I wince. The routine health check I've been putting off, always finding something more urgent to attend to. "I've been busy."
"You've been avoiding." Signe's pale eyes miss nothing, and the faint smile on her lips tells me she's not fooled by my excuses. "The conversion left traces that need monitoring. I won't have you collapsing in the middle of a pack meeting because you couldn't spare an hour for your healer."
Stellan's attention sharpens. "Go," he says. "I'll handle the rest."
I want to argue, but Signe is already gesturing toward the door with the implacable patience of someone who has waitedout far more stubborn patients than me. With a sigh, I rise and follow her to the healing chambers on the fortress's lower level.
The room smells of dried herbs and clean linen, scents I've come to associate with Signe's particular brand of no-nonsense care. She's become a true friend over these months, the politics that once defined our relationship giving way to genuine trust. One born wolf and one converted human, and instead of competing we've learned to complement each other. She handles the healing arts and the subtle social navigation of pack dynamics. I handle the combat training and the strategic planning that comes naturally after a lifetime of Helena's tutelage. Together we've carved out a partnership that serves the pack far better than rivalry ever could.
"Sit," Signe commands, pointing to the examination table. "And don't give me that look. This will go faster if you cooperate."
I cooperate, mostly because resistance would be futile anyway. Signe works with quiet efficiency, checking pulse and temperature and a dozen other markers that wolf healers track in ways human medicine never considered. Her hands are cool and professional as they press against my abdomen, my throat, the pulse points at my wrists.
Then she goes very still.
Her fingers linger on my belly, pressing gently, and her expression changes into careful neutrality. When she looks up at me, her pale eyes hold a question.
"When was your last heat?"
The question catches me off guard. I calculate backwards, trying to remember through the haze of pack business and training rotations. The conversion disrupted my cycles. Signe warned me it might take months to stabilize, and I've been so focused on everything else that I hadn't noticed the absence.
"I don't know," I admit. "The cycles have been irregular since I became wolf. I assumed they were still settling."
Signe's hand moves to a different spot on my abdomen, pressing with deliberate precision. Her eyes flutter closed for a moment, and when they open again, wonder breaks through her professional mask.
"Iris." Her voice drops to something gentler than I've ever heard from her. "You're pregnant."
The world tilts.
I hear the words but they refuse to assemble themselves into meaning. Pregnant. The concept bounces off me like a stone skipping across water, refusing to sink. I open my mouth to respond, to ask if she's certain, to demand an explanation for how this could have happened so quickly.
Stellan's response hits me before I can form words.
His joy crashes through our connection, overwhelming and immediate and wild. Somewhere in the fortress above, I feel him moving. Running. Coming.
The door bursts open and there he is, breathing hard like he's sprinted through every corridor between his study and this room. His gaze finds mine and holds, and in that moment I see years of waiting collide with a future neither of us dared to expect.
"Pregnant?" The word comes out rough, almost reverent.
"Apparently your swimmers are extremely motivated," I manage, and the absurdity of the response in this moment makes hysterical laughter bubble up in my chest.
He doesn't laugh. He crosses the room in three strides and drops to his knees before me, his hands bracketing my hips, his face pressing against my belly where nothing yet shows but everything has already changed. His joy pours through the bond, and beneath it I taste the shape of his hope, his fear, his desperate relief. The weight of leadership without heirs. Thefear of what happens to a pack when its Alpha falls without succession. All of it crashing against this single impossible truth.
"Stellan." His name comes out broken, my fingers threading through his hair. "I didn't know. I should have noticed, should have been paying attention."
He looks up at me, and his eyes burn with an intensity that steals my breath. The alpha of the Northern Pack, the man who conquered armies and faced down his greatest enemy without flinching, kneeling before me with his hands trembling against my hips.
"You have given me everything," he says, voice cracking on the last word.
Signe slips quietly from the room. I cup Stellan's face in my hands, feeling the tension in his jaw, the raw emotion he's holding in check through sheer force of will.
"We gave each other this," I correct him. "That's how we work."
He rises and pulls me into his arms, holding me with a tenderness that makes my throat ache. I breathe him in and let myself believe that this is real. That the path that brought me here, through blood and anger and reluctant surrender, has led somewhere worth the journey.
That night, we climb to the Overlook.
The path is familiar now, worn smooth by generations of wolves seeking the solitude of the peak. This is where we first truly talked, back when I was still new to the mountain and determined to hate the man who claimed me. This is where I began to see past the alpha to the person beneath. It feels right to return here now, with everything changed and everything still the same.
