Double Trouble, Triple Heat

Chapter 24

Panic erupts.

"Get Miriam!" Dominic shouts, lifting me from the soaked bed. "Now!"

Wolf pregnancies are fast—everyone told me that. Three to four months instead of nine. But this is faster. I'm barely four months along, and contractions are ripping through me like wildfire.

They rush me to the birthing room—a space I didn't know existed until now, deep in the lodge, equipped with everything a wolf mother might need. Ancient and modern mixed together. Candles and monitors. Herbs and sterile instruments.

Miriam arrives within minutes, her weathered face tight with concern. She takes one look at me and starts barking orders.

"The trauma accelerated it," she explains, preparing herbs and strange-smelling tinctures. "Battle stress, emotional upheaval, Prime power awakening—her body is protecting the pups by delivering now. Get them out before anything else goes wrong."

"Is that safe?" Caspian demands. "They're premature—"

"Wolf pups are resilient. And these aren't ordinary wolf pups." Miriam's hands don't stop moving. "Sera, I need you to breathe. Deep breaths. In through your nose, out through your mouth."

I try. God, I try. But another contraction hits and breathing becomes screaming.

Labor is brutal.

My wolf keeps trying to emerge—claws sprouting from my fingertips, bones shifting beneath my skin, golden light flickering at the edges of my vision. Each partial shift is agony on top of agony, my body caught between forms.

"She's fighting herself," Miriam says grimly. "Her wolf wants to birth in animal form, but she doesn't know how to complete the shift."

Dominic grabs my hand, and I squeeze until I feel his bones grind together. He doesn't flinch. His face is white, eyes wild with terror he can't hide.

The alpha of the pack, and he's never been more frightened.

"I've got you," he says, voice rough. "I've got you, Sera. You can do this."

Another contraction. Another scream.

Caspian appears on my other side, silver eyes bright with unshed tears. He takes my other hand and starts talking—a stream of words meant to distract, to anchor, to keep me present.

"What do you call a wolf who does stand-up comedy?" He doesn't wait for an answer. "A howl-arious comedian. No? Okay, okay, how about this one—why did the werewolf go to therapy?"

"Caspian—" I gasp.

"Because he had too many issues to pack away. Get it? Pack? Because—"

"Shut up and hold my hand!"

"That I can do."

Hours pass. The contractions blend together into one endless wave of pain. I lose track of time, of self, of everything except the desperate need to push.

Then Miriam's expression changes.

"Something's wrong." She presses instruments to my belly, listens with enhanced wolf hearing. "One of the babies—the heartbeat is faltering. Breech position. The cord—"

"No." The word tears out of me. "No, please—"

The door crashes open. Eldric, ancient and frail, moving faster than I've ever seen him. He carries a leather satchel that smells of herbs and time.

"I felt the distress through the pack bond," he says, already pulling out vials and dried plants. "The Prime's children are in danger."

He works alongside Miriam—herbs pressed to my belly, pressure points that make me gasp, words of power that hum in the air like living things. The language is old, older than English, older than anything I recognize.

Something shifts inside me.

My Prime power activates instinctively—not healing this time, but something deeper. I feel the babies inside me. Two sparks of golden light, flickering with distress. One strong and steady. One faltering, fading.

No. Not my baby. Not either of them.

I reach through the bond—the same way I reached for Caspian when he was dying—and wrap golden light around those tiny sparks. I soothe their distress, ease the cord's compression, guide them toward safety.

The faltering heartbeat steadies.

"She's doing it," Miriam breathes. "She's guiding them herself."

I don't have time to wonder at what I'm doing. The urge to push becomes overwhelming—primal, unstoppable.

"Now," Miriam commands. "Push now!"

I push. Screaming, crying, praying to gods I don't believe in. Dominic's hand crushing mine. Caspian's voice in my ear, no longer joking, just saying my name over and over like a prayer.

Pressure. Pain. Then—

Release.

A cry. Tiny and wolf-like and absolutely perfect.

"A boy," Miriam announces, and I hear Dominic make a sound I've never heard from him before—something between a laugh and a sob.

But there's no time to rest. The second baby is coming, and my body knows what to do now.

One more push. One more scream.

Another cry, higher than the first.

"A girl." Miriam's voice cracks. "Twins. Both healthy. Both perfect."

I collapse against the pillows, exhausted beyond words but alive. So alive.

Dominic catches me before I can fall back, cradling me against his chest. His hands are shaking—this giant, powerful man, trembling because of me. Because of what we made together.

"You're incredible," he breathes against my hair. "You're everything. You're—" His voice breaks. "Thank you. Thank you, Sera."

They place the boy in Dominic's arms, and watching him hold our son is like watching the sun rise. His massive hands dwarf the tiny bundle, but he cradles the baby like he's made of glass. Like he's made of gold. The alpha of the pack, brought to his knees by something so small.

Caspian has the girl. Tears stream unashamed down his face as he presses kisses to her tiny forehead, her nose, her impossibly small fingers.

"She's beautiful," he whispers. "She's so beautiful. Look at her, Sera. Look what we made."

He brings her to me, and I hold my daughter for the first time. She has a tuft of dark hair and the tiniest fingernails I've ever seen. When she opens her eyes, they flash gold for just a moment before settling into newborn blue.

"Our family," I whisper, tears streaming down my face. "Our pack."

Dominic joins us on the bed, still holding our son. He leans down and kisses me deeply—despite the sweat and exhaustion and everything we've been through. A kiss that says everything words can't.

"Thank you," he says roughly. "For them. For us. For everything."

Caspian settles on my other side, the girl cradled in one arm while his free hand finds mine. We're tangled together—the five of us now—in the aftermath of miracle.

"What are their names?" Caspian asks softly.

I look at Dominic. We hadn't discussed this—there hadn't been time. But somehow, in this moment, I know.

"The boy..." I touch his tiny cheek. "Elias." The name feels right. Strong and ancient, like the power humming through his tiny body.

"Elias," Dominic repeats, testing it. His eyes soften. "It's perfect."

"And the girl?"

I look at her sleeping face. So peaceful. So new. A light in the darkness after everything we've been through.

"Aurora," I whisper. "Like the dawn. Because that's what she is—a new beginning."

Caspian presses a kiss to Aurora's forehead, tears still wet on his cheeks. "Elias and Aurora. Our children."

In the quiet after, as we drift toward exhausted sleep, Miriam returns to examine the babies. Her hands move over them gently, checking vital signs, measuring, cataloging.

Then her expression changes. Goes strange. Troubled.

"Sera." Her voice pulls me back from the edge of sleep. "These children... they're not just wolf-born. They're something else. Something old."

"What do you mean?"

Miriam looks at the twins, then at me, and there's something in her eyes I've never seen before.

Fear.

"The power I'm sensing in them—it's beyond anything I've encountered. Beyond normal Prime abilities. Beyond anything in our histories." She meets my gaze. "What are you becoming, Sera? And what have you passed on to them?"

I don't have an answer.

I pull my babies closer and hold them tight.

Whatever we are, we're together. And that will have to be enough.