For a moment, everything felt perfect. Safe. Like it was working. That's when everything went sideways.
Instead of gently burning away the bonds, the purification energy hit the babies like a wrecking ball. They jolted to awareness. Holy shit. The connections weren't weakening. They began writhing like angry snakes and fighting back against the cleansing magic with vicious intensity.
Pain exploded through my belly as the first contraction hit. It felt like someone had wrapped my uterus in barbed wire and then decided to give it a vigorous shake. I couldn't breathe through it. It was impossible to think past the agony that turned my world white-hot.
"Stop the ritual!" Clio shouted. Her voice sounded as if it were coming from underwater.
The contraction peaked and faded, leaving me gasping. "False alarm," I panted. "It's okay, I?—"
Another contraction slammed into me, stronger than the first. This one brought friends. Nausea, dizziness, and the unshakeable certainty that my body had decided now was a fabulous time to evict its tenants.
"That's not false labor," Clio said grimly as her hands heated up. Her healing magic moved deeper into me. "The purification energy destabilized something. Your body thinks the babies are in distress."
"Are they?" Aidon demanded as his power wrapped around me like protective armor.
"They're fine, but—oh, shit." Clio's expression went from concerned to terrified in the span of a heartbeat. "The contractions are triggering a cascade effect. If I can't stop this, you're going to have these babies right now."
"No, no, no!" Thalia's voice cracked with panic. Her hands fluttered uselessly over the smoking herbs. "This wasn't supposed to happen! I didn't mean—I wasn't trying to put you into labor! I swear on my grandmother's grimoire, I had no idea this would?—"
"Thalia!" Aidon's voice cut through her rambling like a blade.
"I know what you're thinking," she continued frantically, backing away from the bed with her hands raised. "But I'm not working with her! I would never—this isn't what I wanted!"
“It wasn’t your magic,” Clio assured her.
I hadn't even considered that she’d done something, so that was good to know I hadn’t lost my good judgment. That didn’t change the fact that we didn’t want the babies to come yet. Born now, they'd be vulnerable to everything Lyra wanted to do to them. We needed to have more in place to protect them.
"Fix it," I gritted out between contractions that were excruciating.
"I'm trying," Clio said, her healing magic flowing into me in waves that felt like cool water against burning skin. "But whatever the purification ritual triggered, it's fighting my attempts to calm your system."
Thalia began chanting something I couldn’t make out while staring at my stomach. Her gaze snapped up, and her eyes were the size of saucers. "The parasitic connections were designed to trigger premature labor when threatened. I had no idea Lyra built in that failsafe."
"Of course she did," I snarled as another contraction tried to turn me inside out. "She’s good at turning everything into a nightmare."
The house alarms started screaming again, because the universe decided I hadn't suffered enough for one day. "What now?" Jean-Marc called from his position by the window.
"Hybrid creatures," Murtagh called out from somewhere outside. "At least eight of them, moving in fast."
I tried to push myself up to see out the window, but holy hell, that was a mistake. The contraction that hit me made me collapse back down with a strangled curse that would've made a sailor proud. Through sheer stubborn determination—and possibly stupidity—I managed to lift myself enough to catch a glimpse of what was lurking outside.
"Oh, come the fuck on," I groaned, watching Lyra's latest horror shows parade around our yard.
One creature looked like someone had thrown a grizzly bear and a praying mantis into a blender. Its claws were the size of baseball bats and twice as mean-looking. Another monstrosity had the body of a mountain lion stuck on giant spider legs. It was moving with the kind of predatory grace that made my already churning stomach do backflips.
"Perfect timing, you psychotic bitch," I muttered through gritted teeth as another contraction rolled through me. "She knows I'm down for the count and decides to throw a monster party."
Aidon's face was grim as he assessed the situation. "Can you?—"
"Fight?" I let out a laugh that sounded more like a dying hyena. "Right now, I can barely think through the pain, let alone throw magic around. Unless these things are afraid of creative swearing, I'm pretty much useless."
Mom's expression shifted into full protective mode. Her tri-bred nature surfaced as her teeth sharpened and claws extended. "Don't worry, we’ll handle this."
Nana cocked her shotgun. “You just worry about keeping those babies safely inside.”
Thalia joined Nana and took a dagger from Jean-Marc. "Let’s teach these abominations a lesson."
Things turned into organized chaos with a side of magical mayhem after that. Clio stayed with me. She cycled through healing combinations that made my insides feel like they were being fed through a wood chipper. Meanwhile, everyone else went outside to turn Lyra's pets into very expensive fertilizer.
