40
GOLDIE
Five months later
The moon is one day from being full, and my bears are watchful and quiet. My belly is rounder than I ever thought possible; the skin is tight, and my navel is bulging now there’s no longer any space for it on the inside of me. I sit in a rocking chair in the library, reading a diary that I found nestled high on a shelf. It’s one of the triplets’ mother’s journals of the early days of her family, and it’s been beautiful to read.
I wish she was still here. She’d have made a marvelous grandparent and a great support for her sons and me. My mom, in contrast, has only doubled down on her disgust since she found out that I’m expecting. In a way, it’s a relief not to have to deal with her self-obsessed ramblings anymore.
I can guess how Robert, Evan, and Hunter’s mom felt when she was in my situation; three babies were squirming inside her, ready to enter a new world. It was a world filled with love and anticipation but also a world filled with danger, not dissimilar to the days I’m living right now.
The peace with the wolves is holding strong. There’s been no wolf scent on our land that extends for over a mile in each direction. I’m too tired to walk with my bears in the forest anymore. Still, I stay tuned into their communication as they continue to walk the perimeter, as the years of war keep them cautious.
If the wolves find a mate, a new generation of enemies will grow, they told me over dinner. They worry they’ll grow more aggressive when they have more to lose.
I’ve told them how I feel about the rivalry. I don’t want a return to battles, injuries, or worse. My children need fathers, not graves to visit. I can’t deal with the thought of feeling like something is missing in my soul again. Now I’ve mated to my bears, losing one of them would kill me.
I keep hoping that they'll see the world differently when they hold their sons. Male pride cannot come before love. Not in the long term. No rivalry is worth a child losing their father over. They need to hold strong.
I run my hand over the warm velvet of my voluminous dress, feeling a foot kick beneath my palm. There are two boys inside me, sons of one of the men who claimed me as their mate. My babies will grow up with three fathers and will be luckier for it.
Two boys who'll be bears.
Strong and fierce.
Passionate and determined.
Filled with love and a desire to protect, just like their daddies.
Coran and Connell are the names we’ve chosen. Strong names from bears who’ve long passed, names that will live again.
I’ve had dreams about them, just like my mother did—dreams that I haven’t been able to share with their daddies. My bear boys run free through the forest, with thick, dark hair and dark eyes like their daddies. They run until they come face to face with a redheaded girl with gray eyes—a girl as pretty as a woodland fairy, with a voice that spills like magic over the world.
A girl who shifts into a wolf.
I tell myself I’m creating the dreams from my worry about a future confrontation. I try hard to convince myself that these dreams are nothing like the ones my momma used to tell me all those years ago, dreams that came true.
If I told Hunter, Evan, or Robert about the wolf girl and our sons, what would they do? They believe in destiny. They’d carry around the fear that our sons’ destiny is a match that can only end in a blighted future—twenty years or more of the guillotine hanging over all our necks. I can’t do it to them.
Rosie is worried about me giving birth at home, wanting me to go to the hospital like everyone else. I told her I’d turned into an earth mother since I came to live in the forest. It’s a risk we can’t take, though. Sometimes, the trauma of birth triggers the babies to shift for the first time. I can’t imagine hospital midwives dealing well with that.
I have someone coming to assist. Hallie is a midwife but also a wife to two of the clan bears, and she lives three towns to the north in a cottage like the one in my picture book of Goldilocks and the three bears. She’s been tracking my pregnancy, and I’m confident that things will be okay. She hasn’t lost a mother or bear-baby yet.
“Would you like a drink?” Evan sticks his head around the door, smiling when he sees me with my feet up.
“I’m good,” I say. “Robert bought me a mug of hot chocolate.”
Evan rolls his eyes. “That man always beats me to it with thoughtful gestures.”
I smile because he’s right. “He didn’t beat you to a foot rub, though.”
When Evan comes into the room and settles on the footstool before me, gathering my feet in his lap, I’m filled with love. His firm hands knead my tender, swollen feet with just the right pressure, and I close my eyes and relax.
My life before I came to this place seemed fine. I’d carved a tiny place for myself in the world. I’d taken my passion for locks and keys and confined myself to work with no hope of more. Now, I have a future filled with love and acceptance, and I can give back so much, too.
Sometimes, I have to pinch myself to ensure it’s all real.
That night, I sleep between Evan and Robert while Hunter prowls the perimeter of our property, ever watchful for danger. It’ll be Robert’s turn tomorrow, and Evan’s the night after. That’s the thing with having three men who are bears. There are three sets of shoulders for every burden—three apex predators to keep me safe.
“ Hunter ,” I whisper through our mental connection as Robert and Evan sleep beside me.
“ Mate? You should be sleeping, ” he replies.
“ You should be here, my love .”
“ Tomorrow ,” he replies firmly. My babies kick inside me as though they’re listening to their father’s voice and trying to get involved.
“ Stay safe, my heart, ” I whisper. The image of him prowling in the darkness, the sky dappled with stars, and a moon that’s almost swollen to her full size, makes me anxious.
