Chapter 7 - Lola
The baby was asleep.
Sort of.
He kept making these soft, snuffling sounds, little breaths that caught and hitched in his chest like he wasn’t entirely convinced this world was worth settling into.
Lola sat stiffly on Dane’s couch, holding him in her arms like some kind of sacred artifact, terrified of moving, of waking him, of doing it wrong.
She hadn’t held many babies before. None this small. None this warm.
And none that made her chest feel like someone had cracked it open and poured in something thick and golden and terrifying.
He was beautiful. That was the worst part.
Red-faced, a little blotchy, yes…but with the softest wisps of dark hair and tiny, perfect fingers that had curled instinctively around her thumb. When he’d first grabbed on, she’d nearly cried.
Which was absurd. She didn’t cry. She read academic papers until her eyes dried out and argued about citation ethics on forums. She was not—not—the kind of woman who got weepy over babies.
Except now she apparently was.
Great.
The door slammed open, and she jumped, instinctively opening her mouth to scold Dane, but at his panicked expression, she shut it again. He was just as freaked out as she was. They couldn’t start arguing. They might wake the baby.
He was on the phone, she realized, holding it to his ear with his shoulder as he carried several bulging bags through and dumped them on the countertop. His voice was low and strained, but she could still hear enough to piece it together.
“Yeah. No, it’s real. I’m not joking, Nicolas. She just left him. No bag, no name. Nothing.” A pause. “I don’t know. He looks like me. That’s enough, right?”
He was pacing like a caged animal, dragging a hand through his hair as he listened.
“I can’t keep him alone, Nicolas. I’m out on patrol half the time. What am I supposed to do, leave him on the bar like lost property?”
Lola flinched.
Dane sighed, rubbing his face. “Yeah, yeah, Felix is coming too. I think he’s bringing Rick. Okay. See you soon.”
He hung up and turned, eyes landing on her and the baby curled against her chest. His expression shifted, just a flicker. Something unreadable. Vulnerable.
“He asleep?” he asked quietly.
She nodded. “Lightly. Like he might wake up if I move. He seems…unsettled.”
“Smart kid.”
She swallowed, narrowing her eyes slightly at this sarcasm, but choosing to ignore it, “He still doesn’t have a name.”
“I know.”
There was a silence. The kind that pressed in around her ribs and made everything feel heavier.
“I was going to make tea,” she blurted, because she couldn’t take the weight of it anymore.
“You still can.”
“I don’t want to drop him.”
“You won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“You’ve been holding him for twenty minutes, and you haven’t dropped him. That’s a pretty solid track record.”
She looked down again at the baby’s little face. His tiny lips twitched in his sleep, like he was dreaming about something important.
“He’s…not cried too much, considering the trauma,” she said.
Dane didn’t respond.
And maybe that was for the best.
A knock at the door startled them both.
Dane moved first, wrenching it open with one hand while the other stayed instinctively near his hip, where his knife usually sat.
It was Felix.
And Nicolas.
And Rick.
Lola wanted the couch to swallow her whole. What would they think of her there, holding a baby that wasn’t hers? She was practically a stranger, but here she was, cradling the enforcer’s baby!
“Jesus Christ,” Nicolas said the moment he stepped inside, “you really weren’t kidding.”
Felix looked straight at Dane. “Where is he?”
Dane stepped aside, and three fully grown, battle-scarred shifters stared at the sight of Lola Devereaux, neurotic academic, outsider, perennial blush hazard, sitting on Dane’s couch with a baby sleeping against her chest.
She froze like she’d been caught doing something illegal.
Felix’s brows lifted slightly. Rick tilted his head. Nicolas huffed out a surprised laugh.
“Well,” he said, “looks like someone’s already handling the hard part.”
Lola flushed violently. “I…he just…Dane went out, and I was here, and it seemed logical and…don’t look at me like that!”
Felix held up a placating hand, “We’re just surprised, Lola. That’s all.”
Rick didn’t say anything. Just watched her closely. Too closely.
“Here,” Felix said gently, setting the bag down, “I know you just got supplies, but it’s amazing how quickly you run out of stuff.
This should cover anything you missed. Formula, bottles, sterilizing tablets, wipes, diapers, spare onesies.
I even got a teething ring, just in case. The twins used to love those.”
“Thank you,” Dane muttered, running a hand through his hair. He looked…lost. Rattled in a way she’d never seen.
So she stood.
The baby stirred, let out a small protesting noise, then settled again as she passed him, carefully, to Dane.
He held the boy with practiced caution, like he might disintegrate if handled too roughly.
