I held the bite, pouring everything I had into saving her. My strength. My power. My pathetic apologies. My promise to do better. Everything I should have given her from the start.
Her breathing hitched, then smoothed out. The racing heartbeat calmed to a steady rhythm. The fever broke, leaving her skin damp but cool.
“That’s it, sweetheart,” I whispered against her throat. “Come back to us.”
I released the bite carefully, licking the wound to seal it. The puncture marks closed immediately, leaving only faint scars that marked her as claimed. As mine. Finally, officially, irreversibly mine.
Her breathing was steady now, heartbeat strong and sure. The poison was gone, evicted from her body by the mate bond that wouldn’t tolerate any threat to her. But she remained unconscious, her body exhausted from the healing process.
I couldn’t let go. My arms locked around her, cradling her against my chest while tears I didn’t know I was crying dripped onto her dark hair. She was alive. My mate was alive. The mother of my cubs was going to survive.
“Mama okay?” the girl asked, crawling closer on the bed. Her little nose wrinkled as she sniffed at me curiously, no longer afraid of the stranger who’d just bitten her mother.
“Yes, little one,” I managed through the tightness in my throat. “Mama’s going to be okay.”
My daughter. The word felt impossible and precious. This tiny person with Lina’s dark hair and my stubborn chin was my daughter. Mine to protect, to raise, to disappoint when she realized what a failure her father was.
“What’s your name?” I asked softly, needing to know what Lina had called our children.
“I’m Thea,” she said proudly. “And that’s Rowan. He’s my brother.”
Thea and Rowan. Perfect names for perfect children I’d never known existed.
Rowan moved closer too, studying me with those gray eyes that were so much like looking in a mirror. He touched my handwhere it rested on Lina’s shoulder, the gesture careful but not fearful.
“Your wolf is still sad,” he observed quietly, tilting his head. “But not as sad as before.”
I stared at my son, this perceptive, intelligent child who was already showing Alpha traits at four years old. He could sense my wolf’s emotional state, could read the pain I thought I was hiding.
“I...” Words failed me. What did you say to the son you’d never known existed? The son you’d abandoned before he was born? “I’m just glad you’re all okay.”
“Are you going to stay?” Thea asked with the directness only children possessed. “Mama gets sad sometimes. At night when she thinks we’re sleeping. Maybe you could make her not sad?”
The knife of guilt twisted deeper. Lina had been sad. Of course she had. Raising twins alone, never knowing why I’d rejected her, probably thinking she’d done nothing wrong. Which she hadn’t. She’d been perfect.
“I... that’s up to your mama,” I said carefully.
Thea seemed to accept this, curling up against Lina’s side with the natural trust of a child. “I’m here, Mama,” she whispered, patting her mother’s hand.
Noah cleared his throat from the doorway, and I looked up to find him watching us with an unreadable expression. The earlier rage had cooled to something worse: disappointment.
“She’ll sleep for hours while the bond settles and her body adjusts,” he said, voice carefully neutral. “The bite will stop the feral poison from reaching her heart. She’ll heal faster now. Maybe develop some enhanced senses, better hearing or smell. Nothing dramatic, but enough to notice.”
I nodded, unable to look away from my newly discovered family. My arms tightened around Lina instinctively, and both children pressed closer in response.
“I should have listened to you,” I said quietly, the words inadequate but necessary. “Should’ve made Blake proud.”
“Yes,” Noah agreed flatly. “You should have.”
The simple agreement hurt more than any accusation. Because he was right. Blake would have been disgusted by my choices. He’d believed in mates, in family, in following your heart even when it was hard. Everything I’d failed to do.
“I spent years watching you waste away from the broken bond,” Noah continued, leaning against the doorframe. “Watching you grow weaker, more feral, more lost. Do you know how many times I almost went to check on her? To make sure she was okay? But I respected your idiotic wishes. Told myself it wasn’t my place.”
The weight of those lost years crushed down on me. My children’s first words. First steps. First everything. Gone.
“I’m glad at least I kept monitoring the Pine Valley woods,” Noah added. “The rogue activity has been increasing. That’s how I knew about the attack. Got there just after it happened, found her trail of blood leading back to town.”
“Thank you,” I said, meaning it with every fiber of my being. “For saving them when I couldn’t.”
