Breathe, Bouda reminded gently.
I did.
They transferred me to the bed. Blaidd stood at my side, hands flexing, eyes darting from the monitors to my face to the door. He looked like a man preparing for battle, not childbirth.
A contraction crested, stronger than the last. I closed my eyes and rode it, breathing low and steady. When it passed, I opened them again to find him staring at me.
“You didn’t make a sound,” he said.
“I don’t need to,” I replied.“Not yet.”
His jaw tightened.
The hours blurred after that. Time became measured in waves—pressure, release, pressure again. Nurses came and went. Blaidd stayed. Always there. Sometimes too much in my face.
He tried to help at first. Counting breaths. Adjusting pillows. Asking questions, he didn’t wait to have them answered.
Finally, I grabbed his wrist mid-spiral.
“Blaidd.”
He froze.
“Stand still,” I said quietly.“Let me do this.”
Something shifted then. I felt it through the bond—the moment he stopped trying to control the room and started simply being in it.
Another contraction hit harder. I broke this time—not screaming, but gasping as the pain stole my breath. Fear flared, sharp and sudden.
I felt him then. Not his strength. His fear.
“I’m here,” he said, voice low, stripped bare.“I’m not leaving.”
It was the right thing. The only thing.
When they told me it was time, the room narrowed. The world reduced to effort and instinct and the deep, ancient work my body knew how to do. I gripped Blaidd’s forearms, claws biting into skin I didn’t bother apologising for.
Fenrir went still.
Bouda rose.
Push, she urged—not command, but trust.
The first cry shattered something open inside me.
I laughed and sobbed at the same time as they placed our daughter on my chest. She was warm and slippery and real, her tiny fist curling as if she already knew how to hold on.
Blaidd made a sound then—soft, broken. He didn’t move. Just stared.
The second labour came fast. Harder. My body protested, exhausted. I pushed again, teeth bared, growling through the pain.
Then our son cried too.
Silence fell in the wake of it. Heavy. Sacred.
They laid him against me, and the bond surged—bright, complete. Blaidd sat on the edge of the bed, one hand braced on the mattress, the other trembling as he reached out to touch the twins.
“I see them,” he whispered.“I see you.”
