Chapter 67 Mira
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Mira
The voices came first.
Distant, muffled, layered over each other in a way that made no sense. Shouting. Commands. The bond pulsing chaotically through the darkness, three channels pouring into me with a desperation that felt physical.
I thought I was dreaming. The compound, maybe. Elaine’s medical bay, the fluorescent lights, the cold table.
But the warmth was real. A hand on my face. Another on my stomach. A third wrapped around my fingers, squeezing.
My eyes opened.
Three faces.
Percival directly above me, close enough that I could count the freckles across his nose, his eyes red-rimmed.
Solomon to my left, his hand on my stomach, silver eyes scanning me with terror.
Lucian behind them both, one hand on my hair, his expression the particular kind of controlled that meant everything underneath had been detonated and reassembled.
“Mira, you’re finally awake,” Percy breathed. His voice cracked. “Thank the Moon Goddess.”
“The babies,” I said. The words came out rough.
“Stable.” Farmon appeared at my side, pressing a damp cloth to my forehead. “The counteragent neutralized the compound. Their heartbeats are steady. All three.”
My hands found Solomon’s on my stomach. Three pulses beneath our palms, faint but consistent, pushing with the stubborn persistence of lives that refused to end before they’d started.
Still here. Still fighting.
“Nighthollow extract,” Farmon continued. His jaw was tight. “Designed to sever the bond-dependent connection between mother and children. If you’d consumed the full cup...”
He didn’t finish. Percy’s grip on my hand tightened. Solomon’s fingers interlaced with mine over my belly. Lucian’s hand stilled in my hair.
“How long was I out?”
“Forty minutes,” Lucian said. Quiet. “The longest forty minutes of my life, and I’ve lived five centuries.”
“You’re being dramatic.”
“You were blue, Mira.”
That shut me up.
The tent flap tore open.
Percy and Solomon reacted on instinct. Both straightened, both turned, both positioned themselves between me and the entrance with a synchronization that would’ve been impressive if I wasn’t still too dizzy to appreciate it.
Two figures entered. A woman first. Tall, dark-haired, regal in a way that made Annora’s practiced elegance look rehearsed. A man behind her. Broad, silver-haired with dark tips, built with an authority that filled the tent the moment he crossed the threshold.
Percy stepped back. Not voluntarily. His body simply moved, the alpha yielding to a presence that outranked him on a level his wolf recognized before his brain did. Solomon did the same, one step to the side, his hand leaving my stomach.
Lucian didn’t move.
The woman fixed him with a look. Then she put both hands on his chest and shoved.
Lucian, King of Veyndral, alpha of the highest order, stumbled backward off his knee and landed on his ass.
“You’re in the way,” the woman said. And knelt beside me.
Every instinct I’d built over twenty-four years of survival screamed. Another lycan. Another woman with authority and ancient eyes and every reason to want me gone from a throne I’d never asked for. Annora’s words echoed through my skull. Abomination. Half-breeds. The dagger, the claws, the tea.
I closed my eyes and braced for the hit.
Warm hands landed on my belly. Gentle. Practiced. Counting heartbeats.
“Three,” she whispered. Then louder, over her shoulder: “Altun. Three heartbeats! Come feel this!”
The man knelt beside her. Pressed his palm to my stomach. His eyes closed and when they opened, the gruff exterior had cracked down the middle.
“Strong,” he said. “Stubborn heartbeats. They get that from our side.”
Our side.
I stared at the woman’s face. The bone structure. The dark hair. Then at the man. The silver strands with dark tips. The jaw. The exact angle Lucian carried his when he was pretending not to care.
Then at Lucian, still on the ground where his mother had shoved him, rubbing his tailbone with the dignity of a king who had none left.
Oh.
“I’m sorry.” My voice was still rough. “Who are you?”
The woman looked at me. Her expression bordered on offense. “I’m your mother-in-law, darling. Rheda. And this is Altun. We would have come sooner but my idiot child didn’t inform us right away and really, the portal was appalling.”
She turned back to my belly and started pressing at different points, muttering about prenatal nutrition and bond-channel stability and whether Farmon had been supplementing with the correct mineral compounds.
“The iron levels need attention,” she told Farmon. “And the calcium. Carrying three with a bond this fresh requires aggressive supplementation. What’s your current regimen?”
Farmon, who had survived Order imprisonment without losing his composure, blinked twice before answering.
Percy stood at the back of the tent. His jaw had detached from his face and was somewhere on the ground. Solomon watched the scene with the expression of a man recalibrating his understanding of reality. Lucian leaned against the tent pole with his arms crossed and rolled his eyes.
Rolled his eyes. At the former king and queen of Veyndral fussing over my pregnant belly.
“They do this,” he said. Flat. The tone of a man who’d endured this behavior for hundreds of years.
I looked at Altun, who was now arguing with Farmon about the correct positioning of support cushions beneath a pregnant woman’s lower back. Then at Rheda, who had produced a small vial from her own supplies and was adjusting Farmon’s counteragent formula.
Where did Lucian get his temper?
Because these two were all warmth and fussing and aggressive grandparenting, and the man with such a short temper he picks fights with ravens was in the corner pretending he’d been raised by wolves. Which, technically, he had. But still.
