“Please,” the boy finally whispered, those gray eyes fixed on me with trust I didn’t deserve. “Please Sir help our mama. She’s all we have.”
She’s all we have.
The words shattered me completely. These were my cubs, my children, and they didn’t even know I existed. To them I was just some stranger who might save their mother. Their whole world was lying unconscious on this floor and I was the reason for all of it.
“Oh god,” I breathed, the words barely audible.Oh god, I left her pregnant. I have cubs and she never... I never knew... Twins...
Noah scooped Lina’s unconscious form from the floor without ceremony, and my wolf snarled possessively.OURS to carry, OURS to protect, OURS to save.But my body wouldn’t move, still frozen by the reality of two small children who carried my blood and didn’t know my name.
“Come on,” Noah said to the twins gently. “Let’s get Mama somewhere more comfortable.”
I followed on unsteady legs, unable to look away from how Lina’s head lolled against Noah’s chest, how her skin had gone gray with poison. The children trailed behind us, the girl clutching her brother’s hand with white knuckles, both refusing to be more than inches from their mother.
“Mama needs the soft bed,” the boy told his sister solemnly, and my heart cracked clean through. My son was trying to be strong for his sister. Trying to be the man of their little family because I hadn’t been there.
Noah settled Lina on the guest bed with care. The children immediately climbed up beside her, curling into her sides as if they could keep her alive through sheer proximity. Their little hands petted her face, smoothed her hair, straightened the blanket over her fever-hot body.
“We’ll be right back,” Noah told them gently. “Watch over your mama, okay? Can you do that?”
They nodded, tears still streaming, and I had to force myself to follow Noah into the hallway when every instinct screamed to stay. To never let them out of my sight again. To somehow make up for four years of absence in the next four minutes.
Noah closed the door and his entire demeanor changed. The gentleness evaporated, replaced by fury that had been building for years.
“I told you,” he snarled, keeping his voice low so the children wouldn’t hear. “She was your mate. But you knew better, didn’t you? The great Alpha Knox, too noble to take a human mate.”
I reached desperately for the mate bond, trying to gauge how much time we had. It flared weakly, barely there, more like an echo than a living connection. The poison was winning. One day since the bite and she was already at death’s door.
“Why didn’t she tell me?” The words came out broken, pathetic. “If she knew she was pregnant, why didn’t she-”
Noah’s laugh was bitter as the poison killing her. “Tell you when? During the five minutes after you fucked her before disappearing? Or maybe she should have tracked down the manwho called her a warm hole? Who rejected her like she was nothing?”
Each word hit its target with surgical precision. He was right. Of course he was right. What exactly would she have said? ‘Hey, I know you think I’m worthless, but surprise, I’m carrying your cubs’?
“Maybe she should have sent a birth announcement,” Noah continued, tears making his green eyes bright. “To Matthias Reed, the fake name you gave her? Or should she have shown up at our borders with newborn twins, hoping the pack that keeps humans out would let her in?”
I saw it then, why Noah was so destroyed by this. My brother who’d dreamed of finding his mate since we were pups. Who’d talked about the cubs he’d have, the family he’d build. And here I was, having thrown away everything he’d ever wanted.
Twins. Just like him and Blake. The parallel was too cruel to be coincidence.
“I know,” I whispered, my own eyes burning. “God, Noah, I know. I threw away everything I’ve ever wanted.”
Noah’s green eyes filled with tears he refused to let fall. “Twins, Knox. She hadtwins. Do you know what I’d give to have that? To have my mate, to have cubs, to have a twin survive?”
His voice cracked on the last word, and the connection between Blake’s death and Lina’s twins hit with physical force. Noah had lost his twin, his other half, and here I’d been blessed with twin cubs I hadn’t even known existed.
“Every day I watch you waste away from the broken bond while somewhere she was raising your babies alone. Every day I...” He stopped, jaw clenched tight enough to crack teeth.
Through the door, we heard small voices that destroyed what was left of my composure.
“Mama, please wake up. We’ll be good. We promise.”
“We’ll eat all our vegetables and clean our room and everything.”
“Please don’t leave us.”
I couldn’t breathe around the guilt crushing my chest. My cubs were in there begging their unconscious mother to live, bargaining with promises of good behavior, and it was my fault. All of it.
The bond flared again, weaker than before, and pure terror shot through my veins.
