She was pregnant.
Mira drove the dagger toward Solomon’s chest and he sidestepped, refusing to engage, his hands open at his sides. She spun on Percy and he caught her wrist but didn’t twist, didn’t apply force, just held her there while his hazel eyes searched her face for the woman underneath the mask.
None of us could fight her. Especially not now when the new heartbeats had gutted us.
I stepped forward. My mouth opened to say her name, to say anything that would reach through but she read the movement and pivoted. The dagger arced toward my throat and I barely leaned back in time, the blade passing close enough that the wind of it kissed my skin.
“Mira, stop.” Percy’s voice cracked. “Please.”
She was already turning back to him. Wrenched free of his grip and drove her elbow into his jaw. Percival’s head snapped back, and Solomon stepped between them on instinct, shielding Percival, his back to the hunter line for half a second.
That was all they needed.
Two darts hit Solomon between the shoulder blades. He staggered forward, went down on one knee. A third dart caught Percival in the neck before he could recover, and he dropped, hand reaching for the feathered end before his muscles seized and he collapsed into the dirt.
Mira didn’t look at them.
She turned to me.
The clearing emptied. The hunters, the rifles, the humming weapons, Thiago’s smile. All of it dissolved until there was only her. Walking toward me with my dagger in her hand and our children in her body and an expression on her face that I couldn’t read.
“Get out of my way, Lucian.”
“No.”
“I will hurt you.”
“You already have.” I spread my hands. Open. Unarmed. A king with no weapons facing the woman who held every piece of him in her blood-stained fingers. “Every day. You’ve already hurt me worse than any blade. And I deserve it.”
She didn’t stop.
The dagger drove into my chest.
By the heart. Two inches right. The pain was white, electric, a point of fire between my ribs that sent my vision swimming.Silver compound on the blade, the same formula that had been in the darts but concentrated, burning through my blood with an immediacy that dropped me to one knee.
I grabbed her.
Both arms around her waist. Pulling her into me, against me, the dagger still buried in my chest with her hand around the grip.
Her body hit mine and the scent overwhelmed everything. It makes sense now. That new note underneath, richer, deeper, the note we detected since the ridge. I understood with a clarity that shattered every remaining wall.
Our child.My wolf howled inside me.
The pain was a gift. Every nerve ending screaming meant she was here, pressed against me, real and breathing. Her heartbeat vibrated through my ribs alongside the three smaller ones I’d carry in my chest for the rest of my life.
I would have driven the blade more myself if it meant another second of holding her.
“Push it deeper.” My mouth was against her ear. My arms tightened around her, pressing her closely that the dagger shifted and the pain flared and I didn’t care. “If this is what you need to do. Push it deeper.”
Her hand trembled on the grip.
“I had ached for you every single day.” The confession fell out of me. “Since that day I have regretted, Mira.”
Her breath stuttered against my neck.
“Pierce my heart if you want.” The words came from the place where the bond lived, bleeding but alive, always alive. “I’ll hold still and let you do it because I would rather die at your hand. If it means you will be able to forgive me someday. Forgive us.”
The blade pressed closer. My heartbeat pushed against the edge with every contraction, the rhythm driving my flesh into steel.
