Chapter 5 For the Babies
Tria woke to the smell of herbs.
Bitterroot. Feverleaf. Crushed mint.
None of it belonged to Silvercrest.
For one stunned heartbeat, she did not remember why that hurt.
Then the courtyard returned.
Delvan on the platform.
Selene at his side.
I, Alpha Delvan of Silvercrest, reject Tria as my mate.
Pain punched through her chest so sharply her eyes flew open.
She tried to sit.
A firm hand pressed her shoulder down.
“Absolutely not.”
Tria froze.
An older woman stood beside the bed, dark hair braided tightly against her head, sleeves rolled to the elbow. Her eyes were sharp, steady, and entirely unimpressed.
Not cruel.
Worse.
Competent.
“Where am I?”
“Ironwood healing house,” the woman said. “And before you ask, no, you are not leaving this bed yet.”
Tria pushed up on one elbow.
The room tilted.
The woman caught her before her head hit the pillow.
“Stubborn,” she muttered.
“I need to go.”
“You need water, food, sleep, and a better understanding of your own limits.”
Tria swallowed against the dryness in her mouth. “Who are you?”
“Doctor Wervin.”
She carried herself like someone even Alphas obeyed when blood was spilled.
A cup touched Tria’s lips.
“Drink.”
Tria wanted to refuse on principle.
Her body betrayed her. She drank too quickly, water spilling down her chin.
Wervin pulled the cup back. “Slowly.”
“I know how to drink.”
“You also knew how to run until your feet split open, so forgive me if I am not dazzled by your judgment.”
Tria stared at her.
For one dangerous breath, something almost like laughter pressed against her ribs.
It died.
The mate bond pulsed.
Her hand jerked to her chest.
The golden heart necklace was still there.
Someone had cleaned it.
That nearly broke her.
“Did anyone touch this?”
“No,” Wervin said. “I cleaned around it.”
Tria looked up.
“You held it even after you fainted.”
Shame warmed her face.
She released the pendant. “I should not still care.”
“That is not how wounds work.”
Tria looked away.
Wervin checked the bandages at her feet. “You are dehydrated, malnourished, and dangerously exhausted. Your feet are torn, your shoulder is bruised, and your body has been running on grief and stubbornness.”
“I apologize for the inconvenience.”
The words left automatically.
A Luna’s reflex.
Make pain tidy.
Make need polite.
Wervin stopped. “Do not apologize to me for almost collapsing beyond repair.”
Tria’s throat tightened. “I am not your burden.”
“No. You are my patient.”
Patient.
Not exile.
Not rejected mate.
Not failed Luna.
Wervin tied off the bandage. “Whatever sent you into that forest nearly killed you.”
Delvan sent me.
The words sat behind Tria’s teeth.
She did not release them.
Wervin picked up a small wooden tube polished smooth from use. “How long since you last ate a full meal?”
“I do not know.”
“How long since you slept through a night?”
Tria thought of Delvan’s turned back and another woman’s scent.
“I do not know,” she said again.
Wervin’s mouth pressed thin. She set one end of the tube against Tria’s lower abdomen.
Tria stiffened. “What are you doing?”
“Listening.”
“To what?”
Wervin did not answer.
The room went quiet.
Tria heard the fire shift. Heard voices outside the door.
Low.
Male.
Ravin.
His scent reached her faintly through the wood. Cedar smoke. Ironwood bark. Storm air.
He was outside.
Waiting.
Not intruding.
She almost missed the change in Wervin’s face.
The healer went very still.
“What?”
Wervin shifted the tube and listened again.
Once.
Twice.
Then she lowered it.
“You have to take better care of yourself,” she said, “for the babies.”
The room disappeared.
Tria heard the words.
She understood each one.
They made no sense together.
“The what?”
Wervin’s eyes sharpened. “You did not know.”
Tria’s heart began to pound. “What babies?”
The question came out too small.
Wervin reached for her wrist, fingers finding Tria’s pulse. “You are pregnant.”
No.
The word filled her skull.
Her hand moved to her stomach before she decided to move it.
Flat beneath the blanket.
Impossible.
But not impossible.
She remembered the last weeks with Delvan. The nights before the coldness became unbearable. His hands still familiar then. His mouth still capable of making her believe the distance could close.
Her stomach rolled.
“I cannot be.”
“You can,” Wervin said. “And you are.”
Tria stared at her hand.
One life.
No.
Wervin had said babies.
Plural.
“You are farther along than you look,” Wervin said. “Stress, hunger, and bond sickness can hide what the body is trying to protect. Twins also change quickly once the mother begins eating and resting.”
“You said babies," Tria said.
“I hear more than one heartbeat.”
The walls tilted.
Wervin gripped her wrist. “Breathe.”
“I—”
“Breathe, Tria.”
She dragged air into her lungs.
“Likely twins,” Wervin said. “I will confirm again once you are stronger, but there are at least two distinct rhythms. Strong ones, considering what you put them through.”
What you put them through.
The forest.
The stream.
The rocks.
The hunger.
The shift.
The collapse.
Tria’s hand flattened over her stomach.
“I did not know.”
Her voice broke.
Wervin softened. “I believe you.”