Spoiled only child. Had to be. As I suspected.
“You’re doing well,” Rheda said, turning back to me.
Her hand cupped my cheek and the gesture was so maternal, so unexpected after weeks of political hostility and aristocratic warfare, that my throat closed.
“Triplets, a poisoning, and you’re awake and talking.
The women in this family are resilient.”
“I’m not technically in the family yet,” I managed.
“You’re carrying three of my grandchildren. You’ve been in the family since conception, darling.”
Altun nodded firmly. As if this were constitutional law.
My eyes burned. I’d read a thousand found-family scenes in the paperbacks I used to shelve. None of them had prepared me for the real thing.
Then Rheda’s hands left my belly.
The warmth drained from her expression so completely that the temperature in the tent dropped. She stood. Smoothed her coat. Turned to Lucian with such eyes.
“Where are the women who did this?”
Lucian straightened off the tent pole. “Being held outside. Dragged back from the portal because you stopped us from killing them.”
“They should be dead,” Solomon said. The way he discussed weather or supply inventories. “The compound in the tea was designed to kill your grandchildren. The appropriate response is execution.”
“I had my teeth on Annora’s throat.” Lucian’s voice carried the particular frustration of a man who’d been interrupted mid-justice. “If you hadn’t arrived when you did, this conversation would be unnecessary.”
“Can I put in my vote for still killing them?” Percy raised his hand. “Because I’d very much love to still kill them.”
Altun looked at Rheda. Rheda looked at Altun. A conversation happened in that glance, the kind that required centuries of marriage and zero words.
“Killing them,” Rheda said, “would be mercy.”
The tent went quiet.
“You want to teach two women the cost of what they’ve done?” Altun’s voice dropped. “Death ends suffering. We’re not in the business of ending their suffering.”
I stared at them. The same couple who’d been cooing over my belly and arguing about calcium supplements five minutes ago were now discussing the inadequacy of execution with the calm authority of people who had done this before.
There it was. The answer to where Lucian got his temper.
“Bring them to the clearing,” Rheda said. “Lycan audience only. This is a kingdom matter first.”
Lucian glanced at Solomon. Solomon looked at Percy. The three of them shared a reluctant agreement that played out in jaw clenches and tight nods, alphas ceding control to an authority they recognized but didn’t enjoy yielding to.
I pushed myself upright.
“What are you doing?” Farmon’s hand was on my arm immediately.
“Going outside. I’m the one they poisoned. I’m the one whose children almost died. I should be there.”
Rheda’s head whipped around and the terrifying former queen evaporated. In her place stood a mother-in-law whose eyes went wide with concern.
“Absolutely not. You should be lying down.” She rounded on the three men behind me. “Why is she moving? Why are you letting her move? She was poisoned less than two hours ago and you’re standing there watching her get up? What kind of mates are you?”
“The kind who know better than to argue with her,” Lucian muttered.
“I’m fine,” I said. “I can walk.”
“You are not fine. You are pregnant with triplets and recovering and you will be carried, supported, or wheeled to that clearing. You will not walk.”
Before I could protest, three pairs of hands were on me.
Percy at my right side, his arm around my waist. Solomon at my left, his hand steady on my elbow.
Lucian behind, one palm on my lower back.
They guided me through the tent flap and positioned me at the entrance with cushions, blankets, and a water supply that hadn’t existed thirty seconds ago.
“Comfortable?” Rheda asked, inspecting the arrangement.
“I have four people managing my ability to sit down. Comfortable isn’t the word I’d use.”
“Good.” She patted my cheek. “Stay.”
I thought I was being punished too.
Life was going to be significantly harder with additional overprotective people in it.
The clearing held only lycans. Voss’s soldiers formed the perimeter. Council representatives stood in a cluster. The ravens perched, recording.
And at the center, held upright by soldiers who didn’t bother being gentle, Annora and Giselle knelt in the dirt.
They’d broken in the hours since the chase. Annora’s composure had dissolved, replaced by a woman I barely recognized. Giselle’s rigid military posture had crumbled, her shoulders curved inward, her amber eyes fixed on the ground.
Two women who had tried to murder my children, kneeling in the clearing where the entire camp could see them.
Rheda turned to me. Not to Lucian, her son or Altun, her husband.
To me.
“This is your judgment to make,” she said. Quiet enough that only the people nearest heard. “They harmed you. They targeted your children. The sentence belongs to the one who was wronged.”
My hands pressed against my stomach. Heartbeats drummed beneath my palms, steady now, recovered, alive because Farmon had worked fast enough and the bond had held strong enough.
Fortunately, the stubbornness I’d inherited from no one and everywhere had kept me conscious long enough to scream for help.
Rheda held my gaze. The lesson lived in that look. Not what to decide. How to carry the weight of deciding.
“I’ll need a minute,” I said.
“Take it.” Rheda stepped back. “A queen who rushes judgment is no queen at all.”
The clearing waited.
Every lycan, every soldier, every council representative watching the pregnant human woman who’d been poisoned two hours ago decide what happened next.
I used to settle disputes between customers over the last copy of a bestseller. Now I was deciding the fate of two women in front of an audience of immortal wolves.
Wonderful. Definitely no pressure at all.