My Rival is Pregnant After I Transmigrated

Blake Morrison’s pulse hammered against the bassline as he stepped onto the neon-washed dance floor of Metro Avalon. Sweat-slick bodies surged around him like a single living tide, but he felt marooned, every strobe flash freezing the chaos into a slideshow he couldn’t name. A stranger’s shoulder clipped him; someone’s drink sloshed across his sneakers. None of it anchored him—until the shouting carved through the music.

“You seriously asking who I am? Did your brain take a vacation or did zombies eat it?” The voice cracked sharp enough to slice the fog in his skull. Blake swung toward it and found a short guy in a shredded denim jacket—Ethan—cornered beside the bar, cheeks bleached of color.

Behind Ethan, a towering bouncer crossed tree-trunk arms, bored. But it was the golden-haired man lounging against the brass rail who held the room’s real power. Caleb Drake, heir to Starline Media, tapped a platinum card against a crystal glass, already measuring the seconds until this entertainment expired. “Acting deaf now? Speak up,” he drawled, loud enough for nearby dancers to scatter.

Ethan’s throat bobbed. “Caleb… Drake?” The name left his lips like a confession.

Blake’s own stomach lurched in sympathy. He’d read that name before, skimmed it in a trashy web serial he’d ditched after chapter three because Caleb had been written as a gorgeous, toxic train wreck—impossible to watch, harder to look away. Yet here the nightmare stood, three-dimensional, breathing, and pinning Ethan with a predator’s half-smile.

Caleb flicked the rim of his glass. “You barge into my city, bumble into my club, and can’t even pronounce the host’s name? Cute.” He pivoted, coat flaring, and started up the spiral staircase toward the VIP balcony. Over one shoulder he tossed, “Bring him, or toss him. I’m bored either way.”

The bouncer advanced. Ethan’s knees buckled, but his gaze snapped to the mezzanine curtain Caleb had disappeared behind. Without warning he bolted, elbows jabbing through the crowd. Blake found himself moving too, a moth trailing someone else’s flame, boots pounding the metal steps. Velvet brushed his cheek as Ethan shoved the balcony curtain aside without knocking.

Inside, the music dulled to a muffled heartbeat. Sconces glowed amber over low leather couches and a glass table littered with lime wedges and empty shooters. Caleb had just knocked back another shot; his sharp cheekbones were flushed, lashes dewy, collar unbuttoned to reveal a triangle of skin slick with liquor and sweat. He didn’t bother looking up. “Sit,” he ordered, waving two fingers. The door guard pulled the curtain shut, sealing them in.

Ethan remained frozen. Blake hovered at the threshold, pulse jack-hammering. He wasn’t supposed to be here—wasn’t even supposed to exist inside this story. Yet the air tasted of juniper and danger, so real his tongue tingled.

Caleb lifted a crystal decanter, refilling his glass. “Names, strangers. I like to know who’s wasting my oxygen.” His tone stayed lazy, but Blake caught the steel beneath—like a guillotine paused mid-drop.

“Blake Morrison,” he answered before thinking, voice rough. He swallowed. “Just… passing through.”

Caleb’s eyes—storm-cloud gray—flicked to him, assessing, dismissing, then settled on Ethan. “And you, stammering boy? You recognized me. Why the deer-in-headlights act?”

Ethan’s fingers curled around the strap of his messenger bag, knuckles white. “I—I thought you were someone else,” he lied. Blake could almost hear the internal scream: He’s exactly who I thought.

Caleb’s smile widened, all canine. “Thought, past tense. Regret hits fast, doesn’t it?” He set the glass down, glass clink unnaturally loud. “Let’s test reflexes. First question: who owns Starline?”

Ethan blinked. “Y-you do.”

“Fast enough. Second: who bankrolls the Riverton Rowhouse restoration?”

Silence. Ethan’s breath came shallow.

Caleb leaned forward. “Tick-tock. Wrong answer costs a finger.” He produced a silver coin, rolling it across his knuckles—sleight of hand, threat, promise.

Blake’s vision tunneled. He remembered this scene—vaguely—remembered the fictional comment section calling it “nail-biting foreplay.” But fiction hadn’t conveyed the metallic taste of fear now coating his tongue. He searched for an exit; the curtain hung heavy, no gaps.

