Derek spun on him. “My mate is in there?—”
“With the best doctors on Monster Island.” He rose from the ridiculously expensive leather sofa and gripped his brother’s shoulder. “Julie is strong. The baby is strong. You need to breathe.”
“Don’t tell me to breathe.” But some of the wild panic faded from Derek’s eyes. “How are you so calm?”
He thought about Harper, curled up on that same sofa with her laptop, pretending to work while she cast worried glances at the birthing suite doors every thirty seconds. His mate. His Luna. The woman who had somehow transformed his entire world in the span of a few months.
If she were the one behind those doors…
“I’m not calm,” he admitted. “I’m just better at hiding it.”
Derek let out a strangled laugh. “Runs in the family, I suppose.”
A muffled cry came from behind the doors. Derek went rigid, every muscle in his body tensing like he was about to shift right there in the waiting room.
“Derek.” He tightened his grip. “Breathe.”
“That was Julie. I heard?—”
The doors swung open.
A doctor emerged, her face tired but smiling. “Mr. Moonstone? Your mate is asking for you. And there’s someone else who’d like to meet you.”
Derek was through those doors before she finished speaking.
He exhaled slowly and turned to find Harper at his side, her laptop forgotten, her grey eyes bright behind her glasses.
“He’s going to be okay,” she said softly. “Right?”
“He’s going to be insufferable.” Adrian pulled her against him, tucking her under his chin. “In the best possible way.”
They waited.
The private birthing suite at Monster Island General had been designed with werewolf families in mind—soundproofed walls, reinforced doors, space for the inevitable pack members who would want to witness the birth of an Alpha’s heir. Today it was just the four of them. Derek had insisted on privacy, something he understood better now that he had a mate of his own.
Some moments were too precious to share.
Harper shifted in his arms. “I should probably check on the security protocols. The new authentication system went live yesterday, and there was a minor glitch in the?—”
“Kitten.”
“Right. Not working.” She pressed her face into his chest. “I don’t know what to do with my hands when I’m not typing.”
“You could hold my hand.”
“That seems… simple.”
“Sometimes simple is good.”
She laced her fingers through his, her small hand warm against his palm. The bond between them hummed with contentment, their shared love tangling together into something stronger than either could be alone.
Three months. That’s how long they’d been mated. Three months of Harper learning the ways of the pack, of the pack learning to accept their human Luna, of Adrian discovering that vulnerability wasn’t weakness when you had someone to be vulnerable with.
The door opened again.
Derek stood in the doorway, and Adrian barely recognized him. His brother—the polished businessman, the confident Alpha, the man who had built an empire through sheer force of will—had tears streaming down his face.
“A boy,” he said, his voice cracking. “We have a boy.”
