result did not surprise me, although the deep and almost sickening sense of disappointment did. Despite thinking that I had gotten used to feeling disappointed regarding this matter, it seemed like my feeling of disappointment could deepen even further. On top of that, I also found it extremely restless and stressful from the pressure as time seemed to naturally tick by.

–To be continued...