23. Kedi
Kedi
Joel was the one who was supposed to be carrying twins—not me!
“Are you sure?” I asked, even as another contraction clamped me in a vice. “Like, sure sure?”
Sierra popped up from between my bent legs, her hair plastered to her forehead with sweat.
“One…” she began, pointing to the squirmy screaming baby I’d just pushed out, freshly cleaned up and now being swaddled by his papa.
He’d come out fiery and all alpha, raging at the world with his furious squalling.
“Two.” Now Sierra pointed straight at my ass where there was no hiding the second baby trying to squeeze its way out through the birth canal.
I wasn’t prepared for this! One baby, that was what I’d thought I had to get through, not two! Oh gods, what if there were three?! I knew I should’ve gone to see a human doctor like Joel did.
The contraction passed, and I flopped back on the bed, trying to rally.
“Come on, sweetheart, you can do it,” my mate said, bringing our son to my side. “Look at the incredible prize you get for all this hard work.”
Tears collected on my lashes as I gazed at the adorable face of our son. Hard to say which one of us he looked more like, since it wasn’t like he’d come out with green hair or piercings, but I couldn’t wait to watch him grow.
I whimpered a little as another contraction built. “Just one more?”
“Just one more,” he confirmed, waiting until I was mid-push before he tacked on a muttered, “Probably.” Jerk.
“That’s it,” Sierra encouraged. “They’re almost here…”
The pain was sharper somehow this time, like I was being torn straight down the middle, but I forced myself to bear down, squeezing the hell out of Conroy’s free hand. With a rush, the second baby came out, and Sierra caught them, grinning. “You did it! It’s a girl!”
I was filled with such incredible awe. A girl! Just like that we had a son and a daughter.
Sierra’s smile slipped, though, and she quickly carried our little girl over to the table where we had all the birthing supplies set up.
Panic clawed at my chest. “What’s wrong? Why isn’t she crying?” When she didn’t answer, I looked to Conroy, his calm, stoic facade cracking. No, we’d faced too much loss already. Not again.
He placed our son in my arms and went to help Sierra.
“Someone tell me what’s wrong!” I asked, my voice rising. I might not have planned for two babies, but I would fight like hell to keep her.
Sierra was rubbing at her chest and back, but before I could haul my bleeding ass out of bed to get answers for myself, Conroy came back with our daughter, all wrapped up. “She’s okay,” he assured me. “Just quiet.”
He set her on my chest next to her brother, and just like that, she opened her eyes and looked up at me.
They were green just like her papa’s. She was tiny compared to her brother, and her whole aura radiated calm.
It was like she knew this wasn’t worth her tears; she’d save them for when they really mattered.
“I was small once too, but I didn’t let that stop me,” I whispered to her, kissing her softly on her forehead.
With Conroy and Sierra’s help, I shifted into my wolf for the first time in months.
He’d been so patient this whole time, but now he was eager to meet our pups.
Besides, it allowed me to tap into my shifter healing.
He so gently tucked our nose into the crook of their necks, sniffing their scents, both new and so familiar all at once.
They smelled like combinations of mine and Conroy’s scents, like hot apple pie.
Names? he asked me before allowing me to take my skin once more.
I eased back on the bed, feeling tender but happier than I ever had. “My wolf wants to know what names we’ve settled on.”
Conroy smiled softly as he settled on the other side of the bed, our babies sleeping between us. “What do you think?”
“Ward, after your father,” I said, placing a hand on our son’s belly, and Conroy’s eyes glittered with unshed tears.
Since the final showdown against the Order, his memories of his father had been flooding back to him in a steady stream, and naming our son after him, our pack’s former Alpha, felt…
right. A connection to all that we’d lost… and all that we’d gained.
“And for our daughter, Sierra,” he added, glancing over at the woman who had not just helped me birth our children, but who had saved me, Ricky, and Oliver that day the Order came to kill our pack. She’d spent her life holding the remains of our pack together, and we would forever be grateful.
“Seriously?” she asked, plopping heavily on the chair that was luckily behind her. “You would name your daughter after me?” Alpha or not, she cried big, fat tears of joy.
“Although we might need to shorten it so we don’t get you two mixed up,” I teased. “Maybe Cici?”
She nodded, wiping her face on the back of her sleeve, and gave a snotty laugh. “I love it.”
Lying in bed, cuddling with my family, it was a relief to let go of all the pain I’d gone through to get here.
It quickly drifted into background noise when I was face to face with our perfect little babies.
As awful as it had been, there was no question it was worth it.
Cici almost immediately drifted off to sleep, exhausted by the whole being-born thing.
Ward, however, fussed constantly, kicking his little legs like he was in a hurry to get somewhere.
There was no doubt in my mind that he was going to be trouble.
It wasn’t long before we heard hushed bickering through the bedroom door. “I just want to help,” Ricky whined.
“You’ll only be in the way,” Oliver reasoned calmly—though it didn’t stay calm for long. There was a scuffle, where Ricky was no doubt trying to force his way past Oliver. “Cut it out! If you don’t behave, I’m telling Seth, and he’ll spank your ass raw.”
“Good!” Ricky snarked back. “I love it when I can’t sit down.” The two of them were an odd couple—an oversized borderline-psycho alpha hyena and a slim, bratty omega wolf—but fate saw love in even the most unlikely places. Maybe they would balance each other out in the end.
I shared a look with Conroy, then sighed. “Maybe we should just let them in. He won’t give up.”
“As you wish,” he said, leaning over to place a tender kiss on my forehead.
He’d been spoiling me rotten these last weeks.
He still felt guilty for not being there for me through my pregnancy, but I didn’t blame him.
Without him, the Order would’ve continued their history of abuse, and no shifter would’ve been safe from them.
They wouldn’t have stopped hunting us until they’d killed every last one of us.
As it was, there were still branches of the Order left in other areas of the country, maybe even the world, but Brahm—Ravi—had taken it upon himself to track them down.
At last, the hunters would use their training to take down the real threat, once and for all.
Conroy opened the door, and the two brawling shifters came tumbling in, startling poor Ward who let out an angry bleat to express his itty-bitty rage. It was adorable.
“Sorry,” Oliver hissed in a whisper. “I tried to keep him out.”
I waved him off, trying not to laugh at the way he’d clamped his hand over Ricky’s mouth in a futile attempt to keep him contained. “It’s fine. We’re pack animals, so it would be better if he got used to all the chaos at a young age.”
Ricky slapped his hand away. “See? Now gimme the baby!” But then he rushed forward and caught sight of not one, but two bundles, and his eyes went wide as he did the math. “Twins!” he squealed, clapping excitedly. “Now Oliver and I don’t have to fight over them. We can each hold one!”
The rest of the day went pretty much just like that, with members of the new-and-improved combined pack of misfits stopping by with gifts for the new additions.
For so long, I’d resigned myself to my little pack of four survivors, clinging to each other in the hope for something better.
Something stable. Something permanent. Conroy had similarly been searching for something, but without his beast, he’d never known exactly what that was.
But then fate put us right where we needed to be, and everything changed.
Now, with Conroy as the Alpha to bind us all together, we were a pack made up of wolves, jaguars, a hyena, a snake, a tiger, a handful of preteens whose animals had yet to be revealed, and one very adorable bunny, whose academic curiosity had led to him being officially adopted into the group. He’d never been happier.
And neither had I.