“ I love you. I love you to the end of the earth. To the end of my life. To the end of time ,” he replies, and I fall asleep with those words resting softly against my heart.
The next day, when my contractions start, I’m worried. The babies haven’t moved much, as though they can sense the time is near. Hunter is back from patrol, and all my bears stand around with concern lining their foreheads and tensing their broad shoulders. If they could, they’d shoulder this burden for me, but like all women, creating life is mostly a solitary process. I tell myself our creator must have known what they were doing when they gave women this burden alone.
I’m ready to meet my babies, but I’m scared, too. So scared I won’t be strong enough.
Hallie arrives in twenty minutes, and Evan shows her to the room we’ve prepared for the birth. My belly is squeezing violently every two minutes. When Hallie checks to see how dilated I am, her eyes widen. She unsnaps her gloves, washes her hands, and returns to my bedside.
“You’re close,” she says, tying her hair into a neat bun, getting ready for what’s coming. She’s dressed in scrubs and comfortable shoes, and I’m naked from the waist down in one of Hunter’s t-shirts. I’ve asked my men to wait outside for now. I don’t need them witnessing another woman pushing her hand where the sun doesn’t shine. There are some things I want to keep private.
I groan loudly as the next contraction hits, and my waters break, soaking the disposable mat beneath me. “Oh god,” I say, panting like I’ve been practicing, the additional oxygen making me lightheaded.
“Get on your hands and knees,” Hallie instructs. “It’ll make the birth easier and reduce the pain.”
I’m strong enough to turn over, but when the next wave of pain hits, my body goes limp. “It’s time to bring in your support team,” Hallie says.
“Okay.”
She covers me while my mates gather around the bed. They’ve seen every part of my body and been inside me in ways that make me blush to recall, but I don’t want them at the business end of this. It won’t be pretty. Evan kneels before me, Hunter to my right, and Robert to my left. They hold me up while Evan encourages me through the pain, breathing with me and patting my face with a cool cloth. “You’re doing so well,” he says. “You’re nearly there.”
I want to believe him, but the pain is overwhelming. “It’s time to push,” Hallie says. “When the next contraction—”
She doesn’t get to finish her sentence because it’s here, and I’m pushing. The fire between my thighs makes tears squirt from my eyes. I grip Robert’s hand, gritting my teeth and holding in an almighty growl that, if released, will only weaken me. These babies are coming, and I must do everything I can to get them out.
“I can see the head,” Hallie tells me, as I feel like I might burst open. I push again, seeing stars and licking flames behind my eyes. My head swims with the pain, and I feel outside myself, dizzy and disconnected.
“That’s it. One more. ”
“You can do it,” Evan tells me. “You can do it, Goldie. You’re so close.”
“Ahhhhhhhh,” I groan, dropping my head to the bed. The pressure between my legs crests, and then there’s release. I pant, trying to regain my breath, focusing between my legs on the baby Hallie is wiping down and inspecting. That’s my boy. My son. Coran Bjorn. The future alpha of this clan. A pained cry slices the air, and Hallie laughs. “He’s perfect,” she says. Hunter leaves my side, forgetting his commitment to stay near my head, and takes the baby from Hallie. I only glimpse his serious face, focused on his child, his firstborn, awash with emotion, before the contractions start again.
“Noooo,” I groan. I need more time to regroup, to dig deep to find my strength, but there’s no time. Connell is coming.
“ You can do it, Goldie, ” Evan whispers in my mind. “Y ou’re so strong, so fierce, a bear momma who’ll take on the world for her cubs .”
He’s right. I will. I’ll kill for my mates and my cubs. I’d tear flesh from bones to protect them. “Easy,” Robert whispers, stroking my back. He can see the images flashing through my mind and feel my rising panic. “No fighting today.”
I pant, feeling the remaining baby shifting lower inside me. It’s so fast; he’s desperate to get out to meet his family. “He’s coming,” Hallie confirms as Hunter sits on the edge of the bed to show me Coran. He’s scrunched up, and his wisps of dark hair are matted with vernix, but he’s perfect.
“Oh god,” I groan. “Oh… I can’t.”
“ Focus ,” Hunter bellows in my mind. “ Focus, mate. You’re almost there .”
It’s the toughness I need to help me bite down and get through the last of this. My body feels like it’s being wrenched in two like I’m being turned inside out. The pain reaches a level that turns my vision white, and I open my mouth, but no noise will come out. “Push,” Hallie says. “Push, Goldie.”
Robert grips me so tightly, but it’s okay because I need his support, or I’ll fall flat on my face. “He’s coming,” Hallie says. “He’s…”
And then the cresting flame of pain subsides, and Robert eases me to lie down and roll over, cradled by his body.
Hallie wraps Connell in a blanket, and Evan takes him from her. I watch as her bright, happy expression slides into wide-eyed panic. Warm heat spreads under me, and Hunter gasps, “ She’s bleeding, ” in my mind.
“ It’s normal. Everyone bleeds when they give birth,” I reassure him . But maybe this is more. Maybe the lightness in my head isn’t just joy.
I focus on my sons as everything slips away.