Ethan’s voice cracked. “Whitaker Group,” he whispered.

The coin stilled. Caleb’s brows lifted, impressed or disappointed—impossible to tell. “Lucky guess.” He flicked the disc; it spun on the tabletop before settling. “Final round: why are you really here?”

Ethan’s mouth opened, closed. His gaze darted to Blake, wordlessly begging for rescue. Blake felt the weight settle on his own shoulders, inexplicable yet solid. He stepped between them, palms raised. “He got lost. Let him go.”

Caleb studied Blake as if noticing him for the first time. Something shifted behind those slate irises—curiosity, maybe recognition of a different sort. “Chivalry,” he murmured. “Rare vintage.” He lifted the shot again, downed it, then set the glass upside-down like a verdict. “Fine. Lost boy may leave. You, Sir Chivalry, stay. I’m not done tasting boredom yet.”

Ethan hesitated, eyes wide. Blake jerked his head toward the curtain. Go. Ethan obeyed, stumbling out, the velvet swishing closed behind him.

Now Blake stood alone under Caleb’s speculative stare, music from below vibrating the floorboards. He inhaled, exhaled, every nerve ending alight. He had no script for what came next, no memory of pages that told him how to survive the night. For the first time since waking on that dance floor, the uncertainty felt violently, brilliantly alive.

Blake’s eyes snapped open to a blade of white light slashing across the VIP booth.

“Who hit the switch?” Caleb Drake growled, voice like gravel soaked in bourbon. “Kill it.”

Blake’s pulse lurched. *Not a chance, superstar. He had just scored front-row tickets to your meltdown.*

He stayed curled in the velvet alcove, breath shallow, pulse drumming against his collarbone.

Caleb’s phone buzzed. One glance, a snort that wasn’t amused, and the device skittered across leather. “Stay, then,” he muttered to no one in particular. “Just don’t exhale in my zip code.”

Blake answered by not moving at all. He counted heartbeats—fourteen—then eased deeper into the nook that overlooked the corridor. From here he could watch the king bleed without being trampled by the court.

The club’s bass line throbbed underfoot, but the real earthquake arrived when the door swung wide. Julian Knight filled the frame—silver-screen jawline, eyes blown dark as collapsed stars. The chrome handle bent under his white-knuckled grip.

“Who,” he demanded, gaze sweeping the booth, “are you?”

Blake’s tongue glued to the roof of his mouth. *Name, fake name, now.* Before he could unstick it, Julian swayed, pupils swallowing color. “Whatever. Move.”

One step, two—Julian’s knees folded like cheap aluminum. Blake shot forward, catching the faint chemical sweetness clinging to the actor’s collar. Dilated pupils, balance shot, skin fever-dry. Classic drop-pill cocktail.

*So the novel’s so-called “destined bottom” just walked in already half-gone.*

Memory flickered—pages Blake had skimmed in another lifetime, sentences that rearranged themselves the moment he looked away. The story kept rewriting its own veins, and he was nothing but a footnote that hadn’t decided what foot it belonged to.

Caleb watched Julian sag with the detached curiosity of a man studying a traffic accident from a penthouse window. “Bad night, Knight?”

Julian’s answer was a slow blink.

Blake eased an arm under Julian’s shoulder, calculating. If the book insisted on this scene, he could still choose the blocking. Get the guy water, ghost the exit, vanish before the next plot bomb detonated.

Then Julian’s head lolled, lips brushing Blake’s ear. “Not… real,” he whispered, breath hot. “None of it.”

The words crawled down Blake’s spine and nested. *Tell me about it.*

Behind them, Caleb poured another two fingers of scotch, the glass catching the neon like liquid sapphire. “Front-row seat, huh? Enjoy the show, stranger. Just remember—cameras everywhere.”

Blake felt them: red dots blinking from ceiling corners, recording every twitch. *Evidence or blackmail?* In Avalon City, the line glittered like cocaine on a mirror.

Julian’s weight shifted, ankle buckling. Blake adjusted, muscles burning. *Can’t carry him, can’t leave him.* The corridor outside erupted in distant laughter—paparazzi? Publicists? Sharks drawn to blood in tuxedos.

