Mate Me in Moonlight

Chapter 141

POV: Adeline

Elara finds me in the quiet of the healing house, her presence as steady as the mountain beneath us.

"It will hurt," she says, no preamble, no softness to cushion the truth.

I manage something that might be a laugh. "I figured."

She sits beside me, her hands folded in her lap. "It will be worth it."

The words settle between us. Simple. Absolute. I want to believe them with the same certainty she speaks them, but terror lives in my chest now, coiled tight beneath my ribs. I try to keep my face calm, try to hold everything inside the way I've learned to hold everything inside, but my hands betray me—shaking against my swollen belly, fingers pressing too hard against the place where our daughter moves.

Elara sees it all. Of course she does.

"Your body knows what to do," she tells me, and her voice carries the weight of every woman who has done this before me. "Trust it. Trust yourself."

Trust. That word that's always been so hard for me. That word I've spent months learning with Aiden, with this pack, with this place that became home when I stopped running long enough to let it.

"Will you be there?" The question comes out smaller than I meant it to. Vulnerable in a way that still feels like exposing a wound.

"I'll be there." Elara's hand covers mine, warm and sure. "So will he. So will Freya. You won't be alone."

Something cracks open in my chest. Not pain—recognition. All of this, everything that led here, the path from survival to belonging—"I wasn't alone for any of it, was I?"

Elara smiles, and it reaches her eyes, reaches something deeper. "That's the whole point."

The fear doesn't disappear. It's still there, sharp and real, but it's surrounded now by something stronger. By the knowledge that when the pain comes—and it will come—I won't face it the way I faced everything before. I won't be the girl who survived alone in the dark.

I'll be pack.

I'm ready. As ready as anyone can be.

***

The days that follow are strange—suspended between before and after, weighted with waiting. My body grows heavier, slower, every movement an effort that reminds me what's coming. Aiden hovers, his worry a constant pressure through the bond, and I let him because I know it helps him more than it helps me.

Freya brings me tea that tastes like pine and honey. Luca stands guard at the door like threats can be kept at bay through sheer will. Elara checks on me twice a day, her hands gentle on my belly, her eyes reading things I can't see.

"Soon," she says on the third evening, and the word makes my heart stutter.

"How soon?"

"Soon enough." She meets my gaze, steady as stone. "Rest while you can."

But rest is impossible when my mind won't stop circling, won't stop imagining all the ways this could go wrong. All the ways I could fail at this final test, this final transformation from survivor to mother.

Aiden finds me awake at midnight, staring at the ceiling of our quarters.

"Can't sleep?" His voice is rough with his own worry.

"Thinking."

He pulls me against him, careful of my belly, and I feel his heartbeat against my spine. "About?"

"Everything." I close my eyes, breathing in his scent—earth and cedar and home. "What if I'm not ready?"

"You are." No hesitation. "You've been ready for this from the moment you decided to stay."

"That's different."

"Is it?" His hand spreads across my stomach, covering where our daughter sleeps. "You chose this. You chose us. You chose to build instead of run. That's what being ready looks like."

I want to argue, want to list all the ways I'm still broken, still learning, still afraid. But the bond pulses between us, warm and sure, and I feel what he feels—absolute certainty that I can do this.

Maybe that's enough. Maybe I don't have to be fearless. Maybe I just have to be willing.

"I love you," I whisper into the dark.

His lips brush my temple. "I love you. Both of you."

The baby kicks, hard enough that we both feel it, and something like peace settles over me. Not the absence of fear, but the presence of something stronger.

Tomorrow or the next day or the day after that, everything will change. Pain will come. Struggle will come. But so will joy. So will this tiny person we've been waiting for, this miracle born from loss and healing and love that refused to let go.

Elara was right.

It will be worth it.

***

Morning comes soft through the window, mist clinging to the pines outside. I wake to Aiden's hand in mine and Freya's voice at the door, asking if I need anything, and Elara's footsteps in the hall.

The fear is still there. But so is everything else.

The pack around me. The mate beside me. The daughter inside me.

I'm not alone.

And when the first contraction hits, sharp and sudden and real, I think of Elara's words.

Trust yourself.

I do.