Lola, somehow steadier now, took the bag from Felix and marched into the kitchen like she lived there. She needed a task. Something that wasn’t eye contact, or awkward silence, or Rick looking at her like he was studying a rare species of bird.
She filled the kettle. Unpacked the formula. Read the back of the tin twice before pouring the right amount into a bottle and shaking it so hard she nearly dropped the damn thing.
Behind her, she could hear the men talking in low voices.
“She just left him?” That was Rick.
“Didn’t even name him,” Dane replied.
“You sure he’s yours?”
“No. But she was human. This kid’s not. His scent’s already shifting.”
A pause.
“So what now?” Felix asked.
“I can’t be here full-time. You know what it’s like. Patrols, border runs. Sometimes I’m gone for days. He can’t be passed around like a problem.”
“You could get a nanny,” Nicolas said lightly.
Lola froze, fingers tightening on the bottle.
A nanny.
Of course.
That made sense.
Except…
Except this baby didn’t need a stranger. Not right now. Not when he’d just lost everything before he even had a name.
And before she knew what she was doing, she turned around and said, loudly, awkwardly, catastrophically—
“I’ll do it.”
The silence that followed her words was immediate and deafening.
Lola wished the ground would open and swallow her whole. The baby’s bottle was still warm in her hand, trembling slightly as she stood there, frozen between the kitchen and the small circle of shifters watching her like she’d just declared herself Queen of Silvermist.
She cleared her throat, cheeks flaming. “I…I mean, just for now. Until something more…appropriate can be arranged. I’m obviously not…qualified, or anything, and I’ve never changed a… Well, I have read about infant care, and I’m very good at following instructions, and—”
“Lola,” Dane said, voice low. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I know I don’t,” she snapped, harsher than she meant, “I’m…offering.”
The baby gave a soft, hiccupping whine from the crook of Dane’s arm, and she faltered again.
Her voice dropped, “He needs someone. He doesn’t have anyone.
And finding the right person could take days or weeks, and in the meantime…
what? He gets passed around between patrols and pack meetings like some sort of package? ”
No one argued.
Not even Rick.
She turned her attention to the baby, holding out the bottle with careful fingers. “May I?”
Dane hesitated for a half-second, then shifted the boy toward her. She took him, just as awkwardly as before, but with a little less panic now. She settled him into the crook of her arm, brought the bottle to his lips, and when he latched, suckling greedily, a sharp pang bloomed in her chest.
“You’re a natural,” Felix said, impressed.
“I’m absolutely not,” Lola muttered, “But he’s hungry. That part’s not complicated.”
Rick finally spoke.
His voice was calm. Low.
But something in it made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
“You’re not pack,” he said. “Why offer this kind of help?”
She looked up sharply. “Because he’s a baby. A helpless, abandoned baby. I don’t need to be pack to care about that.”
Rick tilted his head, just slightly. He was studying her again. Dissecting.
“I’m just curious,” he said smoothly. “Most…outsiders don’t stay long once they see how things really work around here.”
“Then I’ll just have to surprise you,” she said, lifting her chin.
That earned a quiet snort from Nicolas and a twitch of Felix’s mouth that might’ve been a smirk.
Dane, though, wasn’t smiling.
He was staring at her with an expression she couldn’t read. Not teasing. Not wary. Something else. Like she’d done something impossible, and he didn’t know whether to be grateful or afraid.
“It’s not a long-term thing,” she added quickly, looking away. “Just until you figure something else out.”
Dane nodded once, slowly. “Okay.”
The word settled like an anchor in the room.
Lola looked back down at the baby. He blinked up at her, tiny hands curling against her chest. She could feel his heartbeat through the fabric of her shirt. It was fast. Fragile.
She swallowed hard.
“I’ll clear the spare room,” Dane said, suddenly all business, “move the desk out. We can put a crib in there.”
“You should get a rocker too,” Felix said. “And blackout curtains. And white noise. Trust me.”
Nicolas grinned slowly, almost predatorily. “You know, after so many years of your bullshit, this could almost be considered karma.”
Dane growled, “Fucking seriously, Accardi?”
“Nicolas,” Felix said with a small hint of warning, though the bastard did have a small smirk on his face.
“Let’s at least give him twenty-four hours to adjust,” said Rick with a wicked grin, “then I reckon payback is fair game.”
“Like you can talk, Reinhardt. You’ve never changed a diaper in your goddamn life,” Dane grumbled.
Rick gave an elegant shrug. “We did warn you this would happen someday.”