He needed an exit strategy, but the script kept smudging. Last time he checked, Julian wasn’t supposed to crash until chapter three, and never into *him*.

Caleb raised his glass in lazy salute. “Tick-tock. Knight’s handlers will sweep in any minute. Decide if you want to be collateral or scenery.”

Blake’s mind raced. Step one: get Julian horizontal before his heart gave out. Step two: erase himself from every lens in the room. Step three—hell, he hadn’t even bought the book’s deluxe edition.

A velvet curtain fluttered at the rear of the booth, revealing a service corridor barely wider than conscience. *Deliveries, staff, maybe an alley.* He could drag Julian there, prop him against a dumpster, dial emergency services from a ghost phone, disappear.

Julian’s fingers suddenly clamped Blake’s wrist, nails digging. “Don’t… let them,” he slurred. *Them* who? Directors? Deal-makers? The invisible author scribbling this moment?

“Working on it,” Blake muttered. He hoisted Julian higher, knees creaking. Caleb’s reflection watched in the dark glass, eyes unreadable.

One step toward the curtain. Two. Each felt like ripping himself out of a photograph. The club music swallowed the scrape of Julian’s shoes.

Halfway there, Julian’s pocket chimed—his own ghost phone, screen flashing a single name: *Helen*. Mother? Manager? Moral compass? Blake couldn’t answer it, couldn’t silence it. The tone drilled into his teeth.

He shoved through the curtain just as the booth door burst open behind them—shouts, strobes, the hurricane finally making landfall. Blake didn’t look back.

The corridor smelled of citrus disinfectant and cold grease. He lowered Julian against a stack of empty crates, pulse racing so loud it rivaled the bass still leaking through the walls.

Julian’s head drooped, dark hair plastered to sweat-slick skin. Blake patted his cheek. “Stay with me, knight in tarnished armor. We’re off the page now.”

Julian’s eyes fluttered, focusing for a heartbeat. “You… don’t exist,” he murmured, smile crooked and lost.

Blake’s laugh came ragged. “Join the club.”

Somewhere behind the curtain, Caleb’s voice rose above the chaos, smooth as poured mercury. “No, no footage. Memory-wipe the cards. My guest list is sacred.”

*Memory-wipe.* Blake wondered if the universe had an erase button for accidental time travelers. He pressed two fingers to Julian’s neck—heartbeat rapid but steady. For now.

A back door banged open down the hall, letting in a gust of alley air. Blake tasted rain, asphalt, freedom. He slipped an arm under Julian’s shoulder again, ready to lift, ready to run.

The story could rewrite itself all it wanted. Tonight he’d hold the pen—at least until the ink ran out.

Blake Morrison’s borrowed tuxedo felt suddenly alive, the inside pocket vibrating against his ribs like a trapped moth. Reflex answered before thought: “Hello?” The voice that came back wasn’t Julian Knight’s smooth baritone; it was younger, sharper, amused. Only then did Blake notice the matte-black ghost phone he’d scooped from the cloakroom, identical to Julian’s but colder, heavier, wrong.

A lightning grin split Blake’s face. Live-action fanfic, he realized—real people, real stakes, and he’d just been handed a walk-on role with dialogue. He could almost hear the fandom typing AUs already.

“Suite 416. Now.” Caleb Drake’s order crackled, then died with a decisive click.

Across the marble corridor, Julian strode toward the elevators, coat flaring like a cape. Blake pocketed the ghost phone, heartbeat doubling. He bolted after Julian, dress shoes skidding on the polished floor, a retriever on espresso. At the corner he dropped into a crouch, palms sliding across mahogany panels until he found the brass 416. No shame—he pressed his ear to the wood.

Inside, polite murmurs drifted, glasses clinking. Then a sharp pop, a crystalline crash, shards spraying tile. Blake leaned harder, breath fogging the varnish.

A fingertip tapped his shoulder. He shrugged it off without looking. “Busy.”

The door yanked inward. Gravity betrayed him; he windmilled, fingertips scraping the jamb, stopping an inch from nose-planting on Caleb Drake’s Italian leather.

Blake straightened, slow, deliberate. His tongue traced the edge of his teeth, and he let out a whistle—one perfect, mocking note that echoed down the golden hallway like a gauntlet thrown.