“I ran. I crossed water. I fell. I did not eat. I—”
“You did not know,” Wervin repeated.
But mercy could not reach her yet.
She saw Delvan’s mouth.
By dawn, you will leave Silvercrest territory.
She had been carrying his children.
His heirs.
Their children.
And he had exiled them before either of them knew they existed.
A sound tore from her throat.
Wervin moved closer, but did not touch until Tria grabbed her sleeve.
“I was pregnant,” Tria whispered. “When he—”
She stopped.
Wervin’s eyes flicked once toward the door.
She understood enough.
Outside, the low voices had gone silent.
Ravin had heard.
Alpha senses. A wooden door was not enough.
Tria pulled the blanket higher, suddenly cold.
“He cannot come in.”
Wervin nodded once. “Then he does not come in.”
A knock sounded.
One soft rap.
Not command.
Request.
Tria flinched anyway.
Wervin turned toward the door. “Not yet.”
A pause.
Then Ravin’s voice came low through the wood. “Understood.”
No anger.
No offense.
Only distance given because she needed it.
Tria closed her eyes.
Her hand stayed on her stomach.
Twins.
Two heartbeats.
Two lives hidden inside a body she had treated like something disposable because Delvan had made her feel disposable.
Terror came first.
Where would she go? How would she protect them? What would happen if Delvan found out? Would he claim them? Would Silvercrest demand them?
Then grief followed.
These babies should have been joy.
She should have told Delvan at moonrise. Should have watched shock turn to wonder. Should have felt his hand cover hers, the bond bright with awe instead of torn with rejection.
That future was dead.
Tria bent over her stomach.
Beneath the terror and grief, something fierce rose.
Mine.
The thought came from her wolf first.
Then from Tria.
Mine.
Not Delvan’s claim. Not Silvercrest’s bargaining piece. Not Selene’s threat.
Her children.
Her babies.
Wervin covered Tria’s hand with her own, light enough to refuse.
Tria did not.
“They are alive?” Tria asked.
“Yes.”
“Strong?”
“For now,” Wervin said. “But you are not. That must change.”
Tria nodded, tears finally slipping free.
“For them,” she whispered.
“For them,” Wervin agreed.
After a while, Tria looked toward the door.
Ravin waited beyond it.
The Alpha of a pack that was not hers. A stranger who had caught her when she fell and stepped away. A male powerful enough to command the room, choosing instead to wait outside it.
“Did he hear?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Tria’s pulse jumped.
Wervin’s expression remained blunt. “He also heard me tell him that if he entered before you allowed it, I would break his nose.”
Despite everything, Tria stared.
“You said that to your Alpha?”
“I have reset that nose twice. He knows I am capable.”
A fragile sound escaped Tria.
Almost laughter.
Almost grief.
Wervin rose. “Do you want him to leave?”
Tria should have said yes.
She wanted privacy. Dignity. Time to hold this truth before another soul saw ruin.
But she remembered his voice.
No chains. No command. No debt.
“Not leave,” she said carefully. “Just… ask him to wait.”
Wervin opened the door only wide enough to speak.
“She says wait.”
“I will.”
No hesitation.
The door closed.
Tria stared at it.
Wervin made her drink broth, checked her pulse again, and muttered about stubborn Lunas under her breath.
Tria’s head snapped up. “What did you call me?”
“A Luna.”
“I never said I was.”
“You did not need to.”
Tria’s fingers curled.
“It is in how you apologize for needing care,” Wervin said. “How you listen to every sound beyond the door. How you look at a room and search for who must be protected before you ask whether you are safe.”
Tria had no answer.
The healer’s voice gentled by one degree. “Broken does not hide what you are.”
This time, the tears came harder.
When Ravin finally entered, it was because Tria nodded.
He stepped in and stopped just inside the doorway, as if an invisible line had been drawn there.
His gaze went first to her face.
Not her stomach.
Her face.
“Doctor Wervin says you need sanctuary,” he said.
“I cannot stay forever.”
“I did not ask forever.”
“I cannot bring Silvercrest trouble to your door.”
“Trouble came to my border bleeding and half-dead.” His voice stayed calm, but something dark moved beneath it. “I do not send wounded wolves back into the forest.”
“These babies are not yours.”
Ravin’s jaw tightened.
Not in offense.
In anger that she had felt the need to say it.
“No child has to be mine to deserve protection.”
The words struck deep.
Too deep.
Tria looked away before he could see what they did to her.
“I will not be charity.”
“Good,” Ravin said. “I am not offering charity.”
She looked back.
“I am offering sanctuary.”
The room went still.
Sanctuary.
It was a door left open, not a hand closing around her wrist.
A place to breathe until she could decide what came next.
Her throat ached. “I cannot stay forever.”
Ravin’s eyes dropped briefly to the hand she held over her stomach.
When he looked back, his voice quieted.
“Then stay until leaving does not kill you.”
Tria had no defense against that.
Later, when the room was dark and Wervin had left her with strict orders to sleep, Tria lay alone beneath the blanket.
Ravin was gone.
Ironwood was quiet.
Her hand moved slowly to her stomach.
Two heartbeats.
Two impossible little lives.
Her breath shook.
“I am so sorry,” she whispered. “I